Facebook Zero Organic for Pages?

by Chris Loynd

Facebook business pages face an ever-declining number of free views, i.e. organic reach. Marshall Manson, managing director, Social@Ogilvy, wrote, “Organic reach of the content brands publish in Facebook is destined to hit zero. It’s only a matter of time.” His comments open a whitepaper based on his company’s research entitled, “Facebook Zero.”

Monitoring service Social Flow looked at 3,000 Facebook posts by publishers and determined organic reach dropped 42% between January and May 2016. Then in June, Facebook turned the screws even tighter.

Increasingly, Facebook is shifting in favor of personal users and away from businesses trying to connect with customers. “Facebook was built on the idea of connecting people with their friends and family,” wrote Lars Backstrom, Engineering Director at Facebook. “That’s why today, we’re announcing an upcoming change to News Feed ranking to help make sure you don’t miss stories from your friends.

“Overall, we anticipate that this update may cause reach and referral traffic to decline for some Pages,” he continued. “We encourage Pages to post things that their audience are likely to share with their friends.” His comments were from a news release last June titled, “News Feed FYI: Helping Make Sure You Don’t Miss Stories from Friends.”

Read between the lines, and Facebook is saying if your business wants free views, you’d better make your customers and prospects your friends.

The Author

Your business has a unique story that resonates with customers and prospective customers. Chris Loynd leverages your company’s unique story, positioning your business to drive revenue, stand out from the competition and be more memorable. His favorite occupation is bending creativity to commerce.