The Catch-22 of Facebook Pages

In the not so distant past, Facebook pages were a great way for brands and businesses to connect with their customers. It provided a platform for local businesses to share scheduling updates and closings (important during the snowy season) and brands could introduce new products and marketing campaigns to their most loyal fans in a much more intimate way than the standard television commercial.

It was an investment. Brands were able to collect some Facebook fans organically but many, if not most, were collected through Facebook advertising. On a good day, a brand could average $.50 per new fan. On a great day, it could even get down in the $.09-.15 range. Many averaged around $.75-.90 per fan. So if the goal was 50,000 likes, and the average cost was $.50 per new fan, it was a $25,000 investment. (And that’s if your digital advertising team is able to get–and keep– the cost at $.50 per like.)

While growing their audience, brands also needed to make sure their posts were reaching as many of their fans as possible. Facebook rewarded posts with high engagement by showing them to more people. If a page was getting high engagement on the whole, more posts were shown to more people. This makes sense: keep creating and sharing good content and Facebook will keep serving it to more and more fans.

In the past couple months, Facebook has changed its strategy. Regardless of audience size or engagement rate, Facebook is only showing post updates to about 16-24 percent of a page’s audience. If you want your content served to your entire audience — the entire audience you’ve already invested to grow — you need to pay. Doesn’t matter if it’s the most engaging story on Facebook. You gotta pay to play.

It doesn’t seem fair. A brand has to invest to grow his Facebook audience — and then has to pay again to interact with it? Every single time?

Here’s the catch: as frustrated or fed up as brands and businesses get with Facebook’s new strategy, many can’t just walk away. If a brand’s target audience is moms, it can’t afford to desert Facebook–it’s where all the moms are.

Luckily, the cost to ‘boost’ a post — how you serve your post to your entire audience (or new audience if you prefer) — is very low. About 3-4 views per one cent. About $150 per 60,000 impressions. Or $5 per 2,000 impressions. Even though that’s cheap, it’s an expense and it adds up over time.

Many brands have expressed frustration with Facebook’s new strategy and some are hoping they’ll revert to their previous algorithm. Our advice is simple: make sure your social media/Facebook strategy has some incremental budget for boosting posts. We suggest at least twice a week — but make sure they’re the posts that count. Don’t waste money on boosting an inspirational quote. Save it for your important brand messaging or business announcements.