Facebook IS Now Charging Page Owners to Interact With Their Fans

[Kris]

Facebook is introducing a feature (more of a ripoff than a feature) that will let fan pages pay to promote a post. Facebook states it is not a requirement however if you do not pay, Facebook will use EdgeRank to greatly reduce fan interaction with fan pages. So you tell me how it isn't a requirement. More like extortion.

Fan page owners will have to pay between $5.00-$300.00 to gain exposure on a post. The higher the amount paid, the more interaction with fans Facebook will allow using EdgeRank. If you have not seen it pop up as you are trying to submit a post you soon will. The new policy is just being put into place so not all pages have access to it as of yet.

FB Says:

If I don’t promote my post, will the people who like my Page still see it?
Nothing has changed about how your posts are shared with the people who like your Page.

A lot of activity happens on Facebook and most people only see some of it in their news feeds. They may miss things when they’re not on Facebook, or they may have a lot of friends and Pages, which results in too much activity to show all of it in their news feed.

If you don’t promote your post, many of the people connected to your Page may still see it. However, by promoting a post, you’re increasing its potential reach so an even larger percentage of your Page audience and the friends of those interacting with your post will see it.

Liars cause are Fan Page reach is down 40-50%

[Tyler Durbin]

They have actually been doing this for a while with the very large companies like Coke.  GM decided that they really were not making much of a return so they pulled out right before FB went public.

[Eric Suesz]

I had no idea. Thanks for sharing. 

[Janettee McCrary]

This is good news for Ning networks that are geared for business, though - we can market our sites as being better than Facebook because they don't have to pay to be seen in the news feed.

[Chris Comish]

This is how they raise their stock price. This is really just an extension of their ads service, like twitter's promoted tweets....no different...I won't pay any of them anymore was ripped off too many times, best to build a strong network via word of mouth/friends...

[Ilkka Virjo]

Hi,

as a regular facebook user, you usually have some control over who you choose to "follow". I have seen informative posts about how you can "get back" the friends who have "disappeared" from your news feed.

Is there a way for a regular user to do this regarding a fan page? I mean, can't my fans decide for themselves that they want to see all content from my page and change their settings accordingly. Is that possible?

I was thinking that if there is such a way, I'll tell about it in my next member e-mail. Facebook has been the most active way for me to interact with clients (I use Ning mostly as a publishing platform more than an actual social network).

[Kris]

unfortunately not that I know of

When I like a page, I assume that I will see all of their updates so that I know what is going on with sales, new products or even just be able to interact with that business. I also assume that anyone who likes my business page wants to keep current on all information too. So needless to say, I’ve been frustrated for a while realizing that my post never ever reach even close to the full number of people who like my page.

[Janettee McCrary]

The best thing your fans can do is choose "Show In News Feed". They can do this at any time by visiting your page and clicking the "Like" button. If you're hidden, they're not getting your content. My understanding is that this "Promote" feature shares your content whether they hid it or not. Or simply moves it to the TOP of their newsfeed as "Featured" should they have you shown in their news feed. I'm not sure which because I haven't seen any "promoted" posts yet, but it's either or both of these.

[Patrick Chappelle]

Unfortunately we've got bigger problems now, Janettee.

[Janettee McCrary]

Yes I saw that:(

[Kris]

after going back and forth via email facebook is suggesting I look into their "Reach Generator" package https://www.facebook.com/business/fmc/guides/reach?campaign_id=2503...

Reach Generator is an optional package and is only available through Insertion Orders. To qualify for this package, you must have at least 500,000 people connected to your Page, and you must exhibit good post frequency (1x a day) and high quality and engaging post content.

is it just me or does it feel like the air is getting thin in here LOL

[mobile.ning.com]

Here you have the Viedo https://www.facebook.com/help/promote

[Patrick Chappelle]

This may not seem a big deal to anyone right now, it IS a step towards quite possibly charging for other features and services on Facebook. Keep in mind, Facebook is now publicly traded on the stock exchange, which is highly unusual for a company that doesn't produce anything. Their revenue is strictly ad based. One Wall Street pundit stated a few weeks ago that in order to justify their stock, Facebook would have to begin charging for something.

If you've been keeping up with the news since Facebook's IPO, you know that their (grossly over-valued) stock has been taking a hammering, and sinking faster than the Titanic. If Zuckerberg and Facebook are to stay afloat, they are going to have to be some serious changes around here, and fast. That means charging for anything they can justify charging you for.

This is not good for those of us who use Facebook to reel in members to our networks, but I can't say that it's completely unexpected.