Beginning in mid-January 2015, Facebook is warning companies
with fan pages that the social
network will intensify its efforts to filter out unpaid promotional material in
user news feeds that businesses have posted as status updates. This will
hurt small businesses and entrepreneurs who currently use Facebook as a tool
for free advertising. If these companies don’t pay to promote their posts, then
hardly anyone will see the posts. In a recent WSJ article, one entrepreneur Chrisy
Bossie estimates that nearly half of her $100K in annual sales comes from free
Facebook posts. Well, that’s about to change.
Over 80% of
small companies using social media to promote their businesses cited Facebook
as their top marketing tool – followed by LinkedIn and Twitter. The top three
reasons owners listed for creating a Facebook page were:
- Customer acquisition
- Building a network of followers
- Increasing brand awareness
These stats come from a recent survey of 2,292 small businesses by
Webs, a digital services division of Vistaprint.
Facebook’s
VP of Small Business, Dan Levy, says that Facebook’s
paid-advertising options have become more effective recently. He believes that small
businesses should view Facebook as a tool to “help them grow their businesses,
not a niche social solution to getting more reach or to make a post go viral.”
He says he has “a lot of empathy” for businesses who “are feeling this
evolution” in the reduction of organic reach. However, he
says that there are many other reasons why small businesses benefit from being
on Facebook – given that last month there were over 1 billion (yes, billion)
visits to Facebook pages.
Back in the old days,
businesses used to own their audience through email or other in-house marketing
channels, or through other traditional advertising channels like newspapers and
TV. However, the moves of Facebook and the like are attempting a third model:
renting an audience. This is where businesses can build a community but never
actually own an audience on their platform.
I don’t think many small
businesses will be happy about this, but what choice do they really have? They
either need to pay to stay in the game, or figure out something else.
