Three years ago, Facebook had just half the number of active users compared with today. Not only that, but each of those users has been contributing much more than they used to, resulting in an exponential growth in content that is visible on this social network.
Inevitably this means that you need to produce even more content to become visible on Facebook, adding to the never-ending spiral of mass content production in the hope that your business will be glimpsed.
However, Facebook operates using an algorithm that determines the strength of the relationship between people. It means that the “cream rises to the top” – in other words material about close relationships gets put higher up the visitor’s timeline than content from people or businesses where the connection is weaker. But the amount of material now being produced by close contacts means that the information being put onto Facebook by businesses is getting lower and lower down the page. The result is that increasingly it is being missed.
Indeed, Facebook has now admitted that for businesses to be seen on Facebook they are really going to have to pay. Unless you advertise or sponsor posts as a business you are less likely to be seen because your good content is drowning below the surface of all the material that people relate to more closely.
Of course, Facebook has a vested interest in making us think that there is no hope for us to be found easily because of the ocean of content and that we’ll simply have to pay them. After all, they are busy trying to increase income in order to impress their Wall Street investors.
Yet there is an element of truth in what they say. Business items on Facebook are being squeezed out. Unless a customer has a deep and lasting relationship with a business then that company’s content is less visible now than it was just three years ago.
Adding content to Facebook does have its value, of course. Facebook can raise psychological awareness of a business, even with no real engagement in the content. Indeed, research shows that engagement with business content on Facebook is at a lower level than direct snail mail.
What this all tells us is one thing. Using Facebook as a promotional tool is as good as worthless. But using Facebook as a relationship tool is another matter. Increasing those ties to your customers will mean that your content will be part of that cream rising to the top and that this will boost psychological awareness, even if they do not read your posts. And that means you won’t have to pay Facebook to advertise. Nice try Facebook; in your attempt to increase your income you have helped people focus on what they really need to do to avoid that happening. Whoops…!
2 thoughts on “Facebook could be outliving its usefulness for business”
I have to say when it comes to my opinion about the place for advertising business, Facebook is not the first form of social media that automatically springs to mind. I actually very recently recommended to a relative of mine that they use LinkedIn to advertise their business and referred to is as a ‘Facebook for professionals’. I, for one, very sporadically use Facebook and when I do it is to post updates about my children etc. so would never consider consulting this site for business purposes but then this is just my humble opinion!
I personally only use facebook for the easiest way to keep in touch with family and friends. I ignore all the ads, like informative pages on topics that interest me. It has also created a way for community members to buy, sell, post classifieds for that area absolutely free. My husband ran a small business and the Facebook page was intended for customers in the local area to get updates.
Comments are closed.