Don’t kick off a social media campaign the same day Facebook launches a redesign

A letter from Jeremy:

Dear Facebook,

You screwed us today. Please send us $1 million of your $1 billion to make up for it.

Best,

Lunabean Media

Since that’s not going to happen, let’s just learn from this mistake, shall we?

Today was the day we were supposed to launch Lunabean Media on Facebook. I know, I know, it’s pretty late in the game to be doing so, but we are masters of perfecting our clients’ web efforts while ignoring our own.

Anyhoo, I began the day by contacting my 300 friends to let them know about the new Lunabean Media page on Facebook. I used the handy “Suggest to Friends” feature to do just this. When ten minutes went by and nary a friend had fanned, I knew something was wrong. I hopped on over to my home page and…ARE YOU KIDDING ME FACEBOOK DECIDED TO REDESIGN THE HOME PAGE NOW!?!?!?

I went into panic mode. My invites had been lost in the overhaul…or some had been. Others were received, but the Facebook generated link to my page didn’t work. And the worst part about it? That was my one shot. All 300 of my friends are now locked out of an invite, because Facebook thinks I already invited them.

So, here I am, on the eve of my launch, with 16 Facebook fans. Time to crack a beer, watch last night’s DVRed “Grey’s”, and get on with my life. It looks like I’m just going to have to get my fans the old fashioned way…kick ass content that people will be excited to read. BooYA! So, to the 16 of you, get ready, because I’m about to blow your mind.

Oh, and to my clients, those of you who pay for my expertise, I have two tips for you today:

1. Don’t kick off a social media campaign the same day Facebook launches a redesign.
2. Don’t invite your entire list at once. Instead, break it up into groups of 20 or so. This way, if you fail, your entire list won’t be shot to hell.

Did I mention I got in a car accident today, too? Yeah, and, get this, it was MY FAULT. Not a good day. At all.