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
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)
