The sad truth about Facebook Fans

Once upon a time … Facebook Fans

A long time ago on a social platform, that you still use, there was a benefit to gaining fans for your Facebook page. Over the years Facebook changed their algorithms and a page like became as irrelevant as a post like. Don’t get me wrong a page like is still an endorsement from a Facebook user, someone liked your page and that’s awesome but in terms of actual share of voice on the platform, your business page has bee silenced.

I speak from experience when I say this: “If you value your business get direct contact with your potential client in any way you can.” Facebook is not the only one trying to stand in the way of you and your client in any way they can, Gmail does it also, by filtering your emails into the folder of their choice (updates, promotions, etc) so you need to have more than just email if at all possible.

If you run an ad campaign on Facebook don’t make your focus fan count unless you are fully aware that it is strictly a credibility play. Yes as I said, a Like is a form of endorsement from existing and potential clients and people considering your brand will take a step back if you have a low fan count.

Facebook’s vision for 2017 and beyond is connecting people in new and innovative ways and right now Groups are the way to go, if you are in groups you will notice that your main Facebook feed heavily features content from Groups you are a part of the organic reach of groups is nearly 10 to 1 compared to that of a business page. This change dilutes the power of your Facebook Fan Count, I have tested posts in Groups and Facebook pages and the number of views differ immensely. To put things in perspective I run over 30 Facebook pages either my own or for clients and I am also involved in a number of large groups on Facebook. In total, I have access to over 2.5 Million Facebook fans tied to my or my client’s pages.

The truth is that if you own a business and want to market organically on Facebook the only effective way at the moment is either through groups or direct chat, you will notice that Facebook has also started monetizing the Facebook Messenger platform by allowing advertisers to directly target your inbox so even there the message is getting slowly diluted. Understandably Facebook wants business to pay to play on their platform. The cycle will clearly do the same with groups and Instagram (which is a Facebook platform). Especially as a long-term investment, your goal has to be a little broader than just FAN COUNT or INSTA followers, you need to look at brand recognition and loyalty as the more accurate measure of success.

Like the ads of the past (newspapers, magazines, TV) Facebook has quickly become a place where you don’t build a community but rather get access to one by paying for ads. There is nothing wrong with paying for ads and Facebook has some of the best targeting options available allowing you to laser focus your ads and get the best return on your marketing investment.

To get to the core point of what I am telling you … things have changed and as a business owner, you can no longer think of Facebook as a place where you build a loyal following in which your fans become subscribed to your page by hitting like, you build a fan base and send out content to them that way; it just doesn’t work that way anymore.

Now your job is getting that fan closer to home, you need direct access to your clients and you need to make sure that your communications with them bring value to them. I hope this article makes you think a little about ways in which you can build and protect that direct relationship to your customer base.