Why You Should Forget Facebook

Has Facebook got you fooled?

Are you chasing likes for your brand page? Paying for fans? Maybe it’s time to stop.

In 2008 I joined Facebook. It was the first social media network I decided to place a stake in as my online social media home. It was fun, frivolous and free. Everyone was discovering the power of multimedia sharing of their life with friends and family. Facebook obsession was apparent and addictive. It was the new digital drug of choice and 6 years later it is the world’s largest social media playground.

What made Facebook cool was that you saw “all” your friends updates. It was hard to miss a “what I had for breakfast” share and see the latest drama and joy in a friends life.

What you shared appeared.

The Facebook “liking” frenzy

The success of personal Facebook profiles opened up the idea of Facebook for brands. So Facebook “pages” were launched! It was the start of Facebook becoming serious about monetising its business. Brands piled in and started to build their profiles on the big social network. Chasing fan “likes” became the new shiny marketing toy and tactic.

A big list of fans drove traffic and brand awareness for free. It is called “earned” marketing. For this blog it became the second biggest social media traffic source behind Twitter.

Then something changed.

Facebook decided to filter your updates

In 2013 Facebook floated. It became a public company and the shareholders demanded a return. The pressure was on. It had to make money from its advertising. It started to become pay to play. Facebook is deciding what updates you see and don’t see. It’s called a “News Feed algorithm”. It extends to Facebook pages and personal profiles.

Facebook is pushing you to advertise. To promote your post is now just a couple of clicks. Easy but it costs. One of the motivators to use Facebook as a page is now almost zero.Is there any point to chasing likes except for “social proof”. Some research is showing that only 4% or less of people are seeing your page updates in their newsfeeds when you post on Facebook. Here is some research from the 4129 agency on ZDnet.com showing the decline in just 12 months from 2012 to 2013.

It appears that in 2014 that organic reach is still in freefall. Zero is maybe not an unrealistic expectation. Is that possible? Jason Loehr, director of global media and digital marketing at Brown-Forman which owns the brands Jack Daniels and Southern Comfort thinks so.

The Ignite Social Media agency did an analysis in December 2013 and saw a 44% drop in brands organic reach in just 12 days.

Are big brands ignoring Facebook?

Beyonce announced her new album launch on Instagram not Facebook. This is despite having over 60 million fans on Facebook and only 8 million Instagram followers on Instagram. Maybe the advice by her digital agency was that it would receive more organic reach and visibility than Facebook.

This big drop in organic reach is making brands such as Jack Daniels and Southern Comfort concentrating more on their “owned” channels such as websites, blogs and email.

Some companies such as Charity Engine are quitting Facebook. Is the age of free social media traffic from building fans and followers over?

Facebook is a leased digital property. You’re at their mercy and their aggressively tweaked news feed algorithm.

So what can you do?

There are two key strategies that you can pursue.

Roll with the Facebook changes and adapt. This means tactics such as running more Facebook competitions and posting more news updates. The Steamfeed blog has a good list of tactics worth checking out.

Shift your focus from Facebook marketing reliance. Invest in building your owned online assets such as websites, blogs and email lists. Pursue an integrated digital marketing strategy!

So if you are a blogger or marketer that doesn't have a big brand budget and you want to earn your traffic by persistent effort, engagement and creating content then you do have some other options. So you may have