Social networks like Facebook oftentimes switch shit up on you whenever they feel like it. And it sucks that you’re powerless to do anything about it. These changes can have huge effects on your marketing and promotional strategy. Recently, this is exactly what Facebook did with their Pages. Facebook is now restricting your posts from reaching the majority of your fans because they’d like you to pay for that reach.
You’ve probably already noticed that lately the number of fans seeing your Facebook page updates has decreased tremendously. Now, depending on how much you’re willing to spend, you can reach a larger percentage of them. I have almost 6,700 fans on IndieHIpHop’s Facebook page. When I post an update, I’m lucky if it reaches 15% of them. It would cost me 20 bucks an update just to reach half of those people. I have no problem with paying for something that I feel is a valuable. But I question whether or not this kind of investment has any longterm benefits.
The folks at Facebook have the right to do whatever the hell they want to do with their platform, provided it’s legal. Those of us who have opted into their network, don’t pay for the basic service of it, so it’s useless to complain when they blindside you with changes. And they have a long history of doing that. Facebook has gradually made it more difficult to directly communicate the those who voluntarily become fans of your page. It must be very disappointing to those who have paid to increase their Facebook fan numbers only to have them become unreachable.
The way to avoid being negatively affected by these ever-changing social networks is to not put all of your eggs in one basket. Their popularity will come and go. If you’re using one that’s working for you at the moment, continue, but start thinking about how you’d connect with those fans if that social network were to suddenly shut down.
Right now, creating an email list of your most loyal fans seems to be the only way that you can be sure to stay connected with them when social networks become ineffective. So maybe all of the energy and effort artists spend asking people to “follow” them or “like” their page, should be replaced with asking them for their email addresses
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