I’ve never had a Facebook account or any other social media. I know they keep shadow profiles, but I’ve never given permission. I never had any interest and frankly still don’t.
The problem I’m having is that I don’t exist online when people try to look me up. When someone tries to check me out, there’s nothing there and apparently that’s considered abnormal these days. I think it’s starting to affect my life negatively for various reasons I’d rather not get into.
I’d just like some advice about where to start if you wanted to dip your toes in and check it out. LinkedIn, maybe?
I don’t think anyone can give you good advice without knowing the reasons you’d rather not get in to.
I can think of various scenarios where some sort of minimal internet presence under your real name would be useful for social or employment reasons, but exactly what it is you’re trying to accomplish makes a big difference in terms of what tools (including corporate platforms, federated microblogging like Mastodon, a blog, or a static website) will get you the results you want.
What’s popular where you live or in your professional field matters too. For some people, not using Facebook or Linkedin specifically is unusual, but we don’t have enough information to know if that’s true for you.