ATTENTION ANYBODY WHO DEPENDS ON FACEBOOK TO DO BUSINESS.
As I’m sure you’ve seen Facebook is now offering promoted posts. This means that about 10% of posts from professional pages will be seen by fans unless the page owner ponies up the dough. This or the user has to add the page to their interest list (which we all know won’t happen by 90% of people who already “like” a page). Facebook didn’t change their algorhythm. In fact only about 11% of users saw posts from most professional pages anyway. What this did do is scare marketers into thinking they will no longer be noticed.
So what does this tell us? Like they’ve shown time and time again Facebook will change. Is anybody really surprised that they need to make money?
If you depend on software to get your message across you will get screwed. Trying to learn the best way to optimize a Facebook page is a frivolous activity (remember groups?). No research can tell you how to use a page best. If they do run as fast as you can. Stop spending your hard earned money and time attempting to game the system and please stop following guru’s who charge you money to tell you to post pictures on your companies Facebook wall. I get it pictures have better “viral” appeal and have stronger EdgeRank scores. You can do better than that.
WHAT YOU CAN DO?
Learn why people use Facebook. Understand the psychology behind why people share information. Facebook’s platform is mostly closed off to developers and changes so often that research cannot show where to put the buttons on a specific page. Even if it could you probably don’t have developer access to follow the advice.
Relying on a proprietary platform to communicate has never been a good idea. Why put your companies future in the hands of somebody or something you cannot control AND has shown a propensity to change radically without notice?
Instead focus on the psychology of why people use social media. That’s what Viralnomics is about. It is about the end user. I’m not interested in writing a book that will be out of date before it’s finished.
Understand that people have their lives on these sites. The largest reason that Facebook is still around and that Google+ hasn’t taken over is Metcalfe’s Law (the power of a network is directly proportional to the square of the number of nodes on that network). People care deeply how they are perceived within the trust circle that comprises their social network online. They want to be seen in a favorable light — intelligent, attractive, and funny.
Give them an opportunity to represent to their trust circle that they are one of these things and they will share your material. You don’t need trickery and you don’t need the “next best thing” (which is probably no better than the last best thing). The easy and lazy way is to attempt to game the system.
Do this and you will stay in front of the competition. Because while they are trying to figure out the “next best thing” you are focusing on what’s really important, message transduction.
So yeah, if you “like” the Personal Trainer Development Center and Viralnomics add them to your interests list. I guess that’s what I’m supposed to ask you to do this week right? Next week I’ll be back with more updates and requests in an attempt to keep up.
It’s getting harder and harder for lazy Facebook marketers to get heard. I’m in no way upset about this.
Will Facebook ‘groups’ be affected by this new Facebook promotion change as a means of sharing information to your group circle/follower network?
Hey Scott. To be clear nothing has actually changed in terms of Facebook’s algorithm. The only thing that’s changed is that now give you an option to pay for more views. They never took the views away in the first place, it’s just how it was.
No idea how groups work. I’ve never had a need to use them and usually ignore when I get added to one without being asked.
“algorithm” (first paragraph) instead of “algorhythm.”