Do you want to know the most ridiculous reason why we’re all still on Facebook?
Because everybody else hang out there…
I know… It sounds silly but that’s the truth. Facebook with its 1,3 Billion active users crashes the competition. It’s the biggest, the baddest, the maddest, the spammiest and… least understood social platform from all. And I’m not sure if it’s still “social” enough to be considered as a one of social media channels.
And yes, I know, you can say that one out of every 5 page views is on Facebook. We all know what it is and what it does. It changed our culture more than the radio and television combined. But it didn’t happen without mistakes being made.
Facebook guys made another one recently. They tried to kill two birds with one stone. And this is where the whole tirade about EdgeRank begins.
EdgeRank addressed one major problem → huge numbers were making Facebook fail to deliver a great content. At one point Facebook became a noisy social world with spam hitting in its walls. It was very unlikely to see a good content, if any.
So the Facebook guys figured out a way to de-clutter our social space making it available for a great content that we enjoy. They’ve come up with an algorithm that filters everything that show up on our NewsFeed right before we can actually see it. If you’re not familiar with Edgerank, here’s the short explanation:
The more engagement a user has with a piece of content, the stronger Edgerank knows that user’s interest will be in similar stuff. It makes sure that you get news from sources that you liked and engaged with.
Sounds great?… Here’s where the problem begins:
Edgerank turns something that was meant to be social-human into mathematics. Facebook turned community management into science. And science is not about people, it’s about numbers. It’s about what works. It’s about how many likes or shares can we get.
During this process we forget about one major, most important aspect of marketing → bringing value to customers, to other people in general. And this is where Facebook is failing miserably. It’s not about great content any more. It’s about what gets more likes and shares. And that doesn’t always guarantee a valuable content.
You could post a picture of your cat and still get likes and if it’s funny even some shares. Would it bring any value to your audience? No. Would you normally considered it as a spam? Of course, you would. And Edgerank would have favourited this kind of content over the more valuable one. Because it would get likes and shares. It’s a complete nonsense…
Is Facebook still a Social Media platform?
People are furious over the organic reach being lowered down by Facebook guys but that’s not really the main problem here. Don’t fool yourself into thinking that marketing on Facebook should be free. Facebook let us play in their backyard for a couple of years, completely free of charge. Now, they want something back, just a small amount for the reach they can give you. We shouldn’t complain so much, and we don’t really have a big choice here.
But I think this is the perfect moment to make this very important distinction that will change the way we think about Facebook:
the moment Facebook decided to turn community management into mathematics, make the organic reach close to zero and set to eliminate sponsored stories in April, was the exact moment they made a transition from Social Media into Media.
Facebook is not a Social Media company anymore. It’s a media company, and it’s becoming very similar to television. The question is simple: do you like television and the way they distribute content?
With sponsored stories being taken off in April, they made it clear what their goals are.
I recently asked one of my clients: what’s the main reason for you to be on Facebook? It didn’t take him a lot of time to whisper back: isn’t it what everybody else do?
My only hope is that you and your brand are not on Facebook just because everybody else hangout there. If that was the only strategy that you have, I wouldn’t predict a great marketing future for your brand. I hope you understand everything about Facebook, how it really works and what’s the potential.
With Facebook you have to stay vigilant, as the changes to algorithm are being made on a daily basis and if you’re not familiar with them, it may cost your business a lot.
I hope you found some value in this article. If you did, it would mean the world to me for you to scroll down and hit that recommend or tweet button!
