I have been noticing lately that as Facebook continues to implement its revenue model the content that is generated by us, the bloggers is being pushed away from your news feeds. Although I try to keep you abreast of new posts, I notice that my posts do not usually show up on your feeds. In fact, I am constantly reminded to buy advertising to promote my El Paso News posts.
I have always known that Facebook relies on all of us to create the content it then uses to make money. That is the nature of the beast. I have also learned that there is a reason that Hollywood is so successful. They create content that is then monetized at the theaters and through the products that you buy at the stores. Hollywood’s greatest expense, besides marketing is paying for the artists and producers that make the content they own.
Facebook, doesn’t create content, rather it uses your content to monetize its platform. I have known about this for a while and in fact I wrote a white paper on October 2011 on how Facebook is dangerous for businesses; “How Facebook can destroy your business”. You can find it here.
On August 6, 2013, Mashable published an article titled; “Facebook: Here’s How Your News Feed Works” by Kurt Wagner that better explains this phenomena. In the article, Wagner explains how posts are organized in your news feed. According to Wagner there are approximately “1,500 possible stories filtered” to your feed on a daily basis. Of these, about 20% is actually shown to you.
According to the article, Facebook determines which of the posts make it onto your feed through an algorithm that assigns “a score” to the post. The score is determined by many factors including comments and the relationship you have with the poster. It also takes into account the number of times you have actually engaged the poster or the content and the number of likes. Kurt Wagner adds that what you see on your desktop is not the same thing you see on your smartphone or the Facebook APP as the process is being rolled out to the different devices.
Although Wagner quotes a Facebook representative stating that the algorithm “does not affect ads” I am not sure this is entirely true. I have seen a marked increase in reminders to “promote” my El Paso News Facebook page with a correlated drop in Facebook user engagement, this while my blog’s traffic consistently increases. I realize that there are many factors that would contribute to this but I can’t help but see a correlation between the two.
I have no problem with Facebook monetizing our content as they have to pay for servers and labor to keep the platform going.
However I realize that if I do not pay for placement of my El Paso News notices about new posts they will eventually be buried into oblivion and you might miss out. That is why I have created my announcement newsletter to let you know when I have a new post to share with you. If you haven’t already signed up for my newsletter I encourage you to do so right now by clicking here.
I am also updating my twitter feed (@martinparedes use #elpasonews for El Paso News items) with items I find interesting and whenever I have a new post to share with you. Although I will continue to use the Facebook page to keep you up to date as some of you will jump to it to see if there is anything new, I cannot rely on it to let you know that there is new content. It is in Facebook’s interest to get me to buy advertising to promote my feeds and therefore my feed will be buried deeper the longer I resist.
So please consider signing up to me newsletter so you won’t miss anything. Click here to sign up.
Just another very good reason not to have a fleecebook account.