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<font face="Verdana"><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/face-how-facebook-drove-us-away-dave-pilcher">https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/face-how-facebook-drove-us-away-dave-pilcher</a><br>
(Also reproduced below this email)<br>
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It is bad, even if here it is monetising social connect between a
business and a 'follower' group that 'it' has created. Smacks of
public street pay-off rackets involving petty businesses that most
police forces in developing countries live off.<br>
<br>
It is unthinkable that when every small and big business segment
with direct public interest implication - whether it be banks or
cab services - is so highly regulated, Internet monopolies that
have captured whole online utility sections, social networking
being an important one, should be left completely unregulated. And
they can at their will tweak their algorithms that involves
shifting the very terms of online social discourse and
interaction. Absolutely unthinkable!! <br>
<br>
But to make the unthinkable possible, these business actors and
their political backers - chiefly the US gov - has invested huge
amount of resources, and cunning, including aimed at cultivating
civil society in the global IG space. And it is a measure of their
great success that these most important of global governance
issues never reach the key global IG spaces! <br>
<br>
In fact, my organisation, IT for Change, proposed a workshop on
"Regulating global Internet businesses", for IGF 2013. It was
rejected as irrelevant or not appropriate by the IGF's
Multistakeholder Advisory Group. Which only shows how much the IGF
and the MAG is captured, and has begun to act as a filter against,
rather than a facilitator for, meaningful global IG discussions.
Actually it is ready to act </font><font face="Verdana">even </font><font
face="Verdana">more loyal than the king, given that</font> <font
face="Verdana">the WEF 2015 had a workshop on a very similar
topic, which was rejected as irrelevant/ inappropriate by the MAG
of the IGF</font><font face="Verdana">. <br>
<br>
parminder <br>
<br>
</font><br>
<h1 class="entry-title">About Face: How Facebook Drove Us Away</h1>
<ul class="entry-meta">
<li> <time class="updated" datetime="2015-02-15T23:09:13"
pubdate=""> Feb. 15, 2015 </time> </li>
<li class="article-read-time"> 3 min read </li>
<li> <a
href="https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/face-how-facebook-drove-us-away-dave-pilcher"
data-stat="rv-banner-meta-original"> original </a> </li>
</ul>
<div class="entry-content">
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<div class="article-body">
<p>Two weeks ago we made the decision to delete our Facebook
presence.</p>
<p>Unlike some companies that have left the social network in
a huff, we aren't angry. We aren’t bitter or resentful. No
angst.</p>
<p>We approached our decision from a business-like
perspective, carefully analyzing the return on investment.
The same way we do for other forms of marketing and
advertising; you know, the way any company should evaluate
the channels it uses. We saw it just wasn’t worth it.</p>
<p>Like many companies, we fell into the category of those who
feel that <a
href="http://www.freeportpress.com/dollars-spent-on-facebook-is-a-waste-for-most-brands-says-new-research/"
target="_blank">time and money spent on Facebook is a
waste.</a> It wasn’t that we didn’t like connecting with
our fans and friends there; rather it was <a
href="http://newsroom.fb.com/news/2014/11/news-feed-fyi-reducing-overly-promotional-page-posts-in-news-feed/"
target="_blank">recent changes in Facebook’s promotional
policies</a> that made the likelihood of our fans even
seeing our posts slim to none.</p>
<p>We gave it a good three years. We paid FB to advertise our
company’s page; we added our FB page link to every
employee’s e-mail signature, noted the URL in our
advertising, linked our page on every page of our website. .
. and over those three years we built up 6,000+ followers.
We posted regularly, often two posts per day, and were
careful to avoid promotional content and ad pitches – our
posts, like our blog, centered on industry news and insights
that our followers could likely use in their own work.</p>
<p>As <a
href="http://newsroom.fb.com/news/2014/11/news-feed-fyi-reducing-overly-promotional-page-posts-in-news-feed/"
target="_blank">Facebook began to limit newsfeed exposure
for brands</a> like ours, our daily posts might reach
between 30 and 70 followers . . . out of 6,000+. Let’s call
that around 1% on a good day. If we wanted to reach more
folks (around 20%) that would cost us $5 for each “promoted”
post.</p>
<p>So let’s say we paid $5 per post for 8 posts per week.
That’s $2080 per year to reach the AUDIENCE THAT WE BUILT
WITH OUR OWN CONTENT. And that’s only reaching around 1,200
people. Want to reach them all? You’re talking 4 times that
or more.</p>
<p>Okay, so maybe we are a little miffed that Facebook has
decided for us – and our followers – who we should be
allowed to talk to each day. That’s the opposite of what
socializing is all about. But that’s their business model,
and we get to take it or leave it. We left it.</p>
<p>We don’t object to paying for promoted posts that reach NEW
followers; nothing is free in this big old world and we get
that every company has to make money. The magazine industry
exists thanks to paid advertising, with brands seeking to
engage via media. But organic reach – that carefully built
engagement of followers that took so long to build – is now
a thing of the past. You cultivated the relationship, but
Facebook decides how often you get to connect with them.
They have become the social chaperones of the digital age.</p>
<p>We join many <a
href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/work-in-progress/2013/04/22/should-you-leave-facebook-edgerank-confusion-promoted-posts-and-why-small-business-owners-are-exceedingly-frustrated/"
target="_blank">other companies who have grown frustrated
with Facebook</a>, some leaving in rather spectacular
flameouts like <a
href="http://www.freeportpress.com/facebook-youre-not-yourself-when-youre-hungry/"
target="_blank">Eat24’s infamous exit</a>. <a
href="http://www.adweek.com/adfreak/facebook-exec-snarkily-confirms-brands-big-fear-their-content-isnt-important-156662"
target="_blank">Facebook’s snarky reply</a> to made it
clear that they couldn’t care less what businesses thought
of their new algorithms, asserting that organic brand
content was not something that their users want to see --
even when they’ve indicated that, yes, indeed, they do.</p>
<p>Will we be back? Never say never. As any marketing or media
channel evolves, they’ll offer advertisers and marketers
options that might or might not make sense. If it looks
good, we’ll try it. If not, we do not feel compelled to be
on Facebook because “everyone has to be,” which has been the
breathless mantra repeated by tech-savvy digital marketers
in the past few years.</p>
<p>In this age of data driven marketing, it should be up to
the brand, not the platform, to decide who sees their
messages. That is the crux of effective marketing.</p>
<p>Late last year <a
href="http://media.fb.com/2014/12/10/new-tools-and-insights-for-publishers-2/"
target="_blank">Facebook announced some new targeting
tools</a> that should “allow publishers to serve content
to specific subsets of people who like their pages, pull
down time sensitive posts to avoid displaying outdated
content and, optionally, allow Facebook to automatically
post articles that are already popular on the social
network,” <a
href="http://www.freeportpress.com/is-facebook-trying-to-save-face-with-publishers/"
target="_blank">according to Martin Beck in MarketingLand</a>.
Those tools are only available (at this point) to the big
media organizations with, we imagine, robust marketing
budgets to match. It’s on them to decide if their investment
is worth it, and if they want to let Facebook make these
critical marketing decisions on their behalf.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, we will continue to engage with our followers
and fans on <a href="http://www.twitter.com/FreeportPress"
rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Twitter</a> and <a
href="https://twitter.com/freeportpress" target="_blank">LinkedIn</a>,
where our content is not filtered out and we aren’t charged
to reach the audience that we’ve built. We share many of our
posts on LinkedIn with specific groups based around industry
interests, and often engage in some great discussions there.
We will also reach many of you with our <a
href="http://www.freeportpress.com/newsletter/"
rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Weekly Newsletter</a> via
Constant Contact.</p>
<p><em>We look forward to seeing you there.</em> See ya
‘round, Mark.</p>
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