So I recently read a Forbes article entitled Facebook Pages Are a Bad Investment for Small Businesses by Elan Dekel, and it struck me just how right he is.
Facebook pages are a waste of time.
And this is coming from someone who makes a living off social media marketing and community management!
Getting people to like your Facebook page is tough. We're all inundated with social media activity, news, noise, nonsense... There has to be a pretty good reason for me wanting to see your company's posts in my feed - I have to be getting something out of it: Information, product updates, savings, entertainment.
But for brands that work hard and create engaging and interesting social media profiles, the truth is that Facebook's revenue model is making their own platform a ridiculously inefficient way to communicate.
Why Facebook's revenue model is bull***t
I won't go into the whole process in too much detail, as Elan's article does a very good job of it - but the bottom line is that even when you work hard to build up the number of people that like your page, Facebook refuses to let you speak to them directly (or even know exactly who they are).
Why?
Because they want you to pay for advertising.
This is after you've potentially paid to promote your page on Facebook to acquire those fans in the first place.
From a page of 20,000 followers - you'd be lucky to reach a few hundred people with text-only posts, and even less if you plan on using images (Facebook's 'Edgerank' algorithm caps impressions on pictures because the entire model is based on forcing companies to pay for advertising, and image-posts typically have higher engagement and click-through-rate).
And that's the sad truth. Facebook is no longer interested in providing value for money to advertisers.
Promoting your posts is the equivalent of paying for extortionately expensive "impressions" that might never provide any form of ROI, and the alternative is only being able to communicate with 5-10% of your fans - the people that have gone out of their way to find out what your company is up to.
Why this sucks for users
It's not just companies that lose out in this deal - it's also the fans too.
I'm currently working on a social account for a retail discounts company - a brand that regularly runs competitions, gives away prizes, and posts witty cat pictures and engaging posts on a regular basis.
More than 70,000 people thought that sounded like a pretty good deal, and decided they wanted this retail brand's posts in their newsfeed.
Unfortunately, Facebook figured that only 3000 of these fans were going to be lucky enough to see their communication, supposedly based on some obscure engagement statistics they won't actually disclose.
So I know a lot of people take the "boohoo - poor companies have to actually pay for their marketing" view, but they forget that there are people out there that genuinely want to know what products Sony is launching, there are fans that are passionate about their favorite clothing label, and companies like Cadbury's have a social presence so engaging and entertaining that over 1.4 million people think they're worth keeping tabs on:
So what's the solution?
My proposition is that companies should ditch Facebook.
Yes, it's a still a viable source of traffic - but what if we could create something even more powerful and effective?
We know people want to keep up with what their favorite companies are doing, we know people are willing to follow branded profiles to receive savings, discounts and product information - why don't we make that conversation a little easier for both parties?
If there was a dedicated platform you could sign up to where you could enjoy branded communication, don't you think the budget that companies would be allowed to entertain and win you over with would multiply?
An example I really like is Internet Explorers foray into anime in an attempt to convince people to give their browser another go:
While I'm still not at the point where I'm convince into ditching Chrome, I'd happily let Internet Explorer keep pitching at me with stunning anime productions. And they'd be more inclined to keep it going if they thought they were reaching their audience in a cost effective way.
I know a platform dedicated to marketing material sounds like a spamfest - but I envisage a space where the power would truly be with the people...
Just like TV channels battle for ratings by going after the juiciest and most engaging content, so too would companies on social media (and they do already to some extent).
Social media agencies would then become the TV production companies of the internet: Focusing on creating exciting and addictive content, without having to worry about buying followers, faking engagement, or working around Edgerank or some other poorly developed algorithm.
The more I think about it, the more it makes sense.
Facebook can go back to being what it does best - a place to communicate how great your life is to friends and family:
