Facebook Big Brands Suffer
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A new study by Simply Measured found that Facebook brand engagement has taken a big plunge. (Simply Measured has since taken the study off their website, but plenty of news outlets have reported on the surprising findings). According to a CNBC article by Matt Hunter, “between May 2013 and last month, the top 10 brands on the social network saw engagement plunge by an average of 40 percent.” Disney and Starbucks suffered while MTV and Harley-Davidson were the ones doing well. Despite these findings, all of the top 10 brands are generating more posts than ever to reach their audience, according to Hunter.
So why are most of these companies suffering? Brands and agencies were once told that gaining likes and followers was the key to effective marketing. They spent years doing just that and thinking they would be able to access the audience they generated for free, according to a Digiday article by John McDermott. Now they have to pay to reach the audience they already had.
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Facebook did admit it would be “limiting the organic reach of many companies’ advertising efforts,” Hunter says. CNBC reported on this back in March 2014 and explained that the social media giant wanted to slash organic page reach down to 1 or 2 percent. In other words, a company with 1 million likes on a post will now only be able to reach somewhere between 10,000 to 20,000 followers. But why? Facebook can now charge if company wants to increase their usual reach, a tactic that is now hurting brands.
Facebook Explains
Facebook spokesperson Brian Boland answered questions on Facebook organic reach in a June 5 . Boland leads the Ads Product Marketing team at Facebook. Boland denies that Facebook is trying to make money off of the organic reach decrease and says other large marketing platforms are dealing with the same thing. He says it’s happening naturally and defines organic reach as the amount of people you can reach for free on Facebook by posting to your business Page. Boland says it’s declining, because more and more people are producing and sharing content, which creates more News Feed competition. Organic content still has value but not in the way business owners may think.
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“Having a piece of content ‘go viral’ rarely corresponds to a business’s core goals. Your business will see much greater value if you use Facebook to achieve specific business objectives, like driving in-store sales or boosting app downloads,” Boland says.
Facebook has made changes to how the News Feed works, including cleaning up spam and showing more high-quality content.
“To choose which stories to show, News Feed ranks each possible story (from more to less important) by looking at thousands of factors relative to each person,” Boland explains.
Fans are also liking more pages overall. Boland says that fans still have value, even if there are less of them. They make ads more effective and help spread the word to friends. Fans also give your business credibility. Boland says there is a number of both small and large businesses doing well. Check out his examples in the post.
Facebook Isn’t Going Anywhere
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Despite this downturn, many think Facebook really isn’t in trouble, and opposing views say Facebook is definitely here to stay. Can you really imagine the website you’ve known and loved for 10 plus years going away forever? Mashable’s Seth Fiegerman says there were about 166 million registered American Facebook users in October 2013, a little more than half the total number of people living in the U.S.
Fiegerman says he and many others joined the social network back in 2004 because he thought it was a “cool” thing to do. Now, it’s a necessity. A Mashable article by Fiegerman says Facebook is actually surprisingly similar to a credit card. Most people have both, it’s difficult to live without it and can make your life very challenging. Here are some good points he makes:
- Without a credit card, your financial and social matters can suffer, and not having a Facebook also brings about the same social challenges.
- Both credit cards and Facebook can make you act frivolously or careless. For example with a credit card, you might spend money that you don’t have, and on Facebook you might share personal information and status updates with strangers.
- Facebook is also a form of currency. You need it to connect and join other websites and apps.
- Not having a credit card can hurt your credit and prevent you from being considered for big purchases like a car. Not having a Facebook can hurt your chances of getting a job or connecting with a potential new roommate.
“There will always be those who abstain from Facebook just as there are still people who abstain from having bank accounts and credit cards,” Fiergerman says. “But over time, the drawbacks will likely outweigh the benefits of staying off the social network.”
We’ll be monitoring Facebook to watch out for any more changes. In the meantime, how do you feel? Do you think Facebook is a good way for brands to advertise? Leave us a comment below or discuss with us on social media.