Characters

These are some famous characters:

http://ow.ly/7X4bH

http://ow.ly/7X40o

While you might be writing Facebook updates about these characters, chances are your updates will feature a few characters a bit closer to home like your sister, brother, roommate, boyfriend/girlfriend, mother, father, dog, cat, mailman, neighbor, or some random person you ran into at Hy-Vee. Yes, these are people but they can be characters just like cartoons. Isn't it TBS that says "Characters Welcome"? Well, the are certainly welcome in your writing and are practically required if you ever want anyone to know what you're talking about.

However, aside from the random gripe post, it's best to make sure your posts are in active voice or that the character is performing the action of your status update. It's also best if these characters can be flesh and blood, or real people. (Or animals... we all like posting about our pets. After all, more cats live on the internet than anywhere else!) When making status updates, you'll likely find it's very easy to write about flesh and blood characters because you'll be surrounded by them. This can often be more difficult in other types of writing, but I think you'll find it easy for this!

For example:

This is a pretty good status written in active voice. It's direct and to the point while maintaining a tone of happiness. Not everything you report on Facebook should be happy, but too many negative statuses and you just might find your friend count declining. No one really likes to surround themselves with negativity. 

This status much better than the more passive and less exciting:

(And no, an exclamation point does not convey excitement by itself.) Active voice is often more conversational while passive sounds a bit like Yoda (and sometimes just seems weird). 

Also, when reporting your status, tag your friends! Everyone likes the shout out! (@theirname - just like Twitter. See future posts for more information on Twitter!)