Well Facebook’s testing is complete and the verdict is in:
You can buy your friends.
Just after Twitter put into question its genuine value, Facebook went ahead and completely sold out–literally–leading some to leave Facebook completely.
Facebucks
Perhaps Facebook should consider a name change. Since becoming an IPO, they seem to be scrambling up ways to recover from their seemingly financial fall. Now Facebook has completely changed how their Pages work–such as ChurchMag, organizations and your church.
Here’s what they’ve done:
It’s no conspiracy. Facebook acknowledged it as recently as last week: messages now reach, on average, just 15 percent of an account’s fans. In a wonderful coincidence, Facebook has rolled out a solution for this problem: Pay them for better access.
As their advertising head, Gokul Rajaram, explained, if you want to speak to the other 80 to 85 percent of people who signed up to hear from you, “sponsoring posts is important.”
In other words, through “Sponsored Stories,” brands, agencies and artists are now charged to reach their own fans—the whole reason for having a page—because those pages have suddenly stopped working.
This is a clear conflict of interest. The worse the platform performs, the more advertisers need to use Sponsored Stories. In a way, it means that Facebook is broken, on purpose, in order to extract more money from users. In the case of Sponsored Stories, it has meant raking in nearly $1M a day.
Crazy, right?
If you’ve noticed a dip in your Facebook Fan Page reach, here’s why:
You haven’t forked over the cash.
No matter your reason for using a Facebook Fan Page, this completely pollutes and taints the basic functionality of how Facebook works. If you’re a casual Facebook user and you think this won’t effect you, you’re wrong. As you troll through your own news feed, don’t expect to see the updates from your favorite brands and bands, as they may not have given their credit card info to Facebook, yet.
Now What?
So, then, what are churches, non-profits and anyone else who doesn’t “Like” this latest move?
Although Facebook has really hurt themselves with this tactic, that doesn’t mean you have to jump ship, yet. I recommend you don’t delete your page. At best, just ignore it and see if Facebook has a change of heart. There is one thing, however, Facebook hasn’t tainted:
Likes and Shares.
If individual users of Facebook ‘Like’ and ‘Share’ your message–whether it be on your website or found on Facebook–your message will reach into peoples news feeds. Not all is lost, you’ll just have work harder at it.
Let this be a reminder not to keep all your eggs in one basket and be sure you to diversify your social media reach.
[via Tentblogger, Boing Boing & Observer]
Mark Robinson says
Wow! I’m stunned!
Feels like all the hard work has been a complete waste of time.
Eric Dye says
I know that feel, Bro.
Adam Shields says
I am certainly disappointed by this. I went from a fan page of zero earlier this year to 185. Certainly nothing huge, but if only 25-30 actually see my 20 or so posts a week it becomes a lot of work for not much return. I am certainly not leaving all my eggs in one basket. But Facebook was my most consistant social media source of traffic. Now pinterest and twitter are alternating as number one source.
I only wish people understood RSS more. Many that I know even if they did use RSS stopped using it and instead relied on twitter and facebook to be a social media form of RSS. Instead many people are now missing content that they probably would like to get.
No people are not dying over missing content. Many people are probably better off because they have less content flowing through their feeds. But it does rankle me that it is not quality of content, but pocket book that is determining who is seeing what content.
Eric Dye says
Exactly.
Bryan Chalker says
This pathetic and disgusting. I guess the severe freefall of the IPO caused a few brainstorming sessions on how to better “leverage” their members…money.
Eric Dye says
That’s what I’m thinking. I wonder what else they cooked up …
Jarrod Skeggs says
So, I can understand that many churches don’t have the extra money in their budget for promoting posts and creating sponsored stories. The reality though is this, as far as I know, there’s never been an time when reach was 100% when posting something on a Facebook Business Page. The 15 – 20% reach is really based on how engaged your Fans are with your content. If you have 50 to 60% or your fans engaging regularly with your content, your probably reaching far more than 15 – 20%.
Aside from that, a Facebook Business Page is about, at least partially, MARKETING your business and brand. Are there some FREE marketing tools out there? You bet, and Facebook is one of them. But marketing is still about making investments that pay dividends. In my limited experience with Facebook’s Promoted Posts, I have to say that they have paid off HUGE. Not only in additional fans but also in driving revenue and gaining exposure to friends of fans, a benefit that has never before been possible.
I understand that many churches don’t see a need for, or understand why marketing themselves is necessary, but it is. Frankly, I don’t see paying an average of $0.015 per fan to reach them as a penalty, but rather, a benefit.
Eric Dye says
They killed the natural viral effect and have now transformed users news feeds into paid advertising slots, instead of curated feeds based on the users preferences. #FAIL