Image credit: www.dangerousminds.net
There’s been a lot of talk over the last month or so about how Facebook’s new Edgerank tweak is hitting organic reach on brand Pages, and how unhappy Page owners are at the prospect of having to use the Promoted Posts function to pay for the distribution of their information to their own hard-earned fanbase. Various people have speculated that this could harm Facebook in some way. I don’t necessarily believe this to be the case as, if users stay with Facebook it is likely that brands will too, no matter how unhappy they are about it. But I do think that the new algorithm has the potential to damage Facebook in a far more fundamental manner than pissing off marketers.
Edgerank not only applies to Pages, it applies to people. And just as Edgerank has been slowly dialing down the number of users who see any given Page update over the last six months or so (latest estimates are that no more than 15% to 20% of a Page’s fans see any given post), it’s been doing the same to users’ personal status updates. I’ve seen several people on Facebook over the last few weeks complaining that they are simply no longer seeing friends’ updates in their newsfeed; that Facebook is sometimes eerily quiet, and yet visiting profiles reveals a whole world of stuff going on that they didn’t know about. That’s really not good, is it?
To add insult to injury, Facebook is introducing the option for individual users to promote their personal posts, or to pay for their friends to (possibly) see specific updates. And, for me, that’s where things really start to go off the rails. Facebook has always been a free service to personal users, and it has previously said it always will be. Hell, it probably says the same thing now. But this is nothing more than a sneaky and stealthy way of charging users without having to come out and ask for an annual fee. It puts money above user experience. Not cool, Facebook. Not cool.
Broken on Purpose
From a brand’s point of view, Edgerank ‘breaking’ Facebook’s core functionality on purpose means the company can extract more money from business users. The worse the platform performs, the more advertisers need to use Promoted Posts. But the most damaging effect of all this is that Edgerank is slowly decreasing the amount of interaction among friends. And that’s surely a very bad thing for Facebook, as it devalues a platform which was built around and boomed on the premise of connecting people. That’s why a billion people joined Facebook and why they stay. To butcher it is nonsensical. Isn’t that called pissing in your own pool?
It’s becoming very clear from Palo Alto that Facebook is now far more about data and profit than it is about serving users. The balance has tipped from making money while providing a free service to simply making money. Sure, the IPO bombed. Sure, it needs to be fully monetised. But there must be better ways and means than raping your own core product and hacking off your entire user base. Businesses have been feeling increasingly let down and left more than a little high and dry due to Edgerank for months, and now there’s a very real danger that users could go the same way. Facebook has completely lost focus, and that could be the undoing of all the good work that Zuckerberg has done over the last eight years.
What are your thoughts? Is Facebook on the verge of suicide?
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Forgetting business – but from a personal perspective which is where Facebook started – I would never pay to post an update so that my friends would see it and I imagine a lot of people would share that view. I think business wise it will be accepted, albeit with a lot of complaining, but paid promotion for users is not cool.
I agree, Katie. Me neither and I can’t see that sort of model taking off. If something’s THAT important there’s phone, text, email or, wait for it, talking to someone in person. What concerns me more is that you even need the ‘paid for’ option!
Yes.
I can only judge by my experience but I used to visit all the time but now the updates I see has made it a much less interesting place to visit, so I only log in occasionally and for ten or so minutes whereas I used to log in for 30 minutes or more several times per day.
Your point about the money is spot on. Facebook became really popular in part because the advertising was to the side and not in your face and users could have full enjoyment of the site without paying a penny. Both those things have now changed.
Bye bye, Facebook, it was fun while it lasted!
There have obviously been plenty of ‘this is the end for Facebook’ type events in the past and there’s constant speculation about it not growing so fast and whatever. But this genuinely feels a little different to me, as it’s the first time that it’s really messed with the core product of connecting people. If it doesn’t connect people, what’s it there for?
Yes!!! I blogged on a similar vein last month about how companies now are potentially devaluing their brands by shoving up endless ‘like if’ ‘share if’ ‘comment if’ type posts just to play the Edgerank game to keep their reach up. Add on to that the plethora of promoted posts we’re seeing and it’s fast losing it’s appeal as a viable tool.
I spotted the promotion of personal posts a few weeks back – genuinely my reaction was WTF?!?!
I don’t envy Facebook, they have an almost insurmountable challenge to raise their revenue game but not alienating it’s users. So far, so not good.
I actually think the ‘like if’ thing is a separate issue, and one I’m also intending to write about. I can’t help but feel that because of all this Edgerank rubbish, brands are being forced down a route because they’re scared. I’ve seen a lot of criticism of brands for doing the ‘like if’ thing, but very little in the way of PROPER advice other than ‘write interesting stuff’. Anyway, separate post….
I agree that Facebook has a real challenge on and, as I alluded to, the balance between free social network and revenue generator is a very fine line. I just feel they’re crossing it. Will people leave? Don’t know, maybe not. Yet. But it sucks if that’s the direction we’re headed down. I’d rather pay a small annual fee…
Interesting perspective Paul. Firstly let me say I don’t agree with it as, like you have mentioned it takes away its core principle. This is money and shareholders getting in the way.
However, let me play devils advocate here for a moment. They have critical mass and are trying to monetise that. Remember it was only a year ago that Facebook was seen as more important than the use of a flushing toilet here in the UK.
Is this any different than paying for a text to friends to let them know what is going on? Or at least this is the way I can see the suits behind the brand thinking.
This is an out and out business decision and I can see what they are trying to do but I feel the purse strings are being pulled the wrong way.
James
The only problem with the text analogy is that we have always had to pay for texts but we have never had to pay for posts to our friends.
You’re right in that it’s the way the suits may think. But that’s very different from the way users think. And it shows a real disconnect between Facebook and its audience which, given it’s a social network, is a little shocking. Although maybe not surprising given Facebook’s track record of pumping out change after change without even telling people.
[...] few days ago Facebook started rolling out a new feature, perhaps as a response to the criticism that followed the changes in Edgerank alogorithm: It allows users to opt-in for a notification [...]