The very famous saying ‘The Rich becomes richer & the Poor becomes poorer’ is an apt quote for Facebook’s new statement & algorithm which officially kills organic reach for brands. Here are the reasons for why was it the most ‘expected’ news, boon for the so called ‘rich brand pages’ and bane for the poor ones.

Open for All

Today, every Tom, Dick & Harry has a page on Facebook. Be it the local barber, street food joints, NGOs, communities or the bigger brands (every possible domain) are having a basic/ advanced page. When it started with a strategy of expanding its base, it was all together a great platform and they did not really imagine the scale of it. And thus it all began as a free promotion tool to come & open a page. From personal to brands to communities to groups, everything was free because they were testing the platform’s profitability. There itself the issue started. Everyone thought of it as a cheap medium to advertise because offline and other modes are too expensive.

Changes Often

From the timeline way of interface,  bringing organic reach, people who saw your posts, news feeds, posts with image will have higher visibility, reducing the reach to 50%, then 20% something, followed by 10-15%, then 8… 2 and now 0. It was literally news which was not news. 2% is almost 0 isn't it? There algorithms on search, reach, personal pages, business page and they changed once/twice a month

Show me the ‘Money’ baby

Page, posts, events, fans and reach - everything has been monetized. Nothing is organic at all on Facebook. Not to quote but sometimes I feel Facebook promotes itself as wh*re – selling itself too much. I had written a blog last year in Feb where the concern of Facebook policies on going overboard with monetization was raised. Nothing has changed in fact it has become worst.

For the Riches

Weren't the brands (the popular one’s) already paying for everything to be on top of customer recall, on top amongst competitors and socially extremely active. Whether it was stamp ads, promoted page, promoted posts, paid apps, event promotions - the brands continue their investments because Social Media had taken a pie of overall marketing share. So why do we think that this move of Facebook will affect boardroom decisions now. It would be considered as ‘what next’ but for some more time the investments will continued on Facebook.

What's in Store for me?

OK so here we talk about the brands that are completely organic & have not high fan base but they are fine with it – they are SMEs, level 2 & 3 brands, NGOs and causes. They are purely driven by interests of people who have liked them. And they are the ones who are ‘worst hit’ because with every policy change their reach of messages became less and now it will be almost zero. Unless the social media team is extremely motivated to continue their efforts, tag people, comment, share information often or the fans are dedicated to content that they themselves reach out to read what is new on the page – the reach will be minuscule.

Predictions, Truth & Future

Concluding it by writing ‘as if we did not see it coming’, we all can analyze that popularity of Facebook is dying. And some brands are continuing their efforts to stay while others feel it is foolish to be on it. Many popular brands even exited from Facebook while some are just continuing to stay with daily posts. It is like living your life when you know your last day (remember Last lecture). In the end, it will be their brand’s vision & strategy that will define how they are tackling with situation and staying/coming out WISELY.

Neha