Bloomberg. So if that really happens, you might be forced to watch advertisements before you continue seeing what some of your friends are eating for lunch. This just adds to the low satisfaction Facebook users have with the social site compared to Twitter, Pinterest and Google+.
Why this is bad for social media marketers
If people even become more dissatisfied with Facebook, they’ll quit it at some level. If they quit Facebook, or even if they don’t check it as much, they will see less and less of you. If you’ve built a large Facebook following, you could potentially lose a significant portion of that audience. And this could really happen over night. If you don’t think so, consider MySpace, Digg, RSS feeds, etc. Even competing social media sites, like Instagram and Pinterest have stolen Facebook users’ time. People are spending less time on Facebook when they are also going to these other sites. When you depend solely on third-party platforms to interact and build an audience, you are at their mercy. You want to do everything to protect and keep your audience and followers, and you can never depend on someone else to do that for you.Build a blog. Keep your audience
To keep your audience, build your blog, get more subscribers and build an email list. This is the only way to keep your online audience engaged with your brand for the long term. If you depend on a social media site, eventually you’ll lose them. “Facebook is awesome and all, but you’re beholden to the powers that be at Facebook, and your content is only seen by your fans some of the time (EdgeRank). With the blog you own the real estate. 100% of visitors to your blog will see your content. You control the entire experience. You can (should) share your blog content on FB, twitter, etc, but the blog is where it all starts,” said Dave Bascom, Fit CEO. Aside from keeping your audience, a blog is a much better place to engage your audience anyway. They aren’t distracted by everything else going on in the social media world. You have call to actions within one click, and can provide customers and potential customers a unique experience that can build your business.]]>TJ Welsh
TJ has worked in the digital marketing space since 2006. He has worked at a number of agencies and and helped hundreds of clients grow their business through SEO, PPC, Social Media and Content Marketing. He currently lives in Lehi , UT and enjoys spending time with his family.
Ok, here are my 2 cents:
1st – I think as internet marketers who live on the web our perspective becomes too narrow. Of all my family, friends, etc. very few even have a Google+ profile, a twitter profile or a Pinterest profile. However, they ALL have Facebook profiles and check it regularly. I have not heard any complaints from them about Facebook – aside from when they realize they are not seeing all the updates from everyone.
2nd – A blog, while good for many reasons with internet marketing, is not always the best way to engage a customer base. Let’s face it – I am not likely to read or subscribe to blog posts from the Purple Turtle – But I am sure going to get their free tator tots they mention on Facebook every Tuesday. Some businesses can build a following through their blog, others the blog will be more strictly about fresh content to a site for the purpose of organic rankings.
3rd – I do not like the ads on Facebook now and if forced to watch the video ads, will be annoyed. I am sure family and friends will be annoyed as well. However, I have a hard time seeing the large masses moving away from Facebook like they did from MySpace. I think the key difference is in the audience on Facebook versus what was on MySpace. MySpace was primarily teenagers who were early adopters to social media. Facebook’s largest growing segment are women 50+ years old. My bet is they won’t move to Google+.
All of this said, I still do believe that many businesses do have the ability to gain a large audience with their blog. Facebook, Twitter, etc. are all places that each blog post should be shared on. However, I just don’t see the masses moving away from Facebook.