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View Full Version : This just in: Facebook is manipulating Fan Page Reach



TimPiazza
10-01-2012, 01:06 AM
I have been observing an interesting phenomenon over the past couple of weeks on Facebook. I thought it was just me, but then I started checking with other Facebook page managers and confirmed that it's wide-spread, even affecting some of the biggest social media managers in the business.

Facebook has talked about Edge Rank in the past, as the formula that determines who sees the stuff you post on your business page. Based on various reports, this can be anywhere from around 15% of your audience to around 3%, depending on your post style, frequency, and number of fans. Fan reach is the "friends of friends" part of the equation, the viral part of social media marketing. Even though only 10% of your fans might see a post, another 90% of your exposure might be friends of friends.

But as of a couple weeks ago, I began seeing that those numbers might look more like 8% and 40% for the same kind of content, same posting frequency, to the same audience. In short, we're reaching less than half the people we were formerly reaching.

Have you observed the same phenomena?

You can read my blog post on the subject at Is Facebook Fan Page Reach Being Manipulated? (http://slm.bz/9)

KristineS
10-01-2012, 12:30 PM
They did change the algorithm and it is impacting fan pages.

Here's where I got my info: https://social.ogilvy.com/facebook-algorithmic-change-to-decrease-reach-on-brand-page-posts/

TimPiazza
10-01-2012, 05:01 PM
Kristine, I read Geoffrey Colon's blog post after someone pointed me to it. We had been discussing this issue on one of Mari Smith's private Facebook groups. Geoff might have some inside information, or he is asserting a conjecture based on an analysis, just as I did. But Mari couldn't find anything released by Facebook to back up this assertion, and she has a very close relationship with the company.

For the record, I agree with Geoff's assessment, but I don't agree with his solution. Even doing exactly what he said is needed to maintain edge rank, we saw reach drop by 60%. There is still a possibility that the data is being mis-reported, but I don't think so. Conversions are down for pages as well, which indicates that they are being seen by fewer people.

How is Traverse City? I used to spend a lot of time in your neck of the woods when Whirlpool was my client.

KristineS
10-02-2012, 12:35 PM
I know our page is definitely being seen by fewer people, which is annoying, but not unexpected. When promoted posts came in I knew that Facebook would be doing something to mess with the reach of an unpromoted post to make promotion look like a more viable option.

Traverse City is a nice little town. It's really blossomed in the last ten years or so. For a relatively small town in Northern Michigan it has a lot to do and a lot of amenities you'd expect in a larger town.

KristineS
10-04-2012, 12:26 PM
I just read that they're now planning to offer people the option to promote posts on their personal pages as well. I understand that sites need to make money, but I would think Facebook must be doing pretty well off their advertising revenue. Does everything have to be monetized?

Ted Froystad
10-08-2012, 05:54 AM
Hallo!

I just came across this page in my search for some answers.
You guys seems to be talking about excatly what I have noticed.
We are a small company but we have put alot of time and effort into our facebook page.
We have 13727 fans today.
When we post things on our wall we normally do this 1 or 2 times a day.
The last 3 weeks the reach has gone down with more than 500%
1/1 - 14/9 = 5500 average reach
14/9 - 25/9 = 3000 average reach
26/9 - 30/9 = 1939 average reach
1/10 - 7/10 = 1029 average reach

The last week I have even had 4 posts with reach of only: 945 reach, 100 reach, 40 reach, 62 reach.
For me this is soo low that I am thinking there must be something wrong!
A couplee of weeks ago when we had reachs of 2000-3000 we thought this was low!

Do you guys have anymore feedback on what is going on?
Has facebook basically just changed the algorithm and conveniately placed the "promote" bottom visible at each post.

Appreciate your feedback in this matter!
Have a nice day!

TimPiazza
10-08-2012, 10:42 PM
There still hasn't been any official word that I know of, but the issue has been widely reported by other page managers.

We did successfully kick our reach back up to where it was before by doubling our posting frequency. Other pages that have not changed, however, are still performing poorly by comparison to previous numbers.

greenoak
10-27-2012, 08:06 PM
hi tim, im in indiana too...rochester, up north...
..we have a page with 3700 fans and had a 30% connection rate about half the time.... facebook has brought us lots and lots of business........ it started tanking in late september...we are probably down over 30%..
.im reading tons of info on this in the social media press.....but very little about how to best adjust to it.....also my picture posts were always the most popular for our page and now they get way fewer views than the text only posts.....
my page is allmost totally organic... we never beg or trade for likes or have contests etc...we are brick and mortar and know lots of our fans...
i was just checking in here to see if anyone was talking about how to deal with this....