Is Facebook about to kill us? What to do about it?

Chammy

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Ok, so most of us bloggers have our social media outlets including a Facebook page. Unless you've been under a rock for the last 6 months, you'll have seen that Facebook are about to implement some changes to the way it's users see business/fan pages.

In a nutshell, if you don't pay to advertise your page/posts then you'll just not get seen. Even by people who like your page. Apparently, they've not finalised their actual plan but it looks likely that your newsfeed will prioritise friend's updates and paid for posts (boosts/sponsored content etc) and everything else will go on to a separate tab that your followers have to click on in order to see anything.

So, have you got a plan drafted to save your organic FB reach? Are you going to boost your posts, pay to advertise your page? Are you going to put your time into a different platform such as Twitter? Will you just let your FB traffic die?

Personally, I'm not sure. I'll continue to post to my page because at the end of the day it's a few extra clicks on my scheduling site. One suggestion has been to make a Facebook Group and just share everything to there too as there is no plans to silence the groups so all your members will see each post. But part of me is wondering if that is going to be overkill for my readers...but then again, if they're not seeing my page then they'll only see my posts once anyhoo...

What are your thoughts?

giphy.gif
 

Jon

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that gif is still loading... ha.

I will say what I said on Twitter at the weekend

How much of your blog business is on FB, I would say apart from TMS facebook page mine isn't.

I don't want people on there to get exposed to TMS really as I want them to find us organically over here!

It's a catch 22 situation but again, if you rely SO much on a 3rd party website you don't have ANY control over for your audience then you are sort of digging your own grave with it all

the other major, MAJOR issue with Facebook Groups is that NONE of them are indexed by Google and obviously none of the content is either mean people won't find it organically.
 
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Chammy

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that gif is still loading... ha.

I will say what I said on Twitter at the weekend

How much of your blog business is on FB, I would say apart from TMS facebook page mine isn't.

I don't want people on there to get exposed to TMS really as I want them to find us organically over here!

It's a catch 22 situation but again, if you rely SO much on a 3rd party website you don't have ANY control over for your audience then you are sort of digging your own grave with it all

the other major, MAJOR issue with Facebook Groups is that NONE of them are indexed by Google and obviously none of the content is either mean people won't find it organically.

Obviously for this forum Facebook doesn't really affect it, like you said, you want the interaction on here. But for regular bloggers, a lot of their readers will see their posts via the newsfeed. Groups tend to be good for engagement as more people see the posts so click the links and engage in posts.

For businesses, especially the smaller ones, a lot of business will come via their Facebook page. One group I think who is going to be SERIOUS harmed by this is the direct sales/MLM group, they rely heavily upon their social media, especially Facebook. I mean, Younique built their party structure around using Facebook as the main selling platform.
 

Jon

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Obviously for this forum Facebook doesn't really affect it, like you said, you want the interaction on here. But for regular bloggers, a lot of their readers will see their posts via the newsfeed. Groups tend to be good for engagement as more people see the posts so click the links and engage in posts.

For businesses, especially the smaller ones, a lot of business will come via their Facebook page. One group I think who is going to be SERIOUS harmed by this is the direct sales/MLM group, they rely heavily upon their social media, especially Facebook. I mean, Younique built their party structure around using Facebook as the main selling platform.

omg I had not thought about this!

Need to go join some MLM facebook group and watch the meltdown in realtime!
 

Topaz

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Its going to be a pain from a compers point of view as well as the pages - instead of having all those lovely comps from my connections on my home page, I'm now going to have to hunt for them, which isn't good for me or them, as they won't be getting the traffic. I keep all of my friends and family in a separate list, so have to click to see their posts at the moment because they are hidden by all of the pages, but with the changes, I will have to reverse things.
They are also cracking down on people running competitions. Its always been against Facebook rules to ask for tags and shares in order to enter, but pages have been getting away with it. With the new rules, it will mean that comps can't get shared or friends tagged, which means even less traffic for the good people running the comps.
As I've always said - if it ain't broke, don't fix it!
 

Jon

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Its going to be a pain from a compers point of view as well as the pages - instead of having all those lovely comps from my connections on my home page, I'm now going to have to hunt for them, which isn't good for me or them, as they won't be getting the traffic. I keep all of my friends and family in a separate list, so have to click to see their posts at the moment because they are hidden by all of the pages, but with the changes, I will have to reverse things.
They are also cracking down on people running competitions. Its always been against Facebook rules to ask for tags and shares in order to enter, but pages have been getting away with it. With the new rules, it will mean that comps can't get shared or friends tagged, which means even less traffic for the good people running the comps.
As I've always said - if it ain't broke, don't fix it!

The thing is though it IS broke

FB started off as a social network
Now it's like 70% ads and 30% seeing pics from your friends.

It reminds me of the Yorkshire Evening Post online or Eastern Evening News websites which used to be all news and now is just endless ads and surveys.

Sometimes you have to remember what got you to the dance in the first place and it appears Mark Z has remembered that Facebook was all about users connecting with users not ads and fake news and becoming a hub for cesspit communities
 

Bow382

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Is that why I have been getting a lot of click bait posts and recommended pages that are interesting but not something I would follow or other wise notice?
Maybe it's time to question do we really need and want facebook. Mr zuckerberg or however you spell his name has earned alot of money from the public, and changed his approach from keeping people in contact and sharing fun things to
That's money bag smiles in case it doesn't show.
 

Chammy

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The thing is though it IS broke

FB started off as a social network
Now it's like 70% ads and 30% seeing pics from your friends.

It reminds me of the Yorkshire Evening Post online or Eastern Evening News websites which used to be all news and now is just endless ads and surveys.

Sometimes you have to remember what got you to the dance in the first place and it appears Mark Z has remembered that Facebook was all about users connecting with users not ads and fake news and becoming a hub for cesspit communities

Someone mentioned the other day that this could be down to the users just not wanting to post or comment anymore. Most people just scroll, hit like and/or share posts these days. Mostly funny things or recipes etc.

I know I post a lot less often on my personal page than I used to, now I just share stuff and it's because I can't be arsed.
 

Jon

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Someone mentioned the other day that this could be down to the users just not wanting to post or comment anymore. Most people just scroll, hit like and/or share posts these days. Mostly funny things or recipes etc.

I know I post a lot less often on my personal page than I used to, now I just share stuff and it's because I can't be arsed.

Interesting.

if views are up but engagement is down then you need to remove the barrier to engagement and I imagine that is the endless ads etc.
 

Topaz

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The if it ain't broke comment was more related to the frustration of Facebook changing things on a regular basis, rather than this specific subject - sorry for the misunderstanding.
I can understand Mr Z wanting to take Facebook back to its original form - a platform for people to keep in touch with friends and family. Facebook has grown and evolved into something completely different than its original purpose over the years, along with its users, so it will be interesting to see how this pans out. Hopefully there will be a way to keep everybody happy.
 
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Svendo42

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Interesting.
... need to remove the barrier to engagement ...

Is that more about us (certainly me) getting better at keeping our content easier to interact with? I find the majority of blog posts read like people are preaching to me and I think that's because we're told that we need to be authoritative for the content we publish so Google will rank us higher.
 
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Svendo42

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It's the people who make the site......

I think you're right, and I think it's the people in your network that makes the site valuable for you.

For some time I've viewed groups on sites like facebook and linkedin as a place to meet new 'friends'/connections with a view to adding them to your network and once in your network keeping that connection alive by good engagement. Takes a lot of effort though (i'm certainly no role model there)and maybe that's what separates those that are successful from those that aren't.
 

cazkins

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I don't know either, but I certainly won't be paying FB to supposedly "boost" my posts. They make enough money as it is, without being so sneaky. I think wait and see how it goes, and when the changes are made, still make posts and just assess what happens. We may find that they do use the second tab approach, and it'll actually becomes easier for people to differentiate types of content rather than result in less fan/group pages being read. I do agree with you @Chammy though on the whole MLM front (I have one contact who posts almost constantly about make-up and pictures of her face before/after the Younique magic, touting products to make you gorgeous because we're obviously all ugly and wretched to start with - that's the sort of stuff I'd be happy to not have to see so much! x
 

Jon

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Is that more about us (certainly me) getting better at keeping our content easier to interact with? I find the majority of blog posts read like people are preaching to me and I think that's because we're told that we need to be authoritative for the content we publish so Google will rank us higher.

It isn't that will result in higher google ranking it's being linked BACK to from other sites within your niche with a higher DA

Good content is good content and will always rank well but it doesn't matter if you write a preachy blog post or a personal one, if it's full of good quality content it will rank in Google ;)
 

katykicker

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For now I'm just going to continue publishing there, the same as I do, and work on growing my group there, and my readers to my blog of course.

Have to see what happens when the whole thing is rolled out.

IS there a date?
 

cazkins

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@katykicker Can't see any details on a date yet.
Surely we are capable of controlling what we want to see - unfollowing those groups/businesses etc we don't want to scroll through posts of. Plus, they've effectively been doing this for years anyway in terms of tweaking what we see on our newsfeeds, but this is just to the extreme. Facebook doesn't seem capable or too willing to sort out banning things that the majority think should be banned, they're too busy dictating what we see and how we use social media, banning posts that are (in many eyes) harmless, and finding new ways to charge users.
 
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katykicker

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@katykicker Can't see any details on a date yet.
Surely we are capable of controlling what we want to see - unfollowing those groups/businesses etc we don't want to scroll through posts of. Plus, they've effectively been doing this for years anyway in terms of tweaking what we see on our newsfeeds, but this is just to the extreme. Facebook doesn't seem capable or too willing to sort out banning things that the majority think should be banned, they're too busy dictating what we see and how we use social media, banning posts that are (in many eyes) harmless, and finding new ways to charge users.
Completely agree with this!
 
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The Reverend

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I think @Jon put it best....it will only affect those who have FB as their sole source of income AND are too small to get advertising revenue from FB themselves.

Bloggers who 'cross post' to FB wont really see much change, is my bet. As self-hosted bloggers our goal should be driving more hits/views/engagement on our own blogs, rather than FB.
 

Jon

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I think @Jon put it best....it will only affect those who have FB as their sole source of income AND are too small to get advertising revenue from FB themselves.

Bloggers who 'cross post' to FB wont really see much change, is my bet. As self-hosted bloggers our goal should be driving more hits/views/engagement on our own blogs, rather than FB.
Oh boy!

I could show you any number of 'influencers' who are 100% nearly on FB and that's it. They run their coupon groups or whatever alongside their coupon business page and that's where everything sits!
 
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