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If you’ve been using facebook fanpages for any amount of time to market your business or a niche you’re passionate about, then listen very closely, for your income via the use of fanpages is about to come to a screeching halt.
If you monitor the reach of your status updates on your fanpages via insights, chances are you’ve already noticed a drastic drop in the reach of your status posts and engagement of your fans in each post you’ve been making.
Thing is, at the beginning of December 2013, facebook “modified” their algorithm to select which “stories” appear in users News Feeds.
Previously, if you posted a status update, your posts would reach up to 80% of your fans’ newsfeeds.
Now, only on about 1%!
The only way to increase your reach now aparently is to boost your posts to be seen in the newsfeeds of your already existing fans.
In essence, facebook now wants you to purchase more advertising to reach the same fans you’ve already paid for in the first place!
According to facebook, the algorithm was modified “so that it would highlight higher quality news stories and show fewer silly photos.”
The question one begs to ask then is, if one has liked a fanpage in order to see pictures of silly photos in their newsfeeds, why then compel them to view ads they have not opted to see in the first place?
The whole premise to facebook fanpages is based upon social interaction and connections. Fans like pages for the sole purpose of connecting with other like-minded individuals who have opted to like the content on that page and, for that moment, forgeting about other worldly concerns.
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Now, considering that only big name brands seem to have the power to innundate your newsfeeds with their ads, as opposed to your fans seeing your content, what’s the loophole?
At the present moment, it would appear the only recourse is for admins of fanpages to pack up shop and head to other social media platforms where the grass is still green, such as on G+ etc.
This is the extreme scenario.
On the other hand, considering that these algorithm updates are manual, and therefore designed to slow down one’s momentum, the best proactive approach we’ve adopted, has been to communite with admins of fanpages in the same niches as ours, and requesting to post content of a promotional nature to beef our own fans.
Sure, there’s a cost involved, and the argument one could then make is, if status posts are being throttled and only being seen by about 1% of your fans, why bother going to other fanpages instead of using facebook advertising to achieve the same end?
Fair question, but what this question fails to address is, the nature of posts we’re posting on fanpages in similar or complementary niches.
First and foremost, let me state right at the onset that, whilst our fanpages were created primarily to engage fans in the niches we’re in… they were also created to generate income – in the fastest way possible.
Consider one of our fanpages targeting the Seahawks for instance.
The fact that this Seattle based team has had a phenomenal meteoric rise to the top of the NFL and NFC West Division, means it’s now got a cult – like following from fans and naysayers desiring to see the team lose.
That’s besides the point.
The point here is, any content promoting the Seahawks, be this in the form of tee-shirts, photoshoped imagery or memes, will definitely be shared or engaged in by the so called 1% seeing that content.
So this tends to have a ripple effect, and thereby defying facebook’s “modification” of their algorithm.
Sure, facebook may have doctored their algorithm but, depending on the topic at hand, it would appear that trending topics are receiving a good amount of shares, likes and comments as opposed to other topics.
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On the other hand, if you’re a restaurant, are in the carpet cleaning business or dentist, what option do you have to ensure your fans and their friends see your status update?
It’s not as if dentists have a cult-like following of fans on facebook tripping over themselves to purchase tee-shirts or memorabilia is it?
Sadly no, and this is the whole reason for this rant about facebook.
If you’re a small business owner looking to grow your facebook fanpages for business, it would appear (and we’ve discussed this ad nauseum with our clients to increase likes and engagement to their business fanpages ) that keeping abreast of the social media trend is the solution.
Anything to the contrary, please feel free to interject.
Facebook’s throttling of results that show on your fans’ newsfeed is profit driven, similar to google’s numerous algorithm updates which have seen millions of pages de-indexed and paid ads (adwords) filling their results pages at the expense of organic results.
Some of you are old enough to remember a social media platform called myspace!
Those who were quick to embrace this platform the moment it hit mainstreet made a killing, literally.
Look where myspace is now?
In terms of organic rankings on google…. most companies (our clients thank us for this) chose to focus on google places, which tends to rank websites in local geographic locations better than at a national level.
Local SEO for such businesses is seeing them flourish…
Whether this trend will change for the worse is still to be seen, but at least we’re keeping abreast of the changing landscape of social media.
Another social media platform worth using, like right now, is google plus, which is beyond the scope of this article, and we’ll discuss in following articles.
In short, if your business fanpages have been affected by facebook’s recent changes… move your house, move it fast and move it now.
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The days of getting free publicity on facebook through fans sharing your content with their peers etc is slowly coming to a screeching halt.
In case you hadn’t heard, g+ (google plus) now has more fans than twitter… that should tell you something.
The reason that g+ is not being used as much as facebook right now, is because some are yet to catch up.
Seeing as you’re reading this article and have read this far, it means you get it, are concerned and want results.
RUN!
Add me to your g+ circles, let’s get this party started right!
Happy New Year.
The post Why Facebook’s Killing your Fanpages for Business appeared first on Assegai Media | SEO | Social Media | Paid Search.