If you are administering a Facebook Page you probably already have experienced that its getting tougher to get an impressive reach and interaction on your posts. There´s many reasons for this but the ground rule is; Facebook don´t want everyone to see your post – its in their business model. Facebook is continuously doing A-B tests. With the large amount of global users (1,19 billion) they can really see what works or not. If you been on Facebook for a while you have probably also experienced that Facebook are tweaking the platform over and over again. But have you ever put any thought to that with the magic question why?
The answer to that is actually really simple and reasonable: Facebook wants us to spend more time on their social platform. We are already spending over 30 minutes each every single day. Only that number by itself is impressive. At first it seems a little innocent but its the foundation to their business modell. Combining the two facts that Facebook want us to spend more time on the platform and that we don´t see everything it becomes quiet clear. Facebook needs to earn money being introduced to the stock exchange and everything.
The algorithm EdgeRank is thightning up
We expect organic distribution of an individual page’s posts to gradually decline over time as we continually work to make sure people have a meaningful experience on the site.
This quote is from a sales deck obtained by Ad Age that was sent out to partners last month
We all have two thing in common being a business, organisation, marketeer or small private firm having a Facebook Page: We want our message to spread and we want to interact with our fans. The only problem with a growing market is that the rat race is leveling up. More people, more Business Pages and more posts.
The noise is increasing while the algoritm EdgeRank is getting a harder nut to beat. The latest released number of the time we spent solidly in the newsfeed is from 2012 and it was 40 percent. Now almost entering 2014 I would guess that the number is at least above 50 percent Especially since the new desktop look on Facebook is rolling out globally. Its been doing that for months now and it resembles the mobile look to capture users even more into the newsfeed.
Everyone I asked have experienced a larger number of ads in their newsfeed and its not strange since this is how Page admins get their word out. All this is the foundation why I think 2014 will be the year of the Facebook Ad. Sure its a cheap and measurable way of spreading your word with more accuracy than many other medias but its a dirty trick for Facebook to start earning money. Payed retargeting is something Facebook are testing as we speak. Lets see what the future will bring. What do you think?
