Well, Facebook has done it again…changed their algorithm and messed with marketing strategies. This time, it will be changed so you will see more of your friends’ posts and fewer posts from business pages that you follow. This may sound like a good thing, but let’s look at why it really isn’t…especially for small business owners.
Mark Zuckerberg has admitted that it will most likely cut down on the time people are spending on Facebook. That’s strike 1.
Strike 2 is that people will see much less in their news feed from Pages that they follow. This will dramatically impact small businesses who use Facebook as a source of marketing.
There is a work around so people can see your Facebook Business page first in their feed, but it’s very cumbersome and the individuals have to take some extra steps to make it happen…AND you can only choose 30 people or pages to show up first in your news feed…strike 3. When someone has only 30 “see first” slots, how likely are they to choose your page over their friends and family? Yeah, not so much, right? (The instructions are listed in this article, if you’d like to see the process.)
UPDATE: Facebook’s Learn More Page
Oh, why did Facebook make this decision? Most likely, money. They will be able to sell more “sponsored” stories and ads to show up in your news feed, since your business page updates probably won’t be showing up for free. This is the very type of thing that I have been saying for years; read my post Facebook Fallacy.