In today’s post, I will be discussing you with about the recent changes on Facebook which we should have known by now, how it affects bloggers and what to do about it. I wouldn’t like to waste your time on the introduction so, let’s get to the main thing at once.
However, you might have been aware of some of the things I will mention here today but believe me, you’ll learn a lot by the time you finish reading this post so, let’s get to business.
Happy 10th Anniversary Facebook.
We all know that Facebook turned 10 some weeks ago and, it’s really an awesome 10 years for them. Mark has really broken record and in case you don’t know yet, Facebook is now worth over $150 billion and, it was estimated that it’s worth 10 times the entire U.S newspaper industry with about 1.25 billion members, isn’t that mind blowing?
Furthermore, The company’s fourth- quarter results last week showed that the business has found what Americans like to call the secret sauce for making money out of its existing users, regardless of how they signed into the website. Facebook made 25 per cent more per member than it did in the last three months of 2012, and 71 per cent more per user visit. Read more here.
It’s indeed an incredible and rapid growth so; I’m wishing Mark and the entire Facebook team a happy 10th anniversary and more strength to their elbows. I’m sure they will still have more to cover.
You know, I have a great respect for Mark Zuckerberg and his team, they’ve really achieved a lot in the past 10 years despite all the huge competitions out there, they still made it big and, this teaches me that if you really want to succeed in anything you’re doing then, you must be well committed to it.
Facebook New Fan Page Update and its Impact on Bloggers
Sometime on January, I logged into my Facebook account and noticed a significant drop on my Fan page’s engagement in fact, my Facebook updates was getting about 10% of the reach that they usually get and, this really made me very uncomfortable.
While I was trying to figure out what was wrong, I came across this post where Facebook declared that fan page owners should start expecting their organic reach to continually drop and that the best way to be getting your updates to more eyes is to pay for reach and I said….. Wow, what a news, are you kidding me?
However, I’m sure most of you also noticed these changes so, what was your reaction at first? I guess you’ll tell me on the comment section.
Honestly, this update really broke many people’s heart, many felt cheated especially the people that spent lots of advertising dollars into earning Facebook fans that will no longer see their posts. Isn’t that bad?
But, I won’t blame them though because……
They’re In For a Serious Business
Yes, Facebook want to make money and, I can’t tell them how to run their business after all, it’s their business and not mine.
Facebook explained that the update was to make sure you see contents that matters to you the most. While this might be part of it, the main truth is that they want to make more money……period.
Recommended Reading: Top 11 Important Ingredients Every Blog Post Cannot Survive Without (You’ll Love #1 & 9)
The truth is that this update is not for everyone. I mean if you’re like me who shares lots of awesome contents on your fan page freely and knowing that your fans actually liked your page simply because they like these contents and want to be seeing them, you need to think.
In case you don’t understand the meaning of these changes, what Facebook meant is that if those fans of yours should continue seeing the updates they willingly subscribed for then, you have to be paying in order to reach them.
In my own opinion, it might be a very good idea from monetization standpoint and if you have something to sell but, it doesn’t make any sense at all when you’re just giving awesome contents away for free.
And believe me, since it doesn’t make any financial sense to promote stuffs you give away for free, your fans will no longer be getting the contents they want which was the main reason why they liked your page in the first place, they will only be seeing what you paid to promote and you as a business man that also want to cover his expenses, you’ll only be promoting sales pitches which is really bad for you and your fans.
When I was carrying out my research, I noticed that it also affected many big brands like Mashable. Their pages also dropped drastically and, the only pages maintaining their reach are those spending over 10K a month which is easy to see but for brands that cannot spend that amount, Facebook is actually saying….. Fuck you.
I guess it’s time to find a new distribution channel for our content and not pay for FB ads that don’t really increase the interactions anyway. Many people spent years building up fan bases to have them strangled in Facebook attempt to “improve newsfeeds” which is BS. I’m even seeing more low quality repeated content than before.
It was learnt before that good content can help a small player get noticed but, that idea has been tossed out the window and this makes Facebook less useful as a communication tool as it use to be, instead a good tool for larger brands because, this isn’t meant for small business like ours. The update just killed small business and Facebook knew that. They risked the little doughs for the big doughs.
They’ve have finally gone the way of magazines and television commercials which are meant only for the big boys and shutting the door in the face of small business but I can tell you, they are just shooting themselves in the foot because, they will lose much space to Twitter or Google +.
I can hear you asking……..Is there any way out? Of cause there is and that is the main reason why I’m writing this.
Reconsider Your Marketing Strategies
Now, even if you didn’t learn anything from Facebooks recent update, I want you to know that change is constant and, you must also understand that the internet is always changing and the best way to remain on the line is to create your own home on your own foundation.
Mind you, I didn’t say you should avoid social media marketing entirely just like the search engines but, what I’m saying is that you should not use it as your bottom line but instead, use it to backup your bottom line.
Indeed, the social media platforms can really be great for your online business but the main problem is that you’re not the owner of the platform so while using them, make it as a habit to always funnel people back to properties you own and control like your blogs and email lists.
I know that there are many people who never cared about creating a website for their business but, they only focused on the social media for their exposure but believe me, that’s a very expensive mistake and you should take corrections now if you’re such a person.
This Facebook update might seem like a big slap in our face but, I like it because it actually taught me to tighten my belts and start thinking more on how to create a platform for my business.
A lot of people are now migrating to Google plus after the update but, is that the best solution? Of cause not, Facebook might actually lose some of its users to G+ but, should we all now rely on G+? My answer is NO. Relying on Google plus or any other social media as your main source of traffic will also be a huge mistake because, they might also come up with their own update one day and we will start looking for another platform to join so, my advice to you is to…..
Start Building Your Own Email Lists Now.
You must have heard a lot about this before and, I’m sure some of us have not done anything about it but believe me, this updates going around both the Google Algorithms and that of Facebook should be an eye opener to we all.
Let’s not focus our traffic source on the search engines and social media alone instead, let’s start looking for more ways to diversify our source of traffic and the best way now is to start building our email list.
Aweber, Getresponse and any other email marketing company out there might also fail someday but, you can always download your lists and upload them to another place because, it’s your own.
Finally, i know that some of your Facebook fans might not be aware of this update yet and will be wondering why they are not seeing your contents again like before so; the best thing for you to do now is to tell them about it if you haven’t done so already.
Let them know what’s happening and then, invite them to join your email list because, if they don’t subscribe to your email list, the only time you’ll have to pay to reach them is when you have something to sell and, that’s bad.
This post is already more than 1600 words so, I beg to stop here knowing that you’ve captured the message I’m trying to convey.
So now, let’s take the discussion further via the comment section, what do you think about the Facebook update? You like it or not? Why?
Thanks for reading and please, remember to share this post with your friends out there :).
Happy new week. Wishing you an awesome and productive week.
Photo Credit: Freedigitalphotos.net
I. C. Daniel says
To be frank I wasn’t aware, thanks a million for sharing this news Theodore.
Indeed we shouldn’t rely on anything and building a huge list of subscribers
Would be the smartest thing we could do. Best regards from I. C. Daniel
Theodore Nwangene says
You’re welcomed Daniel,
I’m really happy you enjoyed this post, thanks for coming.
Harleena Singh says
HI Theodore,
Yes, I read about this update too on some blogs, but honestly speaking it hasn’t shown a drop or affected my fan page in anyway, so I wasn’t really disturbed about it 🙂
However, you need to be careful and just as you rightly mentioned, change your strategy to shift your focus to build your email list instead. That surely is a good idea, and something you should keep doing on other social media platforms like G+ also. Google is coming up in a big way, but that too isn’t a replacement for Facebook as they too might come up with some changes sooner or later, where money is concerned. I think we all need to gear ourselves up, just as you mentioned.
Thanks for sharing this wonderful reminder. Have a nice week ahead 🙂
Theodore Nwangene says
You must be very lucky then Harleena,
It is quite surprising to hear that the update didn’t affect you and i must say kudos for that. Indeed, there is a need to focus more on building our email list because i consider that as the best after all, the lists is yours to keep no matter any update. Thanks for stopping by Harleena:)
Princewill says
It came as a bummer to me too but instead of sitting and whining about, one has to restrategise, just like the building of email list that is a ver good one, It didn’t affect some people though but building wouldn’t do any harm now, would it?
Theodore Nwangene says
I agree with you Prince,
We all have to restrategise indeed. Thanks for coming.
aceclue says
Hi Theodore,
The incessant algorithn change by the online monster has taught me a lesson. It isn’t ideal for anyone to build business and marketing strategies on someone/something out of the control. Such full dependence can be disastrous.
It is better giving preference to building huge mail subscriber base for internet marketing.
It is today update we know, what might comes tommorrow, nobody knows.
Thanks for sharing the tips. At least the fan page marketing could be optimised to success for the main time other reliable marketing strategies are developed.
Theodore Nwangene says
Thanks for this useful input man,
The thing is really getting out of hand and we all have to tighten up our belts before we’re taken unaware. Building an email list is the way to go if you really want to remain in this for long.
Thanks for your wonderful comment mate.
isaiah joseph says
ALL i have to say is that Facebook are simply taking it too far! why make this changes now that their page owners have spent years trying to reach out to people and building a huge page only to reach 5%.. Even google couldn;t be this bad..
Theodore Nwangene says
You can say that again Isaiah,
Facebook really took it too far and I’m sure they will one day realize their mistake. Thanks a lot for the shout out my man :).
Ben Troy says
Recently, I noticed that status with link has reached so few readers than pure image and text.
vijay says
Hi Theodore Nwangene…
This is my first visit to your blog.Must say you are amazing writer.very nyc article indeed.
Andie says
Thank you very for you post.Really looking forward to read more. Excellent.
Akaahan Terungwa says
Hello Theodore,
You simply shared what was on my mind all this while. I have constantly argued that FB is not the only business savvy entity. I run a business and why should I spend more to actually reach less people? Though I still actively use FB, for me, I’m not spending a dime!
The truth is that I may spend (like I used to before the update) if things actually change. But spending money in this day and time on FB is a big no – no! I think I like the option you offered better – Afterall the list is yours!
Always,
Terungwa
Chadrack says
Hi Theo,
Frankly, I never cared when I heard about the changes some time ago. I knew it will come to this eventually. The unfortunate thing however, is that many bloggers are not really learning anything from these changes.
I did a post sometime last year where I mentioned some of the things we can learn from these social media sites. In that post I drew the attention of bloggers to how social media sites like facebook are monetizing their platforms while bloggers are still focusing on creating content and feeding the internet beast without caring about seeking out ways of monetizing their efforts!
Now, do you realize that these social media platforms that are making these huge profits every year are actually riding on the content you and I create every day?
Mark and his team never care about creating content but they are creative in turning the content we create on their platform into cash!
Think about this! 🙂
Dilip Win says
Its really very bad to know such news that facebook fan pages affects our blog. Thanks for your information. I would go for it. Nice article.
Jahnavi says
Nice post Thanks for sharing this 🙂
Nithin Upendran says
Hello Thedore,
First of all it’s been very long since I visited your blog and I can see lot of things changed here and I have to read lot of new posts.
Coming to the post I agreed with all points listed above, the new facebook update has changed a lot of things like some of the posts aren’t reaching to the readers, so this post is really helpful.
Thanks
Fredy says
Hi Theodore,
This was quite a slap to us. It reached a point where I could wonder why only 20 people saw the images posted on my pages timelines and knowing this fact was a shook. Now we have to pay to get the best. Truly Facebook is good for business. All in all no gain without pain and we must spend money to get money.
Samir says
Hey
I guess It’s affected to some pages and it didn’t affected to some pages. So in any case we gonna need to promote our content on pages or post viral content.
Thanks
vino says
To be true I was not aware of this Facebook Fanpage update before.Thanks a ton for sahring this info with us.Will look through it and check the thinga and will let you know.
Jayashree says
Hello Theo – This surely had affected my fan page reach and was seriously considering other options to reach readers. You have given nice insights on this topic and I am going to focus on building Email list . Thanks for sharing
Charmie says
Well, yes the facebook has changed the algorithms which has made the reach of the posts quite difficult to reach to our target audience but thanks for this detailed study. I will be helpful through this and might change the way of updating soon.