It’s totally you, Facebook.
Those were the words written recently in a letter from Eat24 to Facebook. It was a Dear John letter, a break up letter. And what was the break up over? To put it gently, Facebook is no longer producing these days for many brands. The organic reach, which should be increasing with time, is declining.
According to Facebook, organic reach is “the number of unique people who saw your post in News Feed or on your Page, including people who saw it from a story shared by a friend when they liked, commented on or shared your post, answered a question or responded to an event.” As writer Lydia Leavitt puts it, if you are a brand with a Facebook page, considering the declining organic reach, only between 2 and 6 percent of your fans “will see anything you post…unless you pay for it, of course.”
So what is the practical application? The “landscape” of Facebook may soon become an ad platform with not so much conversation-oriented writing. How does this bear on small businesses and others who depend on Facebook to communicate with fans? Most likely, says Leavitt, we will see those users shifting to other platforms.
How about all of the younger users who grew up on Facebook? Will they remain loyal? Unfortunately, says Leavitt, many have already abandoned ship for other platforms such as Tumblr and Snapchat, to name a couple of the most popular. What has driven them away? Many young people say it is having their posts out there to be viewed and even commented on by their parents, and even the police. Their anonymity jeopardized, teens and post-teens now prefer applications “without the clutter of ads and annoyance from their parents.”
What does the future hold for Facebook? Leavitt says it doesn’t look so bleak. Due to it’s expansive user base, Facebook will be able to leverage itself using the data it has from all of it’s users…at least one billion. And a recent study funded by the European Union suggests that young people do still use Facebook to connect…it’s just with their older family members.
Click here to read the referenced article by Lydia Leavitt, “Breaking up with Facebook: Where are brands and young users going?”
