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View Full Version : The Free Marketing Gravy Train on Facebook is over



Harold Mansfield
03-25-2014, 05:25 PM
That's the title of a new article in Time magazine, and it's true.
I have definitely noticed that pages barely have any reach with their own followers. On my pages I'm lucky to see a 10% reach without boosting a post.


Over the past several months, Facebook has been reducing the organic reach of Pages. Even if a person Likes a company or organization on the social network, they’re unlikely to naturally see that Page’s content in their News Feed. In a recent study of more than 100 brand Pages, Ogilvy & Mather found that companies’ posts dropped from reaching 12% of their followers in October to just 6% by February. The tech blog Valleywag reports that Facebook is planning to dial reach down to 1% to 2% of followers eventually.

Personally I think that's BS, but what are you going to do? FB is free, someone else owns it and they don't owe us anything.

Here's the article:
Facebook Is Making It Harder to Reach Audiences Without Paying - TIME (http://time.com/34025/the-free-marketing-gravy-train-is-over-on-facebook/)

Patrysha
03-25-2014, 05:36 PM
Had an interesting conversation (I think it was interesting) about a similar (or was it the same) article on my Facebook profile yesterday. It was never meant to be a selling space and if it costs, so what? The value of advertising is not what it costs but what it generates.

I don't know how big companies justify big television campaigns but evidently they must work because they keep paying for them...but companies (large and small alike) grumble about a new platform charging a fraction of what traditional advertising costs per lead/conversion - mostly because it was free and now it's not...

And how many of them entice their customers with free products and special offers??? Isn't that what FB has done??

Harold Mansfield
03-25-2014, 06:49 PM
I can't disagree with anything you've said.

What I wonder is, if even the people who have chosen to follow your updates are now not even guaranteed to see them, then what's the point for companies to have people follow them on Facebook? You don't need Facebook followers merely to advertise.

To me (and I can't beleive I'm saying this) this makes Twitter even more valuable as a marketing tool because they don't filter the updates of the people that you follow, and it's actually a little easier to keep up with who you're following and weed out any noise to just see their updates....AND you can separate your follows into groups.

To me, this was the last thing that kept Facebook viable for businesses. If the answer is "no more", you need to advertise now. Fine. I'll just advertise. Then why do I need a page? I'll just send people to my website or landing page, AWAY from Facebook, instead of keeping them on Facebook to engage with a page that they won't see updates from anyway.

Patrysha
03-26-2014, 01:54 PM
I agree with you. I see it as demise of the small business page on Facebook...at least the beginning of it. Big brands may hang around because they have tons of outside media that can drive traffic to their pages if they choose to, but it's really not looking like much of a pond to play in anymore. (I've always had better results with conversions with relationships that started from Twitter and Linked-In than from Facebook)

Harold Mansfield
03-26-2014, 02:46 PM
Think about all of the free exposure and advertising Facebook gets from companies constantly running TV and other ads that direct people to join them on Facebook. Facebook itself doesn't even need to advertise, we've been doing it for them.

So this to me is 2 sided. The free marketing gravy train may be over for brands on Facebook, but so too will be the free exposure and promotion that Facebook use to get from us.

JohnF
03-26-2014, 07:31 PM
It's simple- people are just more interested in seeing what their friends post than what companies post. Facebook is simply giving the users what they want. I've always been skeptical of the idea that social media would somehow let you build engagement for something that just isn't that cool, like laptops or financial planning. No reason Facebook should shoot itself in the foot by letting corporate pages drown out people's friends. On the other hand, people who build personal brands still do great with personal pages, and I love seeing the stuff Maddox and Tim Ferriss post to Facebook. That'll probably never stop working, but it's built on them saying stuff people care about- social media just won't make boring crap cool.

Harold Mansfield
03-26-2014, 08:08 PM
That's not true for everyone. I follow A LOT of companies on Facebook and Twitter and I am genuinely interested in what they post. New product launches. Tips on how to use existing products. Update alerts. Helpful articles. For me, it's much simpler seeing new information from them in my Facebook news feed than visiting all of those websites every week, or getting a million more emails.

But honestly, Twitters list functionality makes that so much easier than Facebook's picking and choosing what to show. At least with Twitter, I know that if I put all of my tech companies in a list, and decide to go through just that list, I'm going to see every update.

MattRoessler
03-26-2014, 08:38 PM
Facebook is definitely making it tougher for businesses, but I feel that is an opportunity for the 'stayers' who keep working with it and adapting as Facebook changes. There will be less competition as businesses will start to look elsewhere, and we will have the inside knowledge and history with Facebook to keep on succeeding.

Harold Mansfield
03-27-2014, 10:13 AM
Facebook is definitely making it tougher for businesses, but I feel that is an opportunity for the 'stayers' who keep working with it and adapting as Facebook changes. There will be less competition as businesses will start to look elsewhere, and we will have the inside knowledge and history with Facebook to keep on succeeding.

This kind of news travels slow among business owners who aren't tech savvy. By the time there is a decrease in businesses using Facebook for marketing, Facebook as a whole will probably see an overall decrease in usage.

Wozcreative
03-27-2014, 11:22 AM
Well that really sucks! A lot of small businesses, niche markets and stay at home people depend on Facebook to make their business grow. They probably figured out how to make it work for them but FB is now changing the game. That's unfortunate. However it is the business' fault in the long run.. for putting all their marketing cookies in one jar.

Harold Mansfield
03-27-2014, 11:38 AM
However it is the business' fault in the long run.. for putting all their marketing cookies in one jar.
Yep. We've been saying that around here for years. You don't own Facebook and have no control over when they make changes. Use SM as a tool, but your focus should be getting people to your website because IT'S the core of your marketing. Not your Facebook page.