This trend was well written up in the Ars Technica and NY Observer which stated “Many of us managing Facebook fan pages have noticed something strange over the last year: how our reach has gotten increasingly ineffective,  ……brands, agencies and artists are now charged to reach their own fans…”

The free ride is finally over. Facebook will become more like a TV channel, with advertising thrust in our face at every opportunity whilst we’re trying to connect and share stories with friends. How many of our fans are seeing our content is being carefully controlled. The old Facebook free forum concept is dead and we’re in the midst of a marketing machine monitoring our every activity.  Facebook is now deciding which of our friends/fans will see our posts and which will not – Which advertisements and offers they will view…

I guess from a business perspective it’s logical that the owner of the site, Facebook, has ultimate control over how it works. Sadly, many have until now thought of their Facebook pages as their own. But in reality, you’re just tenants for the amusement of Facebook.

Google the Helpful Librarian, Facebook the Spy?

In another equally interesting NY Observer article, how the two online giants work was discussed. “Google could be likened to a librarian, whose services we enlist in exchange for the concession that what books we ask for will be tracked. Facebook, on the other hand, is like a party that all your friends attend, but in order to yourself, you must agree to have all of your interactions recorded…”

Sure, Facebook may have the ‘population’ of a large country, but many of those residents are being treated as serfs, where everyone is observed and tracked via hidden cameras. Yes, such things are now common under the guise of national or local security, but not really to assist advertisers…. But we are, at the end of the day, just a number…

Many are still quite happy to live under such a regime. Those who don’t like these changes can emigrate. If it’s just the ads that become an annoyance, then there’s always tools like Social Fixer around to help. But that doesn’t stop the data collection process that is the marketing goldmine to Facebook and its advertisers.

I guess at the end of the day this is the tradeoff people have to make. If they want a free place to promote themselves online, then a price has to be paid. Some people don’t mind the intrusions, or perhaps aren’t aware of it.

But all is not lost

the ‘free’ bits of Facebook aren’t working as well as they did..

I’m not saying we should all quit Facebook, as it’s still a great, [somewhat] free viral marketing channel for many home and small businesses. But be aware it’s becoming less effective – the ‘free’ bits aren’t working as well as they did..

However there are ways to counteract and fight back, ensuring your fan base isn’t being isolated – There’s slick Facebook Apps from North Social (and many others), that with careful planning and  execution, can give back more control, more sales leads – Let business users reconnect with lost fans, without throwing thousands of dollars into  Facebook Adverting, which for the moment, appears not to work that well compared with say Google AdWords. But that’s another article…

p.s. Even the North Social tools come close to breaking Facebooks terms of service that prohibits coupon and sweepstake style promotions, meaning Facebook could ban it at any time. Remember, it’s Facebooks website, not the users or developers, hence another good reason for businesses to have dual promotion channels being Facebook AND their own website where they have total control. It’s a handy insurance policy, given that Facebook do occasionally shut down user sites/pages without notice!

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This sort of crazy strategy is promoted online too. A recent article on Webpronews entitled “People Prefer Branded Facebook Pages to Branded Websites“. Their survey indicated that “50% of people find brands’ Facebook pages more useful than their websites” Somehow 50% implies a preference for Facebook.

Firstly, what sort of people. what sort of Facebook pages and what sort of Websites are we comparing here? It’s likely more a reflection on how bad business websites are today than any intrinsic benefit a facebook page provides.

How bad is your website? Checkout Websitegrader.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m a big fan of Facebook, but sending prospects from offline media to Facebook pages alone, as opposed to their website has me beat. I can’t think of a reason why anyone would or should do it.

It would actually be logical to display both their Facebook and website url, then let the consumer decide – Monitor and track things to see what is actually working and with whom. Our research tells us that in most industry sectors, most will go to the website first.

Website First, then onto Facebook

Firstly, Facebook is a big forum site, not a normal website used for branding or promotion. We also cannot as easily brand the site or guide or track visitor activity. Sure, it can be really good for viral marketing campaigns in some retail sectors and a great way for existing customers to either praise the product or let of steam.

In fact there’s a lot of research that tells us that Facebook is best used to engage existing customers. allow them to share their stories, even provide referrals. The company website is way better for lead generation and for getting new customers via search. 

So, if a company wants to utilise the power of Facebook, then get new visitors to go to a special landing page on the website first, with an offer, then links through to Facebook to checkup on their ‘fan base’ and talk from happy customers that already use their product or service. This is logical.

The other reason for this strategy, is that unlike your own website, Facebook have rules around what you can and cannot do in terms of business promotions on their pages – Remember, it’s THEIR SITE, not yours. Most are totally unaware of these limitations. In fact for a while, if Facebook detected a graphic that looked like it was a promotion, it would downsample the image and make it almost unreadable.

It’s not a Facebook vs Website thing here. It’s about doing what makes business sense.

But as an initial destination, most of the Facebook pages I see do not give a good first impression. It’s a bit like trying to have a conversation with a new client at a football match. There’s often too much going on around you.

The other thing is that most of the TV campaigns I see make no provision to account for those that come via a TV ad. There’s nothing to help track and engage those specific customers. Note this is a problem with normal websites too, but only because those that run these sites are too lazy or uninformed to setup a specific landing page.

Strategy or just too lazy perhaps?

Maybe I’m reading too much into this. Perhaps sending them to Facebook wasn’t a strategy at all? Perhaps the marketing manager found it just too hard to have the website updated for the TV campaign. Perhaps there was only money allocated for the TV ad, not a website makeover that complemented the TV promo. This is common. Facebook is certainly the easy, zero cost option.

Some marketing people tell me that they get more inquiries from Facebook than their website so therefore Facebook is the place to send people. Often though, this is more a reflection of how bad their website is in terms of design and usability, than the fact that Facebook is superior in some way. You need a good modern CMS Website, as well as a good Facebook page.

Sadly, there’s no excuse for a bad  ‘static brochure’ website today as content managed (CMS) websites have never been cheaper or more flexible now that we’ve tools like WordPress available. And WordPress can interact with Facebook in ways that will astound… Still, as a marketing tool that brings in sales, Facebook I believe is somewhat over-hyped…. What say you?

As we’ve commented on numerous blogs, the problem Facebook as is how to get a decent income stream. Facebook Ads will never be as popular or as cost-effective as Google ads, simply because FB is a forum website, not a search engine. People GO TO Google to look for stuff and Google Adwords can actually assist them in finding what they want. There is real value for businesses to advertise on Google.

But Faceboook is a fancy community forum. Sure, it has loads of followers and users, but the vast majority of those people do not inherently go there to look for something. to help them find stuff, or make a business or purchase decision.   Most on Facebook are there to communicate with their friends. Having advertising or commercials popping up in or around the conversation is for most intrusive and generally unwanted. It’s like having a pushy salesperson come up to you at a party and try to sell you stuff.

Still Has a Place in Businesses?

This is not to say the Facebook can’t provide sales leads by way of referrals or viral marketing campaigns. In some sectors this is extremely effective. We’ve talked before about innovative US companies like Chick-fill-A who have been using Facebook and cross-channel campaigns for years with amazing precision, all viral-based. No Google or Facebook ads.

Another more typical small business case study is our local hair salon. They run a WordPress website and are also on Facebook. Half her leads come via the website and Google search, the other half via customer referrals on Facebook. Note I said customer referrals and not Facebook Advertising. The popular referral or viral marketing side of Facebook earns Facebook zero income. Only advertising does.

The numbers reveal all. Even though Facebook can claim to have more demographic data on their users, which means better targeting, the CTR (clickthrough rate) of Facebook advertising is still roughly a tenth of Googles. At best 0.2% for FB vs 2.0% for Google Adwords if you know your stuff. Much less if not done right. But are Facebook ads a tenth of the cost of Google Adwords or get more leads? No one asks.

Google Buys Wildfire App – Another nail in the coffin?

As well as the fundamentals around P/E ratios being all wrong, the other thing that will likely spook investors downstream is Google’s recent decision to buy Wildfire, which is another nifty social media app that allows users to promote specials and deals within Facebook. As well as being a good money earner for Google, Apps like this basically undermine Facebooks own Advertising efforts. A cunning move by Google.

In response Facebook will likely introduce technologies and new rules to restrict the ability to promote business offerings on Facebook using third party apps, unless you pay. Already Facebooks rules prevent users from running competitions on their site although many apps, like those from North Social appear to do just this.  And Facebooks own recent acquisition of Karma, a social gifting app shows they’re not against incentive apps. But in terms of ad income opportunities, there’s also the simple fact that more and more users access Facebook on mobile devices, which has less screen space available for FB ads. Maybe the trick will be to give FB users the chance to opt out of advertising if they pay a small monthly fee? Many mobile apps already do this. Hey, even Sky TV used this ploy in the early days.

Perhaps if there were more Mathematicians in Wall street and less spin doctors, they would have seen the truth. This doesn’t mean Facebook will disappear any time soon or lack relevance in online marketing. It just means they aren’t as financially valuable as they and others  believe. As a commentator to the article mentioned, they’re likely valued closer to $25 billion, not the $100 billion we first thought. They may have millions of users, but that alone doesn’t guarantee success online.

However it could take just one decision (or app) to turn things around. That’s the nature of online….

p.s. Ref also recent Techcrunch articles: FB Earnings and  It could be simple

This is from a datamation article in the US following an extensive technical study around the way Facebook updates and distributes users news items. i.e. When you share some news to your loyal followers. (read more).

The issue is quite a technical one, but has major implications for those using Facebook to send out news to their readers and fans. It appears it’s not working, around 90% of the time. Broken may not be the right word, since it implies a software bug, when it’s really about how Facebook structures their system. But figures like this start to put Facebook, as a channel, in the same league as email for the delivery of messages. i.e. Under 20% are read.

But as mentioned in other article on this site, it’s never wise to put all your eggs in one basket. Cross-channel starts to make sense.

Facebook?  It’s no free ride for Business

If what the article implies is true, the fix involves giving Facebook your credit card number for paid advertising. As the article says “… Facebook lets you build massive lists of "fans" or "followers," but won’t let you communicate with them unless you pay.”

In itself, i don’t see an issue in this, since any form of business marketing has to have a cost. There are many services worldwide that are free to consumers, but if they’re being used for commercial gain, then you have to pay. Google sort of does this with its search. Organic is a ‘free’ service although still takes considerable work to get you up on page one. Instant results come via their AdWords ‘pay per click’ ads. Facebook is essentially now doing the same thing. We just didn’t realise it. In fact when we look at how many consumer and business services started out on the net, the Facebook  move should come as no surprise. Starts off free, then you pay.

However it would have been nice for businesses to have been kept in the loop a bit more on these changes – Told what was really happening. There are ‘workarounds’ of course, which smart companies will use, although much relies upon making communications more interactive (which isn’t a bad idea, but is costly), or having users change their security settings. The free ride is now over.

However the other argument made is that Facebook is just filtering out those 90% who are not interacting with you on a regular basis and not worth communicating with. This may be fine and even logical for personal communications where many who ‘like’ you, are but temporary acquaintances.

But as anyone knows in business, the business sales cycle can be long. Often a year or more before they’re ready to buy. Regular communication is vital. This Facebook strategy could be disruptive and force businesses to look to other channels again like email or even direct mail, which don’t have these nasty filters in place. It’s a stark reminder to us all never to put all your marketing eggs, in one basket.

It could be the beginning of the end for Facebook as a business marketing tool. Quite sad really. Facebook had such promise for home and small business users. Now it will become another marketing channel only there for those that can afford it.

STOPPRESS: August 5th. Seems Facebook is changing its mind and turning back some of its filtering, under pressure from Advertisers. But will this start to turn many people off to Facebook, as it becomes more commercialised and filled with promotional Ads? Getting the right balance will be the trick.  Checkout the changes here

However like anything done online, it does take time and effort. Yes, the base tools are supplied free, but your time isn’t. Having a good strategy helps too, as does utilising all the tools that Facebook offers.

One of the best authorities I’ve discovered recently on this topic is Mari Smith, who writes regular articles in the Social Media Examiner. (click here). Our local Debbie Mayo-Smith, columnist and speaker has also talked about the benefits of Facebook in business. (Her Youtube video)

Mari reveals all the tricks and guidance to make Facebook work for you. The other thing with Facebook that’s not specifically covered here, is to have it more tightly integrated with your own website and/or shopping site. Most web designers stop at the normal ‘like’ or Facebook linking buttons on their website or cart – They only consider the website, not the Facebook side.

Let’s get together – Two always work better than one!

There are certain things you can’t do with Facebook legally or technically (e.g. sell stuff). Some items or elements are therefore better posted on your own website which can then, using special community or self-developed Apps, be ‘windowed’ into the Facebook page. Very few Facebook pages (less than 1 per 10,000) utilise these toolsets, but those that do have seen immense returns, like BigCommerce users.

Left is a typical ‘windowed’ application developed by one of our partners, BigCommerce in the US.

Other similar Facebook Apps to that from BigCommerce can be developed to embed specific storefront pages as well as your website sales landing page, catalogues, customer surveys or signup forms etc  (email me for details). Often, instead of upgrading your own website to do this, it’s usually far easier to utilise a  brand new WordPress site, that can be setup in a few hours, (costing hundreds of dollars), instead of days or weeks (thousands of dollars) to ‘window in’ your existing website toolsets.

But You Always Need Your Own Website – Facebook Isn’t Yours

Having Facebook + Custom WordPress Website work together like this makes a lot of sense. And it provide some security long term, since you do OWN the website. Your Facebook page is NOT yours and simply provided by Facebook at their discretion. Wrong-doing, deliberate or otherwise can have your Facebook presence  removed…. (Have YOU read their terms and conditions documents?). Also, Facebook is more of an open forum. Your [WordPress] website can display sales-related items or articles which are totally under your control.

As a local hairdressing Salon owner mentioned to me recently. “Around half my new business business comes via my simple WordPress website with people doing a Google search.  The other half via referrals from my Facebook page. I couldn’t do without either of them.”

Facebook vs email

But wait there’s more! Latest research from eMarketer (click left) is telling us that Facebook, is becoming more important and effective than email! It’s interesting to note where the other channels fit too in this report.

In many markets all this isn’t surprising. More and more people are using their Facebook accounts to communicate. Email is too hard and not interactive.  Young people especially often use their mobile phones to update their Twitter feed and Facebook pages, something most websites can’t offer (unless you’re running a WordPress site). Facebook is their own online community, hence a far better tool than email to converse with a crowd. As the eMarketer article says, Facebook is more cost-effective and convenient.

And don’t forget to read Mari Smith’s articles.

However on the internet, a year is a long time. Things change. You’ll all note the rise and rise of Twitter, Facebook, as well as Linkedin and Youtube. These top social sites are now all mandatory in business, be it selling to consumers or businesses .  The statistics on their growth are astounding. Put simply, this is where more and more consumers are going to for advice (from others, usually strangers) on their new purchases.

The New Sales Funnel?

Social media isn’t perfect for sales. However I do appreciate that in some market segments, social does make more sense and can certainly provide sales leads. It’s the online equivalent of ‘word of mouth’ marketing, which we know is one of the most effective means of selling. Many say it’s rewriting the traditional sales funnel. (left, courtesy of genius.com).

I don’t think it’s a the magic wand for every business or business type. For example, it wouldn’t make as much sense for the local plumber or electrician to spend too much time on Twitter, although a Facebook or blog page providing hints and tips could help sales and credibility.

The sweet spot, based upon those who monitor such things, is likely around consumers looking out for new toys for their home or person. e.g Movies, events, new tech gadgets, women’s fashion, latest deals or sales etc. These are all prominent on twitter and Facebook. Even Dell computer runs regular specials via twitter and does better than any one expected, with a massive 1.6m followers.

Another leading consumer electronics manufacturer leverages social media to generate sales and awareness for new products. Its online advocates share a company-produced video about the new product and a promotional offer with their social networks. The results? A 4.8% of the inbound clicks resulted in actual purchases for the new product!

By comparison, the company’s [more expensive] traditional marketing and media efforts generate less than 1% conversions. Another startling fact: each time an advocate shared the video and offer on Twitter, the company got 17 in-bound clicks to it’s website, compared to 1 in-bound click for email. Buoyed by the success of the campaign, the company is now encouraging Advocates to “share the love” by creating and posting product reviews to shopping sites. This result is unusual, but shows the potential of the channel.

Seth was right

It’s all panning out exactly as marketing guru, Seth Godin predicted in his tribes and earlier books. Companies are helping out their own users, followers and consumers for promotion, via these free social media sites.  An email campaign to an established client base often kicks it off, but then social connections adding the icing on the cake. It’s then quicker than email alone, has more credibility, a tiny fraction of the cost (zero), and in some markets, much more effective marketing mix than ‘traditional’ Print-Radio-TV. Here the happy customer is doing the selling [mostly] for free. Typically, you’ll get five to ten times the sales leads of your traditional Yellow pages, newspaper and magazine ads, for less cost

However it’s a two-way street. This cheaper promotion does have a price. Without a superb product/service actually worth talking about (i.e. remarkable as Seth would say), zero or bad reviews in social media can kill off a product or good reputation very quickly. The earliest, most dramatic example of this was a Dear Mr Dell letter posted on a blog by journalist Jeff Jarvis in 2005. The end result of this had a dramatic effect on Dell computer sales and reputation, which took them years to recover from.

Don’t overlook the customers media channel

The other little-appreciated fact in developing a social media strategy, is the realisation that more and more people are going to these social websites using their mobile phone, not on their laptop or PC.

80% of Twitter usage is on a mobile device!

This means ensuring everything is mobile-optimised from a format and content perspective. e.g. Clicking from a twitter link back to a company website that takes 3 minutes to load on a mobile or graphics-laden emails does far more harm than good.

Every Day Counts – But where to start?

Enquiries to: zn.oc.gnitekramlatigidnull@nivek

We make it easy. For a flat monthly fee, we’ll build and then manage for you a smart, high traffic, sales-generating Digital Marketing package comprising:

• LinkedIn, Facebook, Youtube and Twitter accounts
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Still don’t believe the power of social and online media over Radio, TV and Print? Check out this video..

Read also : “Social Media for Sales is Different”

However if we look at these things in the same way as you’d view attending a local chamber of commerce meet, being a forum to make new touchpoints, then I suspect it has a place.

There’s a new webinar coming up that I’ve registered for entitled Don’t Cold Call, Social Call. Now, knowing that most salespeople hate cold calling, then this one should be interesting…

To register yourself, visit www.eyeonsales.com  If you miss it, I’ll place an audio link archive of it on this page later.