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This was ultimately a massive bait and switch and I can't believe more people don't find it disgusting. Facebook gave off the impression you would be able to re

by rebel 13y ago

This was ultimately a massive bait and switch and I can't believe more people don't find it disgusting. Facebook gave off the impression you would be able to reach people who became your fan on their network.. until they didn't need any more free marketing. Now that everyone is on Facebook, they've decided to focus on the user experience more and leave all the brands who promoted them out in the cold. It would be one thing if they were charging all along, or made that intention clear. Instead they took all the free marketing and slowly scaled down how many of your fans saw your posts (frog in boiling water?). It's to the point now where I have pages that reach .1% of my fans. Facebook now wants thousands of dollars for just ONE post to reach a significant portion (not even all) of my fan base. Ultimately, I don't think Facebook had a choice. The user experience, with the amount of pages some people like, would be horrendous. But to spend any time or money to try to build a fan page on Facebook now would be a joke. Anyone currently spending their advertising dollars to buy likes on Facebook is terribly misinformed on the impact it will have (none). Additionally, it seems many of the major brands I've seen advertising via print, TV, etc. have been only promoting their Twitter accounts now. I have to assume this is a reaction to Facebook burning them and now they are trying to make Twitter a larger threat to Facebook.

saurik 13y ago
> Ultimately, I don't think Facebook had a choice. The user experience, with the amount of pages some people like, would be horrendous. If someone doesn't like the content from a Page they follow, they should unfollow it: I specifically follow the things I do because I want to see their content... it does not improve the user experience to limit that content; if anything, it destroys the user experience, as the reason I go to Facebook is to see the content from the people and brands I like: showing me less of the stuff I like leaves me disappointed and unsatisfied.
- s3r3nity 13y ago
  The real issue here is creating an algorithm that optimizes what you like best: friend content, page content, and/or games/apps/etc. I would guess the majority of the population has higher engagement with friend content then page content, which is why their algorithms show pages less and less. Not necessarily a malicious "bait and switch" (because that implies forethought, which I am highly skeptical was the case if you worked in a tech company in the valley for more than 3 months) but rather not providing the best solution for an algorithmic news feed.
  - saurik 13y ago
    FWIW, I also would not claim that this is malicious: however, I still do not feel like these algorithms build a better news feed experience. I often go to Facebook, scroll through all the content for the day, and don't find enough of what I actually care about: it filters what it thinks are the top things from the day, and shows this content in something vaguely approximating chronological order. If a site is going to do this fancy filtering, I want a "no, show me more" button: I follow enough things that the idea that I would reach the end of the content posted recently is silly. That said, I think a key issue here is that I feel these algorithms are "solving the wrong problems"... if a friend is using some game and keeps posting from from it, everyone needs to realize that isn't the game's fault: that friend is choosing to post that stuff as they actually care about that game. They hope--they might even expect--that people are seeing that content: if your friend is spam, maybe you should unfollow your friend (Facebook thankfully now lets you do this without unfriending them, which might have political consequences ;P). This is important, as if a different person were playing that same game, the importance of the content might be fundamentally different: there are people in my life whom I would love to see those silly game posts from, to the point where it would make my day to see the games being played: if nothing else, I would know they are still alive and active (if maybe wasting their time and energy ;P). This is true if everything, not just games, and frankly seems to come down to pretty simple use cases: use cases that I would be shocked if it turned out most people didn't share. I have one friend that loves taking photographs, and they all kind of suck; I have another whose photographs are downright awe inspiring: I want to follow the photos from the second one, and not the first. I don't want more of the second and fewer of the first, I don't want the Photos app itself to be judged somehow "this guy seems to like photos more than games", I just want to see the second guy's photos and not the first (and maybe the first guy's gaming, and not the second's ;P). I say this is a common use case, as I swear everyone I know complains about similar issues: I have a friend who, despite having marked his wife as "Close Friend", misses content she posts (something I didn't believe, until I had it happen to me as well: some kinds of content isn't considered relevant enough for a notification even if you insist that all that user's content is relevent). I have another who only uses Facebook to post links and photos, and most people I talk to love her links but don't care about her photos (especially in one particular album: it would be great to be able to mark someone "Close Friend" and then unfollow one album ;P). I thereby end up returning to what I had said in my previous comment: I followed the pages I do because I liked their content... because I wanted to see more of their content... because that content made me happy. If that content doesn't make me happy, I want to think I'm responsible enough to unfollow the page, and I want to believe I live in a world where others are also capable of this. I also do not think any algorithm is going to figure this out automatically: I follow the page of a movie that posts quotes and screengrabs from the film. Like the comics in a newspaper, these snippets are a familiar and beneficial part of my perusal of Facebook: they are part of what I enjoy about visiting the website. I never comment on the screengrabs, nor do I "like" them (I would rather others not know what sappy parts of the sappy movie I'm most connecting with today ;P)... I'm not even clicking them... I have no clue how Facebook would ever figure out I want to see those, all of those, if it is going to insist on ignoring my explicit "I want to follow this Page" request :(.
- _delirium 13y ago
  > If someone doesn't like the content from a Page they follow, they should unfollow it I've been doing some of this lately, but initially I did not follow most of my current likes because I wanted to see their content. Most of them are not things I ever explicitly "liked"! Facebook used to have areas of your profile where you listed your favorite movies, favorite bands, etc. At some point these got converted into follows of pages, without me opting in. When I said that I liked the band Coil, whose principals are now dead, I did not thereby imply that I intended to follow some profiteering asshole who controls their Facebook "Page". And yet that's what happened. I do unfollow these when they show up in my feed with objectionable content. But I think it's a mistake to assume that people want to see the content from the Pages they "follow" (admittedly, a mistake of Facebook's own making).
  - saurik 13y ago
    This is entirely fair; in fact, the same thing happened to me. However, this problem doesn't seem solved by filtering the content: it seems like it should be solved by not tricking people into automatically following pages just because they liked the brand as an entity as opposed to the content on Facebook coming from that brand. Facebook has a weird and unfortunate mix of "like" and "follow" behaviors, especially with regards to the "favorite X" part of the profile. One thing I will say, though: they at least did separate like vs. follow at some point, which at least makes this issue solvable by the user.
  - k-mcgrady 13y ago
    I'm not sure when it was introduced but pages now have an option to continue to 'like' them but unfollow their content. So you can still have your likes appear on your profile but you will never see their posts.
- Hawkee 13y ago
  I agree. They've really diminished the value of a like. Rather than encouraging unliking they're making the content providers pay to make their likes more valuable than the likes of their competitors. It makes business sense for Facebook, but it really destroys the value to the user. I'm tempted to delete my Facebook page, but I still do get a little engagement. We'll see how long that lasts.
ericd 13y ago
It always seemed fairly clear to me that the whole "like us on Facebook" thing was Facebook treating businesses as sharecroppers, harnessing their marketing effort, with no promise of allowing them to keep the eventual rewards. Unfortunately, it seems like many businesses bought into it because there weren't any very good alternative for a non-technical organization to keep in touch with their customers (except maybe Twitter).
kiwidrew 13y ago
I hear this refrain over and over again -- my posts aren't being shown to my fans! -- but it does not match up with my experience at all. My posts usually reach 35-45% of my fans. Organically, without any promotion. Granted I only have a total of ~2000 fans... perhaps this effect everyone is talking about only kicks in e.g. above 10k fans? To be honest, I think everyone is just crying that "Facebook isn't showing my fans the stupid and unengaging crap that I post". How about trying some actual content that your fans might actually want to see? The one thing FB has become very adept at is filtering out crap.
- Bahamut 13y ago
  I'm a part of a hobbyist organization that has over 40k likes on Facebook - we pretty much only post relevant content to our fans, and for the most part it is organic (and still growing). We've been pretty happy with how well the outreach has been & our user engagement, and that's without being aggressive. If you post crap, users won't want to see your crap - would you want to see crap? I agree with your post wholeheartedly.
- mkr-hn 13y ago
  This has been my experience too. I stick to my personal profile though. People who endure liberal propaganda, bad jokes, and half-developed ideas are a very small and focused niche.

by rebel 13y ago

saurik 13y ago

> Ultimately, I don't think Facebook had a choice. The user experience, with the amount of pages some people like, would be horrendous. If someone doesn't like the content from a Page they follow, they should unfollow it: I specifically follow the things I do because I want to see their content... it does not improve the user experience to limit that content; if anything, it destroys the user experience, as the reason I go to Facebook is to see the content from the people and brands I like: showing me less of the stuff I like leaves me disappointed and unsatisfied.

s3r3nity 13y ago
The real issue here is creating an algorithm that optimizes what you like best: friend content, page content, and/or games/apps/etc. I would guess the majority of the population has higher engagement with friend content then page content, which is why their algorithms show pages less and less. Not necessarily a malicious "bait and switch" (because that implies forethought, which I am highly skeptical was the case if you worked in a tech company in the valley for more than 3 months) but rather not providing the best solution for an algorithmic news feed.
- saurik 13y ago
  FWIW, I also would not claim that this is malicious: however, I still do not feel like these algorithms build a better news feed experience. I often go to Facebook, scroll through all the content for the day, and don't find enough of what I actually care about: it filters what it thinks are the top things from the day, and shows this content in something vaguely approximating chronological order. If a site is going to do this fancy filtering, I want a "no, show me more" button: I follow enough things that the idea that I would reach the end of the content posted recently is silly. That said, I think a key issue here is that I feel these algorithms are "solving the wrong problems"... if a friend is using some game and keeps posting from from it, everyone needs to realize that isn't the game's fault: that friend is choosing to post that stuff as they actually care about that game. They hope--they might even expect--that people are seeing that content: if your friend is spam, maybe you should unfollow your friend (Facebook thankfully now lets you do this without unfriending them, which might have political consequences ;P). This is important, as if a different person were playing that same game, the importance of the content might be fundamentally different: there are people in my life whom I would love to see those silly game posts from, to the point where it would make my day to see the games being played: if nothing else, I would know they are still alive and active (if maybe wasting their time and energy ;P). This is true if everything, not just games, and frankly seems to come down to pretty simple use cases: use cases that I would be shocked if it turned out most people didn't share. I have one friend that loves taking photographs, and they all kind of suck; I have another whose photographs are downright awe inspiring: I want to follow the photos from the second one, and not the first. I don't want more of the second and fewer of the first, I don't want the Photos app itself to be judged somehow "this guy seems to like photos more than games", I just want to see the second guy's photos and not the first (and maybe the first guy's gaming, and not the second's ;P). I say this is a common use case, as I swear everyone I know complains about similar issues: I have a friend who, despite having marked his wife as "Close Friend", misses content she posts (something I didn't believe, until I had it happen to me as well: some kinds of content isn't considered relevant enough for a notification even if you insist that all that user's content is relevent). I have another who only uses Facebook to post links and photos, and most people I talk to love her links but don't care about her photos (especially in one particular album: it would be great to be able to mark someone "Close Friend" and then unfollow one album ;P). I thereby end up returning to what I had said in my previous comment: I followed the pages I do because I liked their content... because I wanted to see more of their content... because that content made me happy. If that content doesn't make me happy, I want to think I'm responsible enough to unfollow the page, and I want to believe I live in a world where others are also capable of this. I also do not think any algorithm is going to figure this out automatically: I follow the page of a movie that posts quotes and screengrabs from the film. Like the comics in a newspaper, these snippets are a familiar and beneficial part of my perusal of Facebook: they are part of what I enjoy about visiting the website. I never comment on the screengrabs, nor do I "like" them (I would rather others not know what sappy parts of the sappy movie I'm most connecting with today ;P)... I'm not even clicking them... I have no clue how Facebook would ever figure out I want to see those, all of those, if it is going to insist on ignoring my explicit "I want to follow this Page" request :(.
_delirium 13y ago
> If someone doesn't like the content from a Page they follow, they should unfollow it I've been doing some of this lately, but initially I did not follow most of my current likes because I wanted to see their content. Most of them are not things I ever explicitly "liked"! Facebook used to have areas of your profile where you listed your favorite movies, favorite bands, etc. At some point these got converted into follows of pages, without me opting in. When I said that I liked the band Coil, whose principals are now dead, I did not thereby imply that I intended to follow some profiteering asshole who controls their Facebook "Page". And yet that's what happened. I do unfollow these when they show up in my feed with objectionable content. But I think it's a mistake to assume that people want to see the content from the Pages they "follow" (admittedly, a mistake of Facebook's own making).
- saurik 13y ago
  This is entirely fair; in fact, the same thing happened to me. However, this problem doesn't seem solved by filtering the content: it seems like it should be solved by not tricking people into automatically following pages just because they liked the brand as an entity as opposed to the content on Facebook coming from that brand. Facebook has a weird and unfortunate mix of "like" and "follow" behaviors, especially with regards to the "favorite X" part of the profile. One thing I will say, though: they at least did separate like vs. follow at some point, which at least makes this issue solvable by the user.
- k-mcgrady 13y ago
  I'm not sure when it was introduced but pages now have an option to continue to 'like' them but unfollow their content. So you can still have your likes appear on your profile but you will never see their posts.
Hawkee 13y ago
I agree. They've really diminished the value of a like. Rather than encouraging unliking they're making the content providers pay to make their likes more valuable than the likes of their competitors. It makes business sense for Facebook, but it really destroys the value to the user. I'm tempted to delete my Facebook page, but I still do get a little engagement. We'll see how long that lasts.

ericd 13y ago

It always seemed fairly clear to me that the whole "like us on Facebook" thing was Facebook treating businesses as sharecroppers, harnessing their marketing effort, with no promise of allowing them to keep the eventual rewards. Unfortunately, it seems like many businesses bought into it because there weren't any very good alternative for a non-technical organization to keep in touch with their customers (except maybe Twitter).

kiwidrew 13y ago

I hear this refrain over and over again -- my posts aren't being shown to my fans! -- but it does not match up with my experience at all. My posts usually reach 35-45% of my fans. Organically, without any promotion. Granted I only have a total of ~2000 fans... perhaps this effect everyone is talking about only kicks in e.g. above 10k fans? To be honest, I think everyone is just crying that "Facebook isn't showing my fans the stupid and unengaging crap that I post". How about trying some actual content that your fans might actually want to see? The one thing FB has become very adept at is filtering out crap.

Bahamut 13y ago
I'm a part of a hobbyist organization that has over 40k likes on Facebook - we pretty much only post relevant content to our fans, and for the most part it is organic (and still growing). We've been pretty happy with how well the outreach has been & our user engagement, and that's without being aggressive. If you post crap, users won't want to see your crap - would you want to see crap? I agree with your post wholeheartedly.
mkr-hn 13y ago
This has been my experience too. I stick to my personal profile though. People who endure liberal propaganda, bad jokes, and half-developed ideas are a very small and focused niche.