Social media services are a big part of any modern marketing strategy, and Facebook is the biggest of these by far.  Many businesses jumped early and with both feet on Facebook, often marketing their Facebook page and URL even more than their own website.  We have always stressed a more balanced approach, and the ongoing changes to Facebook policy show just how crucial it is to stay in control of your online presence.

The most valuable aspect of a Facebook presence for a business has been a communications channel to customers that they listen to.  The Facebook news feed receives more attention than an email inbox for many people, especially in younger demographics, and a message in a news feed tends to be read and not ignored, where many email marketing messages will be skipped just based on the sender and subject, with the contents never having been seen.

When someone "Likes" your facebook business page (which many businesses have put a lot of energy into encouraging), your business gains permission from that person to take some of their attention.  This is the most important aspect of any communication: that your recipient receives the message and is not bothered because they consider the message something that they want.  With Facebook Pages, this used to be a simple proposition: someone likes your Page, and then whenever you post an announcement or a promotion, Facebook becomes a communication channel and these customers happily see your updates mixed in with updates from their friends.  It is not an intrusion or junk, because they have specifically sought you out and engaged you first, and are interested in your marketing message.

That recently changed, when Facebook decided to close this communication channel most of the way and make you pay to open it again, which we at RunYourWebsite consider a bad decision for business, and a strong warning sign not to rely too much on Facebook or any other specific social platform for your marketing strategy.  While once you could reach all of your followers in an instant, now only a fraction will get your messages.  The specifics vary based on a number of factors, but for Pages with larger numbers of followers the estimate is 16% will see your message for free.  If you want to reach more than that, you have to pay Facebook.  Currently the cost is from $5 to $300 per post, but all of these specifics are completely up to Facebook, and are likely to change more over time.

We consider this change a bad deal for businesses of course, but also a bad deal for Facebook users.  When I clicked "Like" on Joe's Pizzeria, I did so with the understanding that Joe was going to post his specials, but also probably offer his core fans like me special offers and promotions from time to time, and I wanted these and was interested in these.  Now when he posts his next deal, I probably won't see it, and Facebook has closed that communications channel (unless Joe pays to reopen it), hurting Joe and hurting me.

So while we encourage our clients to continue to have a Facebook Page, and to continue to use Facebook among other communciation channels to reach your customers, we caution you not to become too dependent on any one service, and to make sure YOU are in charge of your web presence, something we always place importance on as our name RunYourWebsite implies.  We hope this message reaches you, but since we are posting it but not paying to promote it on Facebook, some of our clients who "Like" us, may never see it, and that hurts our business, our clients, and in the long run Facebook.