It’s been slowly decreasing for a while now. Long Island Marketing Agency; CGT Marketing reported on it in their December post, “Facebook Tweak Means Less Traffic For Brand Pages”. And now it’s at the lowest ever: organic reach on Facebook brand pages.
Last week several sources reported that only 1-2 percent of Facebook fans will see posts from brand pages they like. As ValleyWag puts it: “Facebook pulled the best practical joke of the internet age: the company convinced countless celebrities, bands, and ‘brands’ that its service was the best way to reach people with eyeballs and money… now that companies have taken the bait, Facebook is holding the whole operation hostage.”
From a business perspective, it’s pretty genius. Facebook has spent the past 10 years creating a product that no brand can live without, in the online space. Facebook is ubiquitous. And after creating the demand, they’ve made it impossible for their service to be effective without brands shelling out cash at every turn.
However, from the perspective of the social media marketer, it’s devastating. Take a look at your own Facebook page. How many likes do you have? 500? 1,000? If you’ve got 500, only 5-10 of them will organically see each link, photo or video you post. It’s a pretty depressing, low number, considering the work it took to get those fans in the first place.
Of course, Facebook has a solution to get your posts visible to more than 1 or 2 percent of your fans: money. You can pay $5, $10, $20, or any amount of money, to increase the reach of your Facebook posts. Of course, the more you pay, the farther reach you’ll get.
So what’s the solution here? Leaving Facebook? We wish we could recommend that to you. While Google+ is becoming an important and beneficial place to be in terms of social media, Facebook is still king.
CGT Marketing recommends staying on Facebook and boosting important posts for your brand. We also recommend diversifying your social media presence. If you’re only on Facebook now, branch out. Establish a brand presence on Google+, Twitter, Pinterest and of course LinkedIn.