With recent changes in Facebook’s algorithm, making organic reach all but impossible for brands, people are already picking out their favorite casket for Facebook. Before we pull the plug on the dominant social network, let’s look at the facts a bit more closely.
First and foremost, Facebook is a business. Yep, their goal is to make a profit to continue to pay their employees, and allowing people to use the site for free. Guess what happens when people have access to free information? Well advertisements, that’s what happens. I know weird right? So Facebook is now making it more difficult for brands to have their messages be seen by consumers for free. Shocking right? Imagine a business wanting to limit the amount of free advertising a brand (no matter the size) is trying to get.
Second, Facebook keeps evolving as most good business, especially digital ones, have to, in order to stay relevant. A lot of these recent changes including their purchase of WhatsApp and virtual reality tool Oculus, are meant to evolve their business to stay relevant and gain new market share. Again, shocking that a business is looking to grow and evolve. Facebook also recently announced that they’re headed into the online payment space. This could be a precursor to brands being allowed to sell products directly on the platform. A major new addition making their ad space more valuable, thus the limiting access to posts organic reach.
Finally, Facebook is always restructuring their news feed algorithm, they recently restructured again to limit spammy posts from infatuating your news feed. They’re constantly trying to make their user experience better for all their users. This also includes not being bombarded with “advertisements” from brands and individuals.
So no, Facebook is not dead, it’s just changing and morphing into something that people don’t seem to want it to be. Things change, as well as audiences, look at MySpace, they didn’t evolve until it was too late, and now they’re known as the niche social network for musicians with limited growth. So brands will have to continually have to adapt as their platforms adapt. We should be doing this anyway.
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