Are You Prepared For Social Media Death

by Anita Mae Draper

Are you prepared for your social media death? People don't like to talk about death of any kind, but in this case we are talking about the real death of a human being and the virtual life they leave behind.

This hit hard recently when we visited my husband's cousin on the day after her 76th birthday. She was in a nursing home due to health issues and I mentioned that I'd left a birthday greeting on her Facebook page the day before but wasn't sure if it was the right one since she had 2 profile pages. (Her son made the first one, and she'd made the 2nd when she couldn't find the first one.)

She responded that she hadn't looked at her Facebook page in quite a while, so I used my cell phone to show her the greetings from both pages. Her smile was heartwarming as she dwelled on each name.

As I put my phone away, however, she mentioned that it bothered her to see people posting annual greetings to her deceased sister's Facebook page and how she wouldn't like her own page(s) to remain up in the event of her own death.

I explained that the easiest solution was to give her husband or son the passwords to her social media accounts.

Two weeks later her husband phoned with the heart-wrenching news that she had passed away peacefully in her sleep. I was too distraught to ask whether she gave him the passwords. When I last checked, 2 weeks after she'd passed, both pages were still up although her son was using the one he'd set up for her to post information and thank people for their thoughtfulness.

My research led me to put the word, death, in the HELP search box on my Facebook profile page, which is shown by the question mark in a circle at the top of the page. The answer is that Facebook does allow for this situation. Here's the gist of it:

It goes into detail about the types of documentation required. Personally, I believe it's an act of love to simply hand over your passwords to a loved one, or at least leave them in an accessible location, and save them from additional grief.

Some reasons for not sharing your passwords with a loved one are you:

• change your passwords often
• don't like writing them down
• worry about their security

These are all valid reasons and shouldn't be taken lightly, however, the question should not be whether you should share them with someone you trust, but rather whether you want your virtual life to carry on after your physical body shuts down.

What are your thoughts on this matter? And please, for your own security, don't say anything about your passwords, their location, or who knows them.

*Update - Comments contain excellent information on choices.

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Anita Mae Draper's historical romances are woven under the western skies of the Saskatchewan prairie where her love of research and genealogy yields fascinating truths that layer her stories with rich historical details.  Anita's short story, Here We Come A-Wassailing, was a finalist for the Word Guild's 2015 Word Awards. Her novellas are included in Austen in Austin Volume 1, The American Heiress Brides Collection, and The Secret Admirer Romance Collection. Readers can check out Anita's Pinterest boards for a visual idea of her stories to enrich their reading experience.  Discover more at:

Website - www.anitamaedraper.com

Pinterest - www.pinterest.com/anitamaedraper/

It's A God Thing

by Anita Mae Draper

This morning I saw something on my local CTV channel that compelled me to share it with you. A quick search on the internet has shown it appearing on many stations, including this ABC Good Morning America (GMA) version, Wife’s Intuition Saves Husband Trapped Under Fallen SUV. You'll probably see it on Facebook and other social media as well.

It's the story of a wife who gets this feeling that something is wrong, so she rushes home to find her husband crushed beneath the car he's been repairing in their garage. The wife phones 911 and although her husband suffers internal injuries which include six broken ribs, his life is spared.

According to the media, the husband called for help for an hour and a half without anyone hearing him. 

On the GMA video, the husband says, "I just knew that if I  hung on long enough my prayers would be answered and she'd be able to come home."

But the coverage adds that the husband, "...says he's alive because of this wife's incredible sixth sense." Media reports also say the wife experienced a "gut instinct", "strong feeling", and "wife's intuition".

No one has called it a God thing, or that the woman felt God's nudge to go help her husband. 

However, the GMA video does show the wife as saying, "I think God was watching us that day, I'm so thankful for that."

I don't know the Utah family in this video, so I don't know their Faith walk. I also don't know what may have been left out of the video before it was broadcast. 

But it makes me wonder how many people are placed in similar situations without knowing that God hears their prayers. Or maybe they know it, but don't really believe it was Him answering their call for help. 

This morning I feel compelled to say that God hears your prayers. 1 John 5:14 (NIV) says, This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us.

He may not always answer in the way you want, but he does hear you. Even if you don't believe in God, he knows you are there and he hears your most innermost thoughts. 

And I'll echo the wife in this story when I say, "...I'm so thankful for that."

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Anita Mae Draper is retired from the Canadian Armed Forces and lives on the prairie of southeast Saskatchewan, Canada with her hubby of 30 plus years and the youngest of their four kids. Anita is pleased to announce that her short story, Here We Come A-Wassailing, published in A Cup of Christmas Cheer, Volume 4, Heartwarming Tales of Christmas Present, Guideposts Books, October 2014, is a finalist for the Word Guild's 2015 Word Awards. Anita is represented by Mary Keeley of Books & Such Literary Management. You can find Anita Mae at  www.anitamaedraper.com

Is Tsu the New Facebook?

By Iola Goulton

Facebook has recently announced that Pages will have to pay for promotional posts from January 2015. This potentially has a major effect on small businesses, many of whom use Facebook to connect with their customers, essentially a form of free advertising. Authors will also be affected—after all, an author is effectively a small business—and people are considering how to adapt to the new regime, especially given concerns Google+ and other platforms might implement similar rules. Some are considering what other social networks they should be considering … like Tsu. Tsu (pronounced "sue") is a new social network, launched in October 2014 with a unique proposition: 90% of advertising revenue is returned to users based on how much ad revenue their content makes for the site. It’s currently invitation-only, although it's not difficult to get an invitation--all you have to do is visit the site via a member's link (like www.tsu.co/iolagoulton). I suspect this is a way of creating and managing early demand. It’s not a new idea: Pinterest had a similar gate when it was first launched.

As you can see, Tsu has a similar look and feel to Facebook, just in green (apparently, Facebook is blue because Mark Zuckerberg is red/green colour blind). Tsu has most of the same functionality, including the ability to use hashtags, and a mobile app. It has some points of difference other than the advertising revenue payments.

• Posts can have titles.
• Posts can be either “Friends Only” or public, which could be a useful way for authors and other small businesses to have a single page for business and personal use.
• Posts can be shared to Twitter and/or Facebook.
• Tsu makes it easy for users to connect with you on other platforms by displaying your social media links in your profile.
• There are detailed analytics available for all users. This probably isn’t relevant for most private users, but will be important for power users.

There are some limits, which I suspect are to reduce spam:

Authors might find the 5,000-friend limit limiting (although Facebook also has a 5,000-friend limit for personal pages). However, users can Follow without friending (as in a Facebook fan page, or on Twitter), and Tsu actually recommends users only befriend people they "know or want to know". Advertising revenue is shared between the actual content creator and the chain who invited him or her, in what they call the "rule of infinite thirds" (mathematicians will observe the figures below don't add to 100%. I assume the remaining 0.7% is shared with people further up the family tree).

Detractors say it is little more than an online multi-level marketing scheme (because people earn not only from their own accounts but from the accounts of their ‘children’), and that it’s not true engagement if people are engaging merely to get paid or help others get paid.

Is it worth it for an author to join Tsu? 

It’s hard to say at this point. The advantage is the potential to earn some money, but only if you or your 'children' post content that generates ad revenue (and how do you do that?). One disadvantage is that it’s another network to learn, and with all social networks, the return you get—social or monetary—is likely to be proportional to the effort you put in. The other disadvantage is there are no statistics about who is on Tsu, because it’s so new. It seems to be mostly tech-savvy early adopters, although I’ve seen a lot of Australian authors there (although not Christian authors, yet). Having said that, I haven’t looked hard—but I get the impression that most people are connecting with people they are already connected to, via Facebook or Twitter. If that's the case, is there any point in joining Tsu? The objective of any marketing effort, including social networking, is to connect with readers: specifically, those who read in the genre you write. If you write inspirational historical romance, these tech-savvy early adopters probably aren’t your target readers, so is it worth putting effort into a social network that isn’t going to connect you with the people you want—need—to be connected to? The inspirational historical romance author is probably better off with Pinterest, because the demographics of Pinterest match the demographics of historical romance readers—women over the age of 35. Writers in other genres—such as high-tech thrillers or certain non-fiction topics—might find an audience on Tsu. It's early days, so it's hard to tell. Should you Tsu? Ask yourself my new pet question, and be honest:

WIBBOW: Would I Be Better Off Writing?

Cognitive psychologist Wade Harman challenges potential Tsu users to ask themselves three questions:

• Am I wasting my time?
• Is this something I can share information about?
• Will it help others?

These questions are valid for any social network. If it’s going to be a time-waster that doesn’t contribute to your long-term marketing strategy or help others in any way, it’s probably better not to add another social media network to your diary. What do you think? Do you see any advantages in joining Tsu?

About Iola Goulton

I am a freelance editor specialising in Christian fiction, and you can find out more about my services at my website, or follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest ... or Tsu. I love reading, and read and review around 150 Christian books each year on my blog. I'm a Top 25 Reviewer at Christian Book, in the Top 1% of reviewers at Goodreads, and have an Amazon Reviewer Rank that floats around 2500.