interesting article on the Wall Street Journal website today:
I have yet to venture into Facebook personally, but now it looks like it will be more difficult to try and "sell" via facebook.
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Wow, missed the article before it went behind the paywall, but all very interesting comments here (and thanks to Scott Fox for the excerpt and summary).
This is yet another development that is making me feel like fleeing Facebook. My view is that FB is an extremely mixed blessing, if it's a blessing at all, and I don't even feel I'm getting any real benefit from my business page. While their rush to monetize is not a surprise, it's gotten so much more intrusive and annoying in recent years (tied, I'm sure, to going public).
Anyway, I considered opening a Shopify account last year but after some research decided against it. This makes me glad I did.
Yes, this is another step toward Facebook monetizing its users, and a negative one for entrepreneurs.
For those who missed the WSJ article before it went behind their paywall, here's a good excerpt that was posted in my MasterMinds entrepreneur coaching forum:
"But small-business owners like Ms. Bossie will soon get less benefit from the unpaid marketing pitches they post on Facebook. That’s because, as of mid-January, the social network will intensify its efforts to filter out unpaid promotional material in user news feeds that businesses have posted as status updates.
The change will make it more difficult for entrepreneurs like Ms. Bossie, the founder of four-year-old Earthegy, to reach fans of their Facebook pages with marketing posts that aren’t paid advertising.
Businesses that post free marketing pitches or reuse content from existing ads will suffer “a significant decrease in distribution,” Facebook warned in a post earlier this month announcing the coming change."
As the article also says: “If you’re not paying for it now, no one’s going to see it.”
I think that sums up Facebook's approach these days.
As someone smart said elsewhere: "If it's free then you're not the customer, you're the product." That's Facebook's POV on small businesses who have built audiences on their platform.
They've been gradually filtering (aka reducing) how many of your own "friends" and contacts see your posts on the service, now they are going to step it up even more.
We've all seen this evolution on Facebook in recent years. It's a real shame for small business owners to lose the incredible free marketing channel that Facebook invited them all in to use when it got started.
In fact, I had to double check the date on the article because it felt to me like they started this already at least a year ago.
I felt for a long time that this approach would hurt Facebook.
Unfortunately since they went public their stock has done really well, so I don't see them changing their tune.
As the article discusses, more small businesses are getting used to paying them. And 1 "small or medium" business spends more money than 5 or 10 solopreneur businesses.
So (with Wall Street's encouragement), I think Facebook is going to continue this trend and gradually squeeze out completely the small entrepreneurs and online marketers who helped it get established in the first place.
That's their right as a for profit corporation but I think it's short sighted and disingenuous after years of encouraging people to build up their business presence on the service.
Bummer.
Best,
Scott
http://www.ClickMillionaires.com
You hit it when you said they went public. Now the management must answer to the new owners of the company. Shareholders. And shareholders are not on Wall Street, they're all over the world. Wall Street is really nothing more than the processing center.
So if Facebook now isn't as profitable as the new owners want it to be, they either sell their shares or fire the management.
So Ms Bossie was getting free advertising, a form of getting something for nothing. And I guess all good things must come to an end.
This was very interesting, Tina...I was thinking about starting a Facebook page to try and reach a broader audience for my hats, handbags, etc. but now I notice they're advertising something called Shopify on Facebook. It starts at $9 a month, apparently, and I've thought about looking into it but my son (and internet guru) says he can find a venue that's less expensive than that, like a free website or something I guess. Has anyone else had experience with Shopify? Is this what Facebook is pushing us towards?
I looked into Shopify and ultimately decided against it. It's not a bad deal at all, just feels too much like giving more money and more power to Facebook . . . with no evidence that it would actually increase my exposure. Now that I've read this thread, I'm glad I didn't. Seems like they will happily collect the fees but only really work on behalf of those who pay extra promotional charges.
I have had a 'business page' on Facebook for some time now, and while I can't say it's doing all that much for me, it still seems like a sort of necessity, a way for people to interact casually with you. But can't say it is getting found all that much.
Shopify is actually an e-commerce platform for your website. Recently, Shopify and Facebook have teamed up to allow people on Facebook to buy products without leaving the Facebook site. This is good for Facebook for two reasons: it maximizes the amount of time people spend on Facebook itself (and see advertisements), and it's also an alternate revenue source. I wouldn't say that Facebook is pushing us towards using Shopify, though: Facebook's main goal is to charge you advertising fees if you want to reach everyone who's "liked" your page.
I suspect that your son is offering to set up an e-commerce website for you using something like Woocommerce. If he's willing to do that for you, it's a pretty good option (I design Woocommerce sites for clients), but there are a lot of moving parts in the back end, and it can be confusing if you don't know what you're doing. While I haven't actually used Shopify, my impression is that it's a lot easier to use, because you don't have to separately set up things like payment gateways (Paypal); Shopify takes care of that for you. The maintenance fees from Shopify are more expensive than DIY'ing it with Woocommerce, but you're less likely to have to hire someone like me to fix problems if you go the Shopify route.
So it really depends how much work your son/internet guru is willing to take on. ;)
What are these "new Rules"? Where are they spelled out? I'm not about to think the sky is falling until I see what they are, and so far all I have seen is "New Rules". They are not spelled out in the link, just a sad sack story about how this gal's business will be impacted.
I believe she’s referring to the new Facebook algorithm that limits the number of followers that will see your posts. In order for your posts to reach more of the people that follow your page you will now need to pay or as Facebook calls it “boost” your post.
It depends on the size of your following, as well. I've seen claims that only 2% of your following sees any given post; Facebook itself claims it's about 16%. I run a couple small business Facebook pages (under 500 followers), and we find that our reach for posts is regularly 30-150% of our following. Has been as high as 600%.
I do boost our posts occasionally for time-sensitive information like events and sales, but I find that our reach is pretty good on most of our posts. We keep it light, informative, and entertaining, which Facebook's algorithms seem to like.