Often times, the small businesses in this world get far less attention than do the bigger, more profitable businesses. However, who is to say that what small businesses have to say will not affect the future decisions and actions of big businesses? Now, I have been looking at article after article today, trying to find something new and exciting happening in the social media world. It was during this period of looking around that I found an article that was published by The Wall Street Journal last Thursday. It is called “What’s a Facebook Follower Worth?” and it tells us of some of the perils that small businesses have found when trying to use their favorite marketing source’s new Promoted Posts.
First, let me remind you of why small businesses fell in love with Facebook as a marketing platform in the first place; because when people think Facebook, they think free. Most small businesses could never even imagine affording the huge marketing campaigns that we see with the country’s big businesses, so they use Facebook and it has so far worked like a charm. Now, of course that has not ended but these small businesses are having some trouble with the idea of Promoted Posts, which kind of ruin the, “free” thing that they had going for them.
Here is the gist of the problem that they are having, as explained by a caterer named Richard Bishop in the Wall Street Journal article;
Facebook “lured us in with free Facebook pages,” says the 35-year-old caterer, referring to small-business owners like himself who have built marketing programs around Facebook. “Now all of a sudden they’re saying a minimal percentage of your fans will see your posts unless you pay. They devalued the value of a fan.”
Obviously Facebook is not to blame, unless of course there is a rule book out there somewhere that says, “Once a company says their services will be free, they are to remain that way forevermore.” Since there isn’t, Facebook really has not done anything wrong. Regardless, it has caused a struggle for small businesses all over the nation, and it seems to them that their marketing platform will soon disappear as a viable option. These companies cannot afford to promote all of their daily posts, and most of their Facebook fans will not even see some of their most important posts.
While looking into other opinions on the subject, I found that I was not the only one who found interest in this new problem for small businesses that use Facebook as a main marketing tool. Personally, though Facebook has not done anything wrong and it would be unwise of them not to have customers pay to Promote Posts, it is hard not to feel a bit bad for these small businesses. The economy is rough to say the least, and the free marketing that Facebook used to offer along with the old value of fans was a beam of light for small businesses. Facebook will probably remain the tool of choice for these small businesses, but marketing on social media will probably no longer be anywhere near the same.
