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Facebook Ads are a real shakedown scam, & getting worse. After reading up on other's experience, I ran an experiment last week: I started a stupid comic blog

Facebook Ads are a real shakedown scam, & getting worse. After reading up on other's experience, I ran an experiment last week: I started a stupid comic blog (http://omgcmon.com http://omgcmon.com). I made a facebook "page" for it too. I posted an link from my stupid comic blog to the facebook "page". I posted the same link to my personal status. The posting didn't even show up in my OWN news feed, unless I changed it from "top stories" to "most recent". (All other posts from me, show up in my "top stories" at least.) My friends & family didn't see it either. But, when I took the same image in the blog post, & put it in facebook as a "Photo", then people saw it, commented, liked, etc. So, it sure does look like Facebook knows that the link was on a "page", & then used it's secret algorithm to suppress it, as it knows that will, over a large population, cause more ad dollars to be spent to boost "pages". So, the money/profit will flow well, but not forever. Run your own experiments if you doubt it. It's not hard to get this data yourself.

josho 12y ago
This probably isn't news to you, or anyone that cares about Facebook. I was curious about your description and went to investigate, only to find out that it seems Facebook pages are completely inaccessible unless you are signed on. I recall previously being able to see company or event pages without having signed in previously. I suppose without logging into Facebook you can't make them any money, so why bother giving you any access.
- kytmizuno 12y ago
  That's untrue. Facebook pages are accessible even when you're not logged in. This loads perfectly fine from an incognito tab: https://www.facebook.com/sears https://www.facebook.com/sears
  - josho 12y ago
    I'm willing to bet at some point Facebook's default permission model changed the defaults for a page from public to private for Facebook users only. Because my experience has been that I could access a lot on Facebook without being logged in, but now its quite rare to be able to do so (at least for smaller pages, something like Sears has the diligence to make sure things are setup correctly).
nyrulez 12y ago
I don't see this is completely weird. If I was designing the news feed, I would give way more importance to personal posts (especially photos) than non personal posts, as I would like to preserve the personal nature of Facebook and not pollute it with non-personal info. However, if a business (a non personal entity) wants to gain entry (and potentially pollute the experience to some extent), there is a price they have to pay. And that constitutes facebook's business model. The fact that they introduced "Free" business pages which allowed free entry to people's news feeds before ads has skewed the perception of their intentions. But if I were to design it from scratch today, my design would probably be somewhat similar.
- johnvschmitt 12y ago
  Good point. Yes, let's prioritize personal things on a personal platform. However, ~30% of the "top stories" in my newsfeed (anecdotal of course) are public URL's that my friends share. And, those don't look like ads or promoted posts, but they sure could be! That said, in the past, we'd promote a business by trying to get email signups, then trickle monthly updates to our users to engage them more. (That still works!) Now, email is seen as "unsexy" & we're told to go social to get viral, & make everything have a Facebook share (+pinterest/etc). That's just not as effective as email, sorry. I just wanted to share my experience about what works best for startups.

josho 12y ago

This probably isn't news to you, or anyone that cares about Facebook. I was curious about your description and went to investigate, only to find out that it seems Facebook pages are completely inaccessible unless you are signed on. I recall previously being able to see company or event pages without having signed in previously. I suppose without logging into Facebook you can't make them any money, so why bother giving you any access.

kytmizuno 12y ago
That's untrue. Facebook pages are accessible even when you're not logged in. This loads perfectly fine from an incognito tab: https://www.facebook.com/sears https://www.facebook.com/sears
- josho 12y ago
  I'm willing to bet at some point Facebook's default permission model changed the defaults for a page from public to private for Facebook users only. Because my experience has been that I could access a lot on Facebook without being logged in, but now its quite rare to be able to do so (at least for smaller pages, something like Sears has the diligence to make sure things are setup correctly).

nyrulez 12y ago

I don't see this is completely weird. If I was designing the news feed, I would give way more importance to personal posts (especially photos) than non personal posts, as I would like to preserve the personal nature of Facebook and not pollute it with non-personal info. However, if a business (a non personal entity) wants to gain entry (and potentially pollute the experience to some extent), there is a price they have to pay. And that constitutes facebook's business model. The fact that they introduced "Free" business pages which allowed free entry to people's news feeds before ads has skewed the perception of their intentions. But if I were to design it from scratch today, my design would probably be somewhat similar.

johnvschmitt 12y ago
Good point. Yes, let's prioritize personal things on a personal platform. However, ~30% of the "top stories" in my newsfeed (anecdotal of course) are public URL's that my friends share. And, those don't look like ads or promoted posts, but they sure could be! That said, in the past, we'd promote a business by trying to get email signups, then trickle monthly updates to our users to engage them more. (That still works!) Now, email is seen as "unsexy" & we're told to go social to get viral, & make everything have a Facebook share (+pinterest/etc). That's just not as effective as email, sorry. I just wanted to share my experience about what works best for startups.