The Paradox That Facebook & Its Peers Have All Wrong
Social media platforms generally want people to….ya know, use their product. Facebook wants users to stay on Facebook. If they stay they’ll click on more stuff including ads which will drive advertisers to spend more money on more ads. People will stay on Facebook if it’s worth their time to stay. If the content sucks they won’t stay. Right?
Right?
That’s how it used to be. Okay it’s still sort of that way. If you post good solid content generally you’ll come out ahead - keep doing that. I’ve been preaching that for 15 years and I’m not about to change it. Don’t start forcing salesy ads down the community’s throat or mailing it in with canned irrelevant content - that’s still a crap strategy.
But here’s the problem and how Facebook and all the other platforms that followed suit went astray at some point.
The Paradox That Facebook & Its Peers Have All Wrong
The algorithms that dictate what people see and don’t see in the newsfeed of their favorite platforms still try to reward good content. But I wonder - GOOD FOR WHOM? Facebook decided in their infinite wisdom that content which might lead people to click a link to send them to another site and LEAVE Facebook was inherently BAD content for Facebook.
My strategy for my clients as a digital marketer has always been to focus on your owned online assets such as your website. Post great content there like maybe a blog. Build a community on Facebook by providing value and engaging with your peeps. Promote the blog posts on Facebook with a link to the blog so you can yes - drive traffic FROM Facebook TO your website.
Facebook decided they didn’t like that - so much that they decided that they would deliberately stop showing that content to people no matter how great it might be. Without boosting it’s next to impossible to get similar reach on a post with a link in it to a post without a link. They want to force you to give ALL your best stuff to your peeps on THEIR owned space. NO SOUP FOR YOU on YOUR owned space. Most of the other platforms do this now too.
It is short-sighted and here is why.
It’s like a retail store or e-commerce site that only has floor samples or pictures of products, for fear that if they actually sell people the products they’ll leave the store to go somewhere else to enjoy them. DUH - of course they will! And guess what? They will probably remember where they bought the product and, wait for it……………RETURN TO THE STORE FOR MORE.
Facebook and Instagram (who STILL doesn’t even allow links in the posts - only stories) should be encouraging people to follow links and base their algorithms on rewarding the pages that are getting people to click and LEAVE the MOST (or not penalize them at the VERY least). Didn’t a great philosopher named Sting once say “If you love somebody set them free?”
The fact that they don’t want you to leave at all has actually given rise to the idea of “zero click marketing” where you shouldn’t even provide links. Zero click marketing says to just share good stuff and your people will make their way to your website on their own if it’s good enough.
I understand the philosophy of zero click marketing. I get the premise. I just think it’s mostly B.S. in practice. You really expect that people will be motivated to go find the links on their own and click on your owned content? They’ll pursue it based on the tease you showed them on Facebook without a convenient link to take them there? Um, no. They really won’t. Maybe a couple will. And maybe for their very favorite influencer or artist - okay, maybe. But not for the 98% of us just trying to build a community organically.
They say the average human attention span is 8.25 seconds. Personally I think that’s also B.S. (I think it’s longer) but even if it’s 10 seconds or more it’s not long enough to expect most people to leave a social media platform to go to a search engine and find the rest of the content you teased on a social media platform (you know - the strategy we’ve all been using as marketers and entrepreneurs for the past 15 years…).
If I was going to start a new social media platform (I mean we DEFINITELY need another one right?) I would base the algorithm on giving out the most reach to the people who attract the most people to ship them off the platform. Who’s with me? Sounds like I should get a Kickstarter going right away…
M10 Social is owned by Doug Cohen in West Bloomfield, MI and provides social media training and digital marketing services from the Frameable Faces Photography studio Doug owns with his wife Ally. He can be reached there at tel:248-790-7317, by mobile at tel:248-346-4121 or via email at mailto:doug@frameablefaces.com. You can also connect with Doug on Twitter, LinkedIn and Instagram, and/or M10 Social on Twitter or Facebook, and check out his other biz www.VirtualPetcations.com while you’re at it!
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