skysenshi.com

Anyway, it’s not like I just made a split-second decision when I opted to merge my FB profile and my page. It pondered upon this for three months. Even tried surfing Facebook using my page instead of my profile and I didn’t see any visible problems except for the fact that I cannot subscribe to people. I could subscribe to pages and they were appearing in my news feed so it didn’t seem all that much of a bother (many of my friends have their own FB pages that I can subscribe to).

My reasons for wanting to convert were relatively simple:

• Promising to be more active online and offline, I was looking at going past the 5,000 mark when it comes to adding contacts. Converting into a page should solve that problem.
• When I’m very stressed, I become very emotional. So when I read negative stuff on my news feed (RH bill debates, bride burnings in India, etc.), I sometimes create volatile status messages that would horrify my mom enough to scold me via PM. No joke! Hahaha! If you’re creating a brand via an FB page, you will at least be forced to manage your emotions. For 2013, I wanted a complete “rebirth”…(instead I’m faced with identity suicide).
• I was tired of maintaining a profile AND a page and I find it bothersome to create duplicate content.
• Lastly…I wanted those “robust features” that Facebook promised.

• Only HALF of my contacts were converted into the page. Even merging the old page with the newly converted one did not help. Many people who were both my friends AND liked my old page were not transferred on board.
• The search bar is gone and there’s no bringing it back, even if I view the page as my profile.
• Oh, and speaking of profiles… I mistakenly thought that my profile should be the same name as my page so that I can merge them properly. Now I can’t even use my real name anymore.

So yep. My name is now [firstname:skysenshi’s lastname:hermitage] and I can’t change that. There is no option to change your profile name. And many of my newer contacts who have actually been converted probably don’t know who Skysenshi is. I am still re-establishing the identity (even if I have been skysenshi since 1997). So yup, those contacts probably unsubscribed.

• The worst part? The news feed that I used to see even when I was browsing as a page? Well, it’s now completely gone. I can’t even view the pages I subscribed to. A former colleague actually joked, “Now your page really is a Hermitage.”

So yeah…I have basically killed the only window I have to the outside world.