
The Free Marketing Gravy Train Is Over on Facebook - sgy
http://time.com/34025/the-free-marketing-gravy-train-is-over-on-facebook/
======
rebel
This was ultimately a massive bait and switch and I can't believe more people
don't find it disgusting. Facebook gave off the impression you would be able
to reach people who became your fan on their network.. until they didn't need
any more free marketing. Now that everyone is on Facebook, they've decided to
focus on the user experience more and leave all the brands who promoted them
out in the cold.

It would be one thing if they were charging all along, or made that intention
clear. Instead they took all the free marketing and slowly scaled down how
many of your fans saw your posts (frog in boiling water?). It's to the point
now where I have pages that reach .1% of my fans. Facebook now wants thousands
of dollars for just ONE post to reach a significant portion (not even all) of
my fan base.

Ultimately, I don't think Facebook had a choice. The user experience, with the
amount of pages some people like, would be horrendous. But to spend any time
or money to try to build a fan page on Facebook now would be a joke. Anyone
currently spending their advertising dollars to buy likes on Facebook is
terribly misinformed on the impact it will have (none).

Additionally, it seems many of the major brands I've seen advertising via
print, TV, etc. have been only promoting their Twitter accounts now. I have to
assume this is a reaction to Facebook burning them and now they are trying to
make Twitter a larger threat to Facebook.

~~~
saurik
> Ultimately, I don't think Facebook had a choice. The user experience, with
> the amount of pages some people like, would be horrendous.

If someone doesn't like the content from a Page they follow, they should
unfollow it: I specifically follow the things I do because I _want_ to see
their content... it does not improve the user experience to limit that
content; if anything, it destroys the user experience, as the reason I go to
Facebook is to see the content from the people and brands I like: showing me
less of the stuff I like leaves me disappointed and unsatisfied.

~~~
_delirium
> If someone doesn't like the content from a Page they follow, they should
> unfollow it

I've been doing some of this lately, but initially I did _not_ follow most of
my current likes because I wanted to see their content. Most of them are not
things I ever explicitly "liked"! Facebook used to have areas of your profile
where you listed your favorite movies, favorite bands, etc. At some point
these got converted into follows of pages, without me opting in. When I said
that I liked the band Coil, whose principals are now dead, I did _not_ thereby
imply that I intended to follow some profiteering asshole who controls their
Facebook "Page". And yet that's what happened. I do unfollow these when they
show up in my feed with objectionable content. But I think it's a mistake to
assume that people want to see the content from the Pages they "follow"
(admittedly, a mistake of Facebook's own making).

~~~
saurik
This is entirely fair; in fact, the same thing happened to me. However, this
problem doesn't seem solved by filtering the content: it seems like it should
be solved by not tricking people into automatically following pages just
because they liked the brand as an entity as opposed to the content on
Facebook coming from that brand. Facebook has a weird and unfortunate mix of
"like" and "follow" behaviors, especially with regards to the "favorite X"
part of the profile. One thing I will say, though: they at least did separate
like vs. follow at some point, which at least makes this issue solvable by the
user.

------
beedogs
All this means is that you'll see more dumb ads for Coke and Sony and no posts
from your friend's small fitness blog or charity.

Which means Facebook will become increasingly cold and impersonal, like any
other corporate entity.

~~~
Dale1
Yep, pretty much :(

------
bowlofpetunias
Maybe I've been talking to the wrong people, but all I hear about marketing
through Facebook pages is that it delivers little to no results, and most
companies that have a Facebook page aren't actively maintaining it anymore.

And growth in advertising doesn't tell me anything. Most of the advertising
market consists of a bubble in which all parties tell each other it's worth
the money with very little evidence to show for it. But maybe that's just
because I live in a bubble where advertising is mostly invisible.

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vacri
Ambiguous headline: 'over' meaning 'finished'? Or 'over' meaning 'located'?

Veritasium has an interesting related video explaining some of the Facebook
shennanigans where they withhold your posts from a large amount of your
subscribers if you're popular, unless you pay them money:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l9ZqXlHl65g](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l9ZqXlHl65g)

~~~
sgy
finished.

~~~
vacri
My point probably wasn't very clear - in a summary of article headlines, this
one would be a little ambiguous. It may be intentional, but it doesn't feel
like it.

~~~
sgy
They better meant "finished"

------
unclebucknasty
Overall, FB is taking a very hostile position and it is only thinly veiled.

> _“Like many mediums, if businesses want to make sure that people see their
> content, the best strategy is, and always has been, paid advertising,” a
> spokeswoman said in an emailed statement._

That "Like many mediums" bit is a slap in the face. It's implying that those
who would complain are unrealistic freeloaders or otherwise somehow at fault
for their own declining engagement. This, even when it is really due to FB
actively working to cause the decline.

Also, it completely pretends that FB has always been "like many mediums" and
did not encourage like-activity, as well as re-inforce the benefits of said
activity with previously higher levels of engagement.

The net message, essentially, is "why would you expect a free ride from FB,
when you don't expect it anywhere else?"

Very snarky, condescending, and hostile.

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rm445
So what? Who are the users who want to be spammed forever following 'Like'-ing
a business or brand?

People use Facebook to communicate with people that they know: liking a
business or brand is a communication with friends, not with that business. You
like something to put it on your profile, and put an entry on your newsfeed
saying you like that thing. It's not to sign up to a newsletter.

Now Facebook has to make money so I am sure they will continue to change
things to help advertisers reach people (for $$$). But there's no incentive to
let companies engage in spammy practices - or at least, the grey area of
unsolicited communication following an existing relationship - for free. In my
view businesses who thought that somehow the rules had changed and that social
networks meant free advertising forever, never had it right in the first
place.

~~~
robryan
It is convenient for Facebook that it is in the best interests of the users.
Facebook in part become as big as it is today via the free advertising it
receives on the vast majority of business advertising which includes a
Facebook page link or even just an icon. Businesses have been incentivized to
build this audience.

But arguably now Facebook is so intrenched that it can remove some of this
incentive and even profit of giving some of it back for a price.

------
steven2012
This to me sounds really self-defeating.

If none of your non-paid posts are going to your social network of "likers",
then you can't tell how useful having high likes on Facebook is. Then, what
incentive is there for people to encourage people to "like" them of Facebook,
to build the social network to eventually buy Facebook ads?

They are killing the goose that laid the golden egg by dialing down non-paid
posts. Maybe large companies might continue to pay for ads, but new companies,
or SMBs will completely lose incentive to build a Facebook following, since
the ROI on building a Facebook following will be expensive and the result
completely unpredictable.

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neotek
People are quick to paint this as Facebook twisting the screw, but do we know
definitively, not speculatively, that this is an intentional and planned
effect, like there's some variable somewhere that determines what percentage
of a page's fans will see a post before it stops being shown?

Why can't it just be due to the growth of Facebook? There's more content
competing for eyeballs, the way consumers engage with Facebook has probably
changed over time, people may be following more pages than they used to, and
so on.

~~~
davidgerard
A musician friend on FB friend notes that posts containing the words "song" or
"music" or that link to Soundcloud appear to get badly downvoted by the
algorithm in casual tests he's done. So anecdote, but not completely untested
anecdote.

Possible workaround: put your s*ngs on Youtube.

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lingben
in case you haven't watched these videos from Veritasium yet:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l9ZqXlHl65g](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l9ZqXlHl65g)

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oVfHeWTKjag](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oVfHeWTKjag)

both videos show why facebook's model is inherently self-destructive and
incoherent and will inevitably implode

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mikiem
It kills me... Time.com of all places says my Facebook posts will reach "less
users". I suspected I might reach "fewer users".

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yashg
I have a page with 1K+ likes and I too have seen that posts don't reach as
many people as it used to be. But what I have noticed is that there are some
regulars who always like almost every post on the page. So may be the more you
like the content of a page, the more of that page you see is what Facebook is
dong and it kind of makes sense.

I am subscribed to many pages and I don't "like" or comment on every post that
a page makes. Over a time I have seen that Facebook shows me more from pages
where I like or comment to posts most often and the rest start to vanish from
my timeline but if I go back to a page and interact with with a few posts,
suddenly I start seeing content from that page on my newsfeed.

So what Facebook is doing makes sense. Yes as a page owner I would like to
reach maximum audience, but engagement is also key. This will ensure as a page
owner I create more engaging and interesting content so more people engage
with my page organically.

------
davidgerard
And you thought that people who had specifically asked to read you should be
able to read you! Foolish human.

A musician friend on FB friend notes that posts containing the words "song" or
"music" or that link to Soundcloud appear to get badly downvoted by the
algorithm in casual tests he's done. Possible workaround: put your s*ngs on
Youtube.

------
Hawkee
How about Facebook add a "Follow" feature to get 100% of the posts? They don't
even need to show the number of followers a page has received. At least then
users have the option to see everything a page has to offer. "Likes" no longer
have any meaning, so we need something that actually means something.

~~~
yashg
They used to have that option where you can see all posts from a page but now
that option has disappeared.

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djyaz1200
FB has pimping down so cold I gotta tip my hat to Zuck! Gotta love how they
"gameify" customer communication. The message to every business was...
everything has changed... now all that matters is FB likes. Don't ask why just
chase that... Ok cool, got a bunch of likes now? Ok now we're gonna restrict
your posts and make you pay every time you want to reach them. God forbid you
just ask for customers phone number or Email? Instead we run your list for
you... and we repeatedly resell portions of your customer access back to you
via some mysterious and ever changing algorithm. Now that my friends is
pimpin!

------
ramonex
I have paid around 1000 USD for my fans using Facebook Ads, and now I can't
reach them, I can't browse them (no search box in the fan list), I can't write
to them...

Facebook is a scam! Greedy, calculated scam.

------
philip1209
This sounds reasonable and similar to the LinkedIn monetization strategy. The
core competency of Facebook is communication, not ads, so making money on
communication is ideal.

~~~
beedogs
Ideal? Not at all.

All it's doing is driving down the signal-to-noise ratio on Facebook, because
the only things that can afford to throw bad money after bad money to reach
users are massive corporations.

------
jessaustin
TIL that businesses should own their own name on the internet, and point their
customers at that instead of into some walled garden.

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dhawalhs
This is what I am seeing with my FB page. Over a year ago with with fewer
likes I was able to reach more people. With almost 18,000 likes, I can barely
reach a thousand people now. The funny part is if a post is doing well, FB
will suggest you to advertise the post since its getting "higher than usual
engagement".

~~~
NoodleIncident
You seem to hate the decisions they've made, and are quoting that to show how
bad it is.

To me, though, that sounds like a dream marketing platform; one where you only
have to pay for ads that do well, because you can push them for free to a
small sample of your audience to test them.

Another possibility: if FB ever gets any good at figuring out from the content
of a post who will like it, then a benevolent FB could show each post of yours
to the 10% of your audience who actually wants to see it, but not spam them
with the other 90%, which would make them stop following your page.

~~~
robryan
I think it is more akin to building a 18k email marketing list and then having
to pay a fee for each subsequent email you sent to them.

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camus2
> But if the brands, organizations and celebrities that use Pages want to
> continue to reach Facebook’s 1.23 billion monthly users in the future,
> they’re going to have to pay up.

The free lunch is over. Next, paid developer apis...

~~~
ohashi
Suddenly buying up any potential competitor at any price doesn't seem too
crazy. Give them no options, then they have to pay!

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adenner
What will come next? A google Adsense like system where content posters bid on
views and only the top payers per viewers are seen?

~~~
ggreenbe
I thought that was partly how it works, similar to twitter ads. You bid on
views/clicks.

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yashg
It won't be long before Twitter also starts doing this.

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notastartup
This almost seems like desperation. Time is ticking, earnings need to be
delivered, one quick heist after another, with user base dropping, people
adverse to being a marketing dataset.

