It’s no secret that I’ve had a downer on Facebook since the floatation back in 2012 and in fact published this in March 2012 where I suggested that it was overhyped and overvalued. My pessimism had nothing to do with them making money but more to do with the likely direction the company would take. I even suggested that “there’s a problem with Facebook’s advertising. Users of the site may think the current targeted ads are a nuisance, but the floatation could pressure Facebook into making them more prominent… and even more annoying!”
As we all now know Facebook has in fact gone down the road of introducing more advertising, essentially on the premise that they can micro-target audiences so you can reach just the people you want to. They are also pushing hard their ‘promote your post’ offering which promises to show your content to more people.
Sadly however it rather misses the fact that if you have spent years building up a decent following on Facebook these are already the people who want to follow you and find out what you are doing.
Now our following is a modest figure, under 100, which for a small SEO firm in Runcorn isn’t bad but more importantly it’s people who have shown an interest in what we are doing; they want to find out about what we are up to and what we are saying. Facebook, however, has other ideas. Now, unless you pay them to promote your posts then the chances are they won’t be seen at all.
The image below is a screenshot from our back end and it makes interesting viewing. Not only is it false (I tried this by asking people if they had seen the posts on my personal Facebook profile – turns out they had) but it also leads a more naive small business owner to believe that the only way to get your posts seen is to pay Facebook to promote them.
Facebook tell you no one saw your posts as they have choked them off, but is this true???
The obvious question now is ‘why bother?’
The truth is, I don’t. Sure this is going out on Facebook but it’s also going automatically to Twitter and a range of other social channels courtesy of some nifty back-end software. Whilst I’d like it to be seen by people on Facebook I’m frankly not bothered.
You see what I am doing is adding this to OUR site which therefore becomes the original source of this material. Original source and original material. Which is of course what Google says they are looking for. As I’m also tagged as the author of this post it adds to my author credentials as well.
So, Facebook want businesses to abandon building a website and to just have a Facebook page (see my earlier article here for details) and Google are looking for you to have a website and fill it with original content.
Facebook or Google? It seems like they could be heading for a fight and it’s one for which I’d pay for a ringside seat.
