FACEBOOK OR FACE-CROOK??

Social media has been alive for some time, building experiences for brands, growing communities and helping friends and family stay in touch. However, there is also a new darkside emerging in the land of social.

FACEBOOK recently decided to change the way pages and people can interact with one another controlling what you see, how often you see it and forcing companies with fans on their pages to pay for engagement.

This means that there is a dramatic drop in organic engagement to what was once the FREE happy land of LIKES, COMMENTS AND SHARES.

Now with the new algorithm rolled out, you not only have to pay to talk to your own fans on your page (ie: Promoted Posts)  but you will also have to pay for adverts just to get more people to notice your page as well. (ie: Promoted Ads). 

In April 2014 FACEBOOK released a news update that advised they would block certain activities they deemed as "spamming" something they had been promising to do but never really got around to doing it - until now.

The new algorithm will stop "spamming posts" from showing in people's news feeds but  ultimately this also means that fans of your own page may not see your posts either depending on what you say and how you say it

https://newsroom.fb.com/news/2014/04/news-feed-fyi-cleaning-up-news-feed-spam/

We agree with FACEBOOK, spamming activity like this should be stopped however, services like these are what actually made social fun, and gave businesses a free - organic way of advertising to people via social word of mouth. 

This entire function is now changed into a PAY TO PLAY scenario whereby the more you pay the more people will see your posts, the more enagement your likely to get. 

So you would think that if you paid for ads you would get the reach you want right? Wrong, a recent indepth story released shows the good and bad of FACEBOOK ad features and how this is also flawed Facebook Fraud

By doing this FACEBOOK have decidedly given a strong message that they are in it for the money and nothing more. The social experience of the so called social network is now nothing more than a MEDIA COMPANY, RUNNING A PRINT ADD in a MAGAZINE with a few more bells and whistles added. 

We believe social media is a viable tool and you must have a presence plus content that drives high engagement. However now you will have to work even harder to get those fans, spend more money to make them engage and probably look to create a database whereby you can take them away from FACEBOOK altogether.

In our next story we will give you the 5x best tips to combat FACEBOOK'S CHANGES and how to make them work for you.

Write your comments below and share your views on FACEBOOK. We would love to hear your views #creativetalk