If Facebook Doesn't Do It, Users Will

Facebook friends, I admit it. I am guilty. The big F in the sky has now decided to punish me for my transgressions and I will accept its decision. Actually, I don't really have much choice.

What did I do wrong? I told you to buy a t-shirt.

I perpetrated the offense on a commercial page I manage for the movie project I Am Douglass. The film-in-development has a Zazzle store, so I would occasionally post about one of the offerings with a suggestion to purchase it. Folks who had “liked” the I Am Douglass Facebook page might have seen the post pop up in their news feeds, along with our script quotes and behind-the-scenes photos. They may never see the shirts again, and not because the garments shrink after they’re washed.

This week, Facebook’s blog informed us that company page posts that "solely push people to buy a product”⁽¹⁾ will be filtered from likers’ news feeds. Accordingly, “pages that post promotional creative should expect their organic distribution to fall significantly over time.”⁽²⁾ So they apparently don’t like my t-shirt solicitations (although, admittedly, their blog post did not cite my efforts specifically).

Some may view the change as a Facebook money grab designed to “force” advertisers to buy more paid placements.⁽³⁾ The FB statement claims “this change is about giving people the best Facebook experience possible.”⁽⁴⁾ While I am always willing to embrace a good conspiracy theory (note the I Am Douglass thriller above), I believe the Zuckerbergians on this one.

The ads Facebook does sell depend on eyeballs seeing them (and, ideally, fingers pushing mouse buttons or touch screens to click on them). Overly salesy ads that are a lot less interesting than what Justin Bieber just posted on Twitter drive people away from the platform. It’s always worked that way on every platform that mixed advertising with content. When I worked for TV stations, we used to joke that the programming was there to fill the time between the commercials. We knew, however, that we needed to balance our ad-to-content ratio or viewers would tune out. In addition, when creating our own advertisements for programming, we knew we had to make them interesting because people don’t pay attention to boring spots.

Will Facebook unravel my future t-shirt posts? I do try to make them interesting. Surely slogans like “Surveillance State Running Team” or “The NSA is Reading This Shirt” entice viewers more than, say, “Download this app to get a vague idea of your credit score.” 

Whatever Menlo Park decides, though, I am ok with it. Content marketing is, and always has been, about engaging content. Facebook knows that, and its research has revealed what kinds of posts cause its users to make their yuck faces. If I provide crummy posts, readers will ignore them anyway, the same way they do terrible TV spots. In this case, their platform is just saving them the trouble.

So, come to think of it, I don't just accept Facebook's new policy. I embrace it. I run my own creative shop. As a professional content creator, I'd like to think that my putting in just a little more time will result in non-salesy posts that will skate by FB's algorithms or proofreaders.

The rest of the world will just have to hire someone who can do that. Come to think of it, they could hire me. Oh, wait, did that last sentence doom me to the Facebook sin bin, despite coming at the end of an otherwise academically rigorous post? Well, if it did, tell your friends they can find this post on my LinkedIn profile, hosted by a more business-oriented social media network.

And they can follow some links to buy a shirt while they're there.

Dang, I did it again. Please don’t hold it against me, Facebook.

Rush Olson has spent two decades directing creative efforts for sports teams and broadcasters. He currently creates ad campaigns and related creative projects for sports entities through his company, Rush Olson Creative & Sports. He is also spearheading an ambitious film project called “I Am Douglass.”

RushOlson.com

Linkedin.com/company/rush-olson-creative-&-sports

Facebook.com/RushOlsonCreativeandSports

Footnotes

⁽¹⁾ “News Feed FYI: Reducing Overly Promotional Page Posts in News Feed,” facebook.com. http://newsroom.fb.com/news/2014/11/news-feed-fyi-reducing-overly-promotional-page-posts-in-news-feed/ (accessed November 15, 2014)

⁽²⁾ IBID.

⁽³⁾ Kelly Fiveash, “Zuck: Yo, admen! You wanna flog your brands on Facebook? PAY UP or LEAVE,” The Register.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/11/15/facebook_news_feed_promotional_page_posts/ (Accessed November 15, 2014)

⁽⁴⁾ “News Feed FYI: Reducing Overly Promotional Page Posts in News Feed,” facebook.com. http://newsroom.fb.com/news/2014/11/news-feed-fyi-reducing-overly-promotional-page-posts-in-news-feed/ (accessed November 15, 2014)