Yes Maggie, our Facebook pages are still free, but that was not what my question was about. I think you may be mistaken when you said "our ability to interact with our fans remains in the hands of the fans per their settings" because that doesn't appear to be so, since FB manipulates the number of "friends" or "fans" who see your post in their home news feed.
The March issue of Nailpro on p.154 written by Leslie Hendrick had this 4 page article concerning FB and it started off by saying: (quote) "NEW POLICIES Some nail artists ands salons have worked hard to build their following on FB. In May 2012, FB went public and suddenly had to please shareholders & make more money. But how? Looking around for the answer, FB noticed all of the people who had created fan pages: small businesses, corporations, authors, artists, nonprofits, salons and others. Why not charge these people for reaching all of the fans that "liked" their pages? It wasn't long before fan page owners started to notice the traffic on their posts had dramatically decreased. Now, only about 15 to 30% of your fans will see your posts. But FB hasn't created a problem without also creating a solution. for a fee ranging from $5 to $5000(depending how many "likes" you have), you can promote your posts to all of your fans and make sure that they will appear in their news feeds. For an up-charge, you can also reach their friends, too- although that can get expensive. Let's say the charge to reach your fans is $20 per post, and you post 3 times a day. That's $60 a day. At 5 days a week, that adds up to $300. Over an entire year, you could end up paying $15,600 to reach people WHO VOLUNTARILY LIKED YOUR PAGE AND WANTED TO SEE YOUR POSTS". (end quote) True, it is their prerogative to change their business operating procedures to suit themselves (and their stockholders), but it's also OUR prerogative to explore alternative social media means to promote our businesses....now that we're aware of how FB's changes no longer fill our business needs. As for my personal FB page, it's still a nice way to keep up with my family & friends. As for my business FB pages, I think I'll be pulling back a little to invest more time into other means of marketing, promoting & advertising. Jill Wright Event Coordinator & Nail Tech Nail Tech Event of the Smokies www.nailtechevent.com On Monday, March 18, 2013 4:17:28 PM UTC-5, Maggie wrote: > > Well, first off, as mentioned, it is their party. The mindset that FB > somehow owes us-- or any of it's users-- anything has always been absurd. > And they've always manipulated the posts that are seen in anyone's > newsfeed-- just try getting your settings to stay at "most recent" instead > of "top stories" for the posts that show in your newsfeed. You have to > remember to switch that everytime you check your newsfeed, or FB will just > show you what it wants to. > > I think the biggest "problem" with FB is that the vast majority of users > don't understand the difference between profiles and pages. And FB treats > pages VERY differently than profiles. It's up to the "fans" to make sure > their settings are set to show updates from pages, but not only is that a > complete mystery to most people, they also don't understand making lists or > changing settings. > > I've never considered my use of FB as a means of advertising in the > traditional sense. I don't run paid advertising there, so I know I'm > unlikely to get my FB page in front of new eyes in hopes of driving new > clients to the business. I think that's a misguided approach to using > social networking as advertising and I see my theories played out numerous > times in abandoned pages and from what I hear from people who abandoned > them: I get decent traffic to my professional website via search engines, I > have my FB "fan box" in the sidebar of the website, that's where most of my > new "likes" come from. > > I post from the FB page regularly. I try to keep it fresh so the people > who've liked it will know that it's not just a static page taking up space, > they can see that I'm an active nail tech, doing business regularly, > posting new pictures, etc. For the ones who do keep up with my posts, they > can stay involved with me and my business. They develop a sense of > community and they start to feel like they know me, know my business, are > part of the fold, even though we haven't met yet-- they follow me for > awhile until eventually many of them finally get around to making an > apointment. By that time, I'm more likely to keep them as clients because > we've already bonded. > > It's a very new sort of way of advertising for many businesses. It means > we're courting new clients for sometimes years before they actually start > putting money in our pockets. But I know it works because I get to meet new > clients all the time from this conversion process. And I think it lends > itself well to our type of business because our business is one that is > looking for a long term client/professional relationship-- it makes sense > to go through a courtship process. > > The thing that I'm seeing/hearing on FB is this new practice of FB banning > people from making new friend requests if someone declines your request and > says they don't know you outside of FB. I think that will send a lot of FB > users who use FB for networking purposes outside of FB and back to private > forums again. Especially stupid of FB when they do that whole friend > suggestion thing. I'll be curious to see if my predictions are correct on > that front, or if FB drops that soon. > > I have a couple hundred friend requests pending because once I max out at > 5K friends, people can't even send me new requests. So I tend to ignore > requests and stay under 5K so I can leave room for making connections with > clients/friends/family and techs that I really want to befriend. But FB's > "help" pages say that if your friend requests go unanswered for a long > time, you can get blocked from new requests too. That means I have to go > through all those requests and deny them-- without answering the "do you > know this person outside of FB" question, or saying "yes" so that I don't > cause those users grief. > > But so far it's been my understanding that our pages are still free and > our ability to interact with our fans remains in the hands of the fans per > their settings. Has nothing to do with going public and we aren't required > to pay for advertising space in order to retain access and use of our > pages. All buying an ad does is put your page in front of more users. And I > thought it was always that way? > > > > Maggie Franklin: > Owner & Artist, The Art of Nailz <http://artofnailz.info/>, Visalia CA > * "Visionary rebel dreamer; obviously way ahead of my time." > *Maggie Rants [and Raves]@Nails Magazine <http://blogs.nailsmag.com/maggie/> > Facebook <http://www.facebook.com/onykophile> > > > *From:* Jill in Ky <[email protected] <javascript:>> > *To:* [email protected] <javascript:> > *Sent:* Sunday, March 17, 2013 11:18 AM > *Subject:* NailTech:: What do all you techs think about the Facebook > changes? > > Hi you all! > > For awhile now, I'd been noticing that many techs I used to see showing up > on my home Facebook feed are no longer there. I wondered if since the > changes last year to charge $ for ad space (they shows up on the right hand > side of your FB page) had something to do with this. The recent March > Nailpro issue confirmed my suspicions with a big article, which basically > says that since FB went public we'll have to PAY for our posts to reach the > majority of our fan/friend base! > > That means if you're posting on your FB business page for your salon in > hopes of driving more clients to your doors, you'll only be reaching a > small percentage of your customers even if they already had 'liked' your > page. Sounds almost like extortion to me. > > The idea of what we'd previously gotten for free for years, we now have to > pay for, is bad enough. But what really bothers me is that FB is now > deciding for us who CAN & who CANNOT see our posts. Isn't that form of > censorship with the news & communications what goes on in communist > countries? > > How do you all feel about this? > > > > Jill Wright > http://www.nailtechevent.com/ > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "NailTech" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to [email protected] <javascript:>. > To post to this group, send email to [email protected]<javascript:> > . > Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/nailtech?hl=en. > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. > > > > > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "NailTech" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/nailtech?hl=en. 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