Guess what?

I completely vanished from Facebook all this past week. It was totally bizarre and random so I wanted to share my tale with you in case this happens to you or anyone you know.

OK, I didn’t vanish COMPLETELY. Just my profile page. It said “page not found” when anyone tried to visit my profile page or try to post on my wall.

But the odd thing is I could log in, see the main feed, post status updates, post on other people’s walls, even check my inbox.

Kind of phantom-like and spooky. Friends flooded my Twitter stream and inbox with messages of concern that I was nowhere to be found.

I reassured everyone that the problem would be resolved soon and to hang with me on Twitter until Facebook fixed things up.

Between you, me and your screen, I had absolutely no idea how this would get fixed. Should I call Facebook? Call Mari Smith and see if she can pull some strings? Or maybe I should just go take an aromatherapy bath?

Aztec Warrior Queen Moment (that’s when I muster up my most resilient higher self and have her deal with sh*t):

I recently deleted (by accident) the last 2 years worth of photos from my computer as I was doing a back up, so I’m no stranger to letting things go. Life goes on. It’s much easier to move towards acceptance than to fight what is. (I’ve been reading Byron Katie’s “Loving What Is” so in honor of her, I shouted “I have no Facebook profile. How wonderful!”)

So here is my advice if this happens to you:

1. Stay calm. If you’ve been following my advice over the past few years, you’ll know to NEVER put all your social networking eggs in one basket. Did I panic? No. I leveraged all my other sites to stay top of mind.

2. Have fun. The story of my disappearance was actually getting kind of fun. People asked me if I was in the 4th dimension, on vacation, on an island, in the witness protection program… we had a good time with it on Twitter and elsewhere.

3. Contact Facebook. (Notice how I didn’t say “contact Nancy Marmolejo”). I can commiserate with you, but you need to talk to the powers that be.

4. Ask your friends to contact Facebook on your behalf. If you can access a group, send them a message with the request.

5. Thank the people who helped you!

You never know if and when things will happen, but always remember to keep a cool head and stay in a forward path.

I’m glad to be back, I missed my Facebook!

This entry was posted on Saturday, November 7th, 2009 at 5:08 am and is filed under Internet Marketing, Processes/Systems/Finances. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.