One of the latest changes that has some business owners and social media marketers up in arms is Facebook changing the way it shows content to those who’ve liked a business page. “They’ve moved the goal posts” they cry. The result of the change is that we have to work a little harder to be seen by our audience, our “likers” – or we can pay for the privilege.
Each time an essential aspect of online marketing changes the way they provide their free services, people complain. People who perhaps expect rather too much for free and consider that everything on the Internet should be free. Such an attitude is understandable to a degree – so much is still and has been free to view and any portal or service that starts to charge is met with outrage. We really do need to appreciate the resource that goes into the wondrous facilities we enjoy.
For the social media playgrounds at our disposal, some of us know that if we keep going with sensible, relevant online activity the changes are more likely to be a good thing. It’s a shame that those who think they know better won’t stop and pay attention long enough to reap the rewards of experience. But I digress…
You can only control the aspects that you own, to paraphrase my friend, Nikki Pilkington (we did have a chuckle yesterday about this). Everything changes, evolves – Google, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Google+ – all of it. You can harness the available power if you offer what they consider to be good stuff for their users – fresh, relevant content, usefulness, interest – whatever enhances and enables them to provide what we expect of them. Think about it – when we use Google to search for something we want the most useful and relevant links for our search – if our website/page can provide that we must make it simple for Google to know and show this. When we’re catching up with online friends on Facebook, we do not want to be bombarded with all the business pages we’ve Liked, but would perhaps (arguably?) like to choose those we see in our feed. Or indeed when we see actual adverts, we’re more likely to click on those of very targeted interest to us.
So when you, as a business person who wants to reach as many relevant customers as possible online, consider just what is going to work you do need to keep in mind that things change. This scares many but do the right things and you’ll reap the rewards.
On the Facebook matter, there are ways to increase your visibility – basically you ask those who Like your page to select to see your updates – which really is fair enough. Nikki has outlined just how to do this here. But you have to actually do something – too many people expect an awful lot for doing very little. Marketing online is more and more about getting out of it what you put in (and of course knowing what to put in and where, the strategy), and not simple about having a well-optimised site.
photo credit: patriziasoliani via photopin cc
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