To begin with it was all so very new, and exciting. The promise was to connect with millions and millions of people that were coming together in a new space pegged “social media”. And did every business on planet earth jump aboard? Pretty much yes.
“Connect with friends and the world around you on Facebook”
That’s right….It’s all about a bunch of philanthropist millionaires that decided to put together a free platform for everyone to use with absolutely no interest in commercial exploitation of the digital assets it amassed (those are your transformed “likes” and application installs) as people signed up and connected with friends.
And what of those evil, money making businesses that decided that it would be good to create a Facebook Fan page, so they too could enjoy unparalleled levels of exposure in these untapped and under-exploited world markets?
Yes even they could join, it was perfectly accceptable to do so, for the price of an email.
After a number of years though, many companies had made investments in:
- social media managers – to oversee these new channels of limitless opportunity.
- designers – to ensure that when, on the whim of Facebook, various page elements were changed and these experts were needed to ensure that brand didn’t go tits up overnight.
- and plain cash – to pay for advertisements within Facebook to promote the fan page.
How did Facebook respond to thank businesses for investing in Facebook?
In a Nutshell:
Now you’ve got all your fans, if you want to “connect” with them again in the future you’re going to have to pay to “promote” your post.
So the question I want to ask here is:
Facebook…are you absolutely sure you need it?
Author Information
Glyn S. H. has been online marketing since 1999 and has developed campaigns for leading luxury brands that have included Nestlè and Interflora . He works primarily in for the Travel and Tourism sector, helping hotels beat-down OTA paychecks. He has a web-marketing company, a Masters in Professional Communication, speaks fluent Italian, and is married with two kids. He also has a good sense of humour – essential for survival in web-marketing. He is not employed by Google. To contact via email: glyn@ (this domain).
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