I appreciate the sentiment, but these things are just as fast — and will actually provide real value in my life.
I don’t want to sound ungrateful. After all, you took time out of your busy day to write something for me on my birthday. And since my birthday is also one of the busiest days of the year for most people (Christmas Eve), I understand that it means you care.
But we’ve been doing the same thing for over a decade, and frankly… aren’t we all getting tired of coming up with a more unique way of saying “Happy birthday” so we stand out in the crowd?
So here are 5 things you can do instead of writing happy birthday on my newsfeed — that will actually provide real value in my life.
Read something I’ve written.
I’m a writer, and that means I spend an excessive amount of time worrying that my stories are going to go out into the world only to be ignored. Read something I’ve written. Bonus points if you comment on it.
Share one of my posts, products, or websites.
Gaining social media traction is hard. Do me a solid and share a post, product, or site of mine with your friends or even just one specific person.
Like one of my pages.
If you don’t like my pages, how will you know what I’m up to throughout the year? Seriously, this is what I use Facebook for mostly… so if you actually want to follow me, you’ll need to like my pages.
Leave a positive review on one of my pages.
Speaking of which, reviews are always appreciated. 😉
Send me a private message — even if we aren’t that close.
The best thing about Facebook Happy Birthdays is seeing that people still care — even people you’d long ago assumed forgot you. But a “happy birthday” is really just a teaser, enough of a statement to say, “hey I know you,” but not enough to build a conversation on. If you care enough about me to care about my birthday, then let’s just actually connect. Send me a message and let’s get the conversation restarted.
