Facebook Presentation - Memory Matters,,,,I shall not forget you

    Yesterday, was  bittersweet for me and the Facebook page I have been babysitting for the last month. I am happy to be moving on to a different challenge that might be related to more of my personal interests, but I feel somewhat responsible for all the time and joy I spent working on it.



     I posted my very last attempt for the semester yesterday. It just two short video clips from some filming I have been doing for them recently, but they already seem to be on the way to outperforming any of my posts so far. The first video was a short interview clip with JoEllen, one of our heroic caregivers and has reached 104 in under 24 hours. The second was a one minute segment from a singing session at the memory activity class and has a reach of 97 and most of the views are longer and by original viewers.

This was my most successful post of the semester and it brought the greatest personal satisfaction. The Volunteer Spotlight posts gave me a chance to learn about each of our volunteers and give our Facebook friends an inside look at their hard work. It reached over 200 and continues to climb. Short video clips are the most appealing to our friends. A simple re-post from the national Alzheimer's society of seniors at play has blown all of my posts away and reached over 512.

 

   In the beginning I thought that great pictures would be the simple key to unlocking a treasure trove of likes, but I learned quickly that was not the case. This was one of my earliest posts from an event I was very proud to attend. I thought seeing the founder in action would be attractive to our audience. However, it received some of the lowest viewership of the campaign. The audience was extremely critical with my page and the success or failure of a single posts. Generally, because they are such stressed out and desperate caregivers and people that feel at a loss, all they want is some uplifting inspiration. A high quality quote, on a fabulous picture was bar far the most consistent way to get likes and reach more eyeballs.

Testimonials from clients came in second for total reach. They love reading 

heartfelt words and seeing beautiful things but I have been told it would be better 

with  some people involved in the photos.

    Coming in a distant third were my library spotlight posts. I have to thank my friend Holly Vandre for letting me use her all semester as a model and inspiration for these items. I assumed that quality information like poetry or helpful education would draw likes. This taught me the audience knows what it wants and can generally be predicted if you really know what they are made of. As I took over some of the maintenance of this page from someone else, it has taken me a long time to simply get who I am trying to reach and that is the most important component. I thought I could outline their demographics, but I could never really know them until I better understood their plight and every post needs to be created with their needs in mind. All they want is a little hope.

    It was a short semester and I still feel somewhat unsatisfied I haven't yet come up with the perfect post. As you can see from the pictures above my post reach spiked around the middle of the semester. That high spike is the activity video of just some great seniors having fun with noodles and balloons and it connected with almost everyone bringing in many original viewers. In six weeks, my overall reach as climbed moderately and in the end, the chart looks a little higher that when I began the adventure, though it could have been so much more. Just in the past month we had a reach of 4,263 which is up 67%, our post engagement is up over 55% and nearing 700 and video response is up 299% which was one of our worst categories. This is a trend I pray continues and then perhaps the total page likes will start increasing. I think i would benefit from using ads to boost the posts that have gained the best traction like the videos I posted yesterday. We had an increase of 25 likes and hopefully another volunteer will carry on the fight. Overall, I am most proud of the re-branding of the header for both Facebook and Twitter so they are consistent, fun and demonstrate what their program is about, which is smiles. There were plenty of smiles to go around this semester and I thank you all for joining me on the journey. Don't forget to like MEMORY MATTERS UTAH on Facebook :) Enjoy the rest of your summer everyone!
 

Facebook Ad - Memory Matters Utah

Creating a Facebook ad and not actually purchasing it is a uniquely sick way to torture someone managing a page. Even the small reminder box that periodically pops up to remind you that you should be trying to boost your posts with an ad is such a tease, I can hardly resist pushing it. Especially when you have created an event or a post you are really proud of. I resisted the temptation today, but I think I will definitely have to try one out before the semester ends to see how much of an impact it really does have.

I wanted to make sure I included many of the possible locations for future clients on the locator map. Most of our business is done in St. George, but we do have groups in Cedar City and Mesquite. I also added Kanab because it would be interesting to see if the message is able to reach and work outside our traditional area.

I like that you have many different options for creating the ad. Adding multiple pictures is good way to keep to content fresh without having to create individual posts. I was frustrated with the lack of space available for inputting text. I wanted to include our full mission statement, but unfortunately I had to condense it and still carry the same meaning. For my actual I want to create some new original photographs and be a bit more creative with the text.

Default Response - Abortion

    It took a little while for me to want to open this particular can of worms and comment on my blog post about such a deep subject. I do not really like to talk about abortion rights and if anyone is easily offended, I beg you to stop reading now and move on with your beautiful day because this is a really awful topic.

    I suppose the best place to start would be the origins of my default opinion on this highly charged topic. One could make a case I spent my formative years in a liberally minded area of America. Born in Sacramento, California to a single mother and raised in Lake Tahoe, freedom, open-mindedness, self-reliance and the right to make individual decisions were always high on our values list. As you can imagine, life would get difficult at times and I don’t know if it was because Roe v. Wade had just passed the year before my birth and it was fresh on her brain, but her go to comment when angry would be “some days I  just wish I could have a retroactive abortion.” For years I would just blow it off as a harmless joke. Rowe v. who? At that time the facts were of no concern, only the idea repeatedly drilled into my brain that a woman and a mother has supreme control over their bodies and minds and no person should ever have the ability to take that away. Knowing the difficulties a single parent must endure, my automatic response would be to agree without question, every person has the right to decide whether to take on the responsibility of parenthood. However, my personal experiences have drastically shifted any childhood notions on abortion and I have found myself on both sides of this critical debate.

    The recent Supreme Court vote  on abortion has been widely hailed as a victory for abortion rights and has once again thrust the subject into the media forced me to relive painful memories I'd rather not face. The 5-3 decision struck down a Texas law that severely limited access to abortion clinics and caused an undue burden on women seeking advice or action about planned and unplanned pregnancies. Specifically the bill banned abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy, required abortion clinics to meet the same standards as hospital-style surgical centers and mandated that a doctor have admitting privileges at a hospital within 30 miles of the facility where he or she performed the abortion. Critics and ultimate victors in the case stated that some women would have to travel several hours to reach a clinic to serve them and it was a violation of their rights.

   On the surface all of these ideas sound reasonable to me. I would only comment because I have seen how awful the inside of an abortion clinic examination room can be. A lifetime ago, before I permanently moved to Utah and became a parent, I lived in California with a woman with two kids from a previous relationship. I was young, naive and head over heals in love with her and as time progressed, becoming pregnant slowly became less of a concern. Until it did. When it became reality she was facing raising three children with a new man and possible medical complications, her decision to seek out an abortion happened rather quickly. Almost as if it was necessary to expedite it before their was time to think and Planned Parenthood was close and actually more convenient than making photocopies. From the second she mentioned her plan I was deadset against it and for the next few days many fights ensued and ultimately I discovered I had no legal rights in the state to prevent any action. There was screaming and anger and unfortunately, I was still extremely in love and willing to do anything to keep her happy. Even if that meant supporting her in something I could not imagine doing today. After incessant begging and crying for hours, I relented and took her to the appointment for support.

   The appointment was too easy to feel comfortable with from the moment we walked in the door. I remember wondering why more wasn’t being done to council us on other options we might consider and why I hadn’t been to more appointments for pre-counseling on the decision. Unbeknownst to me, it was a life altering decision and yet it was being treated like a casual teeth cleaning or like waiting for your number to be called at the DMV. It didn’t take long before they ushered us into the most uncomfortable dark and shadowy exam rooms in history. It was cold as a refrigerator with a series a plain wood cabinets, three inordinately large glass jars, a hard vinyl covered bench and a saddening set of tubing that snap you to the severity of the moment. And that is where I will stop because what followed was worse that any horror film Hollywood could devise. It is something no human should have to see or endure and that is the information they forget to mention on the way in the door and what they fail to counsel people on after they walk out. It wasn’t difficult for me to fake strength and not think about any of the consequences while we were in the appointment. A person will do anything for love and I honestly believed I was making the right choice for her. It wasn’t until we broke up several months later, after she had grieved and healed that I broke down and dealt with the emotions. It nearly destroyed my life.

     I am not the person to say a person should have the right to an abortion or not but I do think some of the ideas in the Texas law make sense. For example, having the clinics meet the standards of hospital surgery centers seems like a sensible precaution. Anything that takes the health and safety of women seriously should be a requirement and having admitting privileges for doctors at local hospitals would seem like a no brainer. Complications can occur and every step we can take to help this painful process should be done.

   It seems like everybody wants to jump on a bandwagon, especially when they are fighting to make sure they fading careers seem relevant and this topic has been no exception. I read an article here http://www.playboy.com/articles/my-choice-chelsea-handler the other day that drove me insane and kind pushed me into this post.  In her story, Chelsea Handler recounts her experience as a young girl having two abortions and comments “I’m 41 now. I don’t ever look back and think, God, I wish I’d had that baby.” If you gather anything sensible from all my ramblings today, I hope it is clear that when I look back, I would give anything to change my past and find a way to have that baby. Could I have fight harder and taken her to the highest court in the land, as a father, and fought for my rights to be a parent?  You can believe it took two people at night to make the baby and yet, many in our society would claim it only takes one person to choose. I spent half of my lifetime thinking it was about one way of being right and the rest knowing for sure, if there is a right to choose life, it shouldn’t be in the hands of anyone on Earth. I only wish people had more time to think before they walk through Planned Parenthood’s revolving doors and had more resources to pick up the pieces when they inevitably tumble out.

Trusting white coats, blank faces, framed degrees

try to relax, white cloth over bent knees

Shadows like vipers deadly, so black from death repeat

Three stabbing shrieks, blood flows, a creek

My life, my love, my blood encapsulated in glass

Haunting memories of biology class

No value in life, guilty and insane

From nothing to gain, now forever in pain

What was my thought, so unrealistic

For the love of a woman I became a statistic

Sacrifice my beliefs, selfish our needs

Now before God my sinning heart bleeds

No road or path can lead my soul back

A beautiful life the earth does now lack

Mind consumed with grief, blinding confusion

Tears welling deep

My strength an illusion

No forgiveness. Opportunities lost

For the ultimate sin I will pay the almighty cost.

My heart cold and dead, soul dark as night

She would be alive had I only engaged in the fight

blinded by love

so selfish was I..tortured, delivered, I cry

Aryeana goodbye