Regardless of whether you are small or large business, an artist or simply using the platform socially, over recent months you may have noticed that there has been a distinct decline in your Facebook reach, you are getting fewer clicks, or you haven’t been seeing much in your newsfeed anymore from pages you have ‘liked’, or even friends and family members. If you have thought something seems amiss then you are not wrong.
Facebook has come out and acknowledged that messages now reach an average of 15% of fans. Their solution to this limited reach, pay for better access. As Facebook’s 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.” You can achieve this by using the Promote button. A recent Dangerous Minds post investigates the implications of this Promote option using their own Facebook activity as a case study for the costs involved in reaching an audience that has already ‘opted in’ to their posts, labeling it as ‘information superhighway robbery’.
As a platform that relies on its users so heavily these new promote rates will come as a shock to many, especially highly active small to medium business that have been getting this service free of charge until now, and may even act as a deterrent when marketers are trying to include a Facebook ad campaign in their digital strategy. Not only will you have to pay for ad placement but now you’ll need to pay for reach as well.
On the other hand it could be argued that it is somewhat risky to solely build a business on, or for business to heavily rely on, an existing platform knowing that it is more than likely that the platform will evolve and make changes that will undoubtedly disadvantage some members in the name of capitalism. So is Facebook unfairly changing the rules half way through the game and will users look to other free platforms like Twitter or Google+? Or is it of little surprise that its popularity is now being monetized? Let us know your thoughts.