For the last two weeks, I have noticed how sharply the organic reach on all my Facebook Fan Pages has dropped in an extremely relevant way. Only yesterday I was doing my rounds on the internet and there was this article from AdAge where Facebook openly states that fan page owners should expect their organic reach to continue to decline over time… and (long story short) that the best way to get your stuff seen is to pay for reach. In case you were wondering what organic reach is:
Organic reach: The number of unique people who saw your post in News Feed or on your Page, including people who saw it from a story shared by a friend when they liked, commented on or shared your post, answered a question or responded to an event
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Now, Facebook is a renowned company and how they decide to run things is there business but if you rely a lot on the lead generations from your Facebook Page then this particular update is going to cause some damage. I want to prepare you for that.
I am sure you often share and post a lot of great content that costs you nothing. Also, your fans like and engage with your page because they like this content. However, Facebook wants us to pay to reach our fans. The way I see it, Its 100% acceptable if am selling something but when am just giving away valuable and interesting content? Nope, It makes no financial sense and its all too ironic.
And since it doesn’t make financial sense to promote content you give away, this means your fans won’t receive the content they want (as demonstrated by them liking your page). They’ll only see what you pay to promote and you’ll only pay to promote sales pitches. This bad for you and your fans. See this screenshot.
Don’t get it twisted: *Boost* means to Pay to promote the post.
Another Huge Problem: Your Facebook fans don’t know this…
When people like your page, they don’t realize what goes on behind the scenes. They might like your page because they want to share music, jokes, recipes, fitness tips, or whatever it is that you do. They don’t realize that Facebook wants you to pay Facebook to give them the content they want.
So, what can you do? … And this is just what i think is totally ok.
How to tell your fans
Don’t complain about Facebook and their changes. It’s Facebook and they’re allowed to do what they want, when they want.
But you should let your fans know what’s happening, and then invite those fans to sign up for your email list.
Because if they don’t hop on your email list, the only time you’ll pay to reach them is when you’re selling something.
And they’ll only see sales pitches… not content.
You can say something like this:
“According to AdAge, Facebook said, “We expect organic distribution of an individual page’s posts to gradually decline over time…” And a Facebook spokesperson said, “the best way to get your stuff seen if you’re a business is to pay for it.”
This means you may not receive much of my content anymore via the Facebook page because it doesn’t make sense for me to pay Facebook to send you blah blah blah (jokes, tips or whatever)
So, if you’d like to BE SURE you don’t miss out on all the great content we offer, you should hop on our email list.”
And then you should link to an optin page, say to your website. You should probably create a website too so you can have ultimate control.
Easy as taking candy from a baby, no?
Email maybe your other option
If you’re not building an email list, you’re an idiot.
I know that’s harsh, but when companies can destroy your entire business in one fell swoop, you should rely on things you can control.
And you can control your email database.
Also – if you know anyone who runs a Facebook page, share a link to this post with them. So they can update their fans as well.
Editor’s Note: This is a guest post from Collins Rukundo
Image via Facebook for business
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