Is there a withdrawal possibility for Facebook?

I geek out on a lot of things, and my most recent fascination has been with Social Media. I’m lucky enough to be part of a group that creates content, and so I have something (somewhat) meaningful to share with the world that is more than pictures of my cat, though ask me about my cats – I have a bajillion pictures, and I’m learning the ways of the force – aka the in’s and out’s of most social media platforms. What I’m finding with more and more clarity is that I’m getting close to being just done with Facebook.

It started when I was researching putting some $$$ down for some Facebook advertising for Dorkadia on Facebook, and came across Varatisium’s video about how Facebook advertising doesn’t work (It’s a good 9 minute video, well worth watching). So, if you pay to advertise your site, you’re going to get what you ask for – lots of people looking at your ad, liking your page, and going to your website! But you’re not getting what you want – people to engage with what you’re talking about. Real meaningful people who care about your topic. That’s pretty crappy.

Then when Facebook started inserting more and more ads into your news feed, and decreasing how many people see what you post – and I’m not talking just about a business page like Dorkadia, but your own personal updates as well! – it started getting pretty frustrating. Social Ogilvy has a great chart showing the decline of organic reach, and Forbes details how Organic reach is rapidly reaching zero; (the number of people who see your status updates without paying to boost them at all), where you watch that line plummet down. As of about two months from this article, organic reach of a post on facebook is about 2% of people who like your page. Say you have 1,000 people who like your page? It’s most likely that only 20 of them will see your status update. ??????? Lots of people are getting frustrated with this shift in policy that asks people to pay to reach more of the people who ASKED TO SEE YOUR CONTENT. Eat24.com put a pretty awesome open letter discussing their reasoning to turn off their Facebook page – because quite honestly, for less effort and way less money, they can reach more people on other social media channels.

social.ogilvy.com

And with my own personal experience – Charles and I were excited last year when we heard about Unnatural Redhead Productions was going to put on the burlesque show about Table Top Games “Table Topless” (lol!), we made sure to like their page, and follow their content so we could get the announcement when tickets were going on sale. Months and months go by with nothing in our feed from them, and thankfully on a whim Charles went directly to their website to see if they had a status update there. Turns out, they had been selling tickets for over a month, pushing out status updates right and left! But Facebook’s algorithm thought it was content we didn’t want to see, so we never saw it. (Thankfully, we were still able to get tickets!) A few weeks later a friend of ours was married – an event Charles attended, and yet Facebook didn’t think he would want to see the status update from his friend the groom thanking all who attended. This magic algorithm thinks I don’t want to know about major life events in my friends comments, but that I really care about my mothers 847th weekly status update of “TGIF”. really.

So personally, I’m seeing less content than I actually want out of Facebook, and professionally, the people I want to reach aren’t seeing my content. Then at our 13th Age game the other night, one of our players was telling us how Facebook asks to read your txt messages on your android phones. I have nothing to hide, but why does Facebook need to know that I’m telling Charles that I’ll be late getting home because I lost track of time browsing reddit? There is just more and more and more that makes me frownie face.

I’m taking a class through the University of Washington, and my instructor shared a piece he wrote titled “We need an exit strategy for Facebook“, which got me thinking, Is there an exit strategy for Facebook? Eat 24 has clearly shown that they can do without – and probably gained customers due to their splash in the news because of it. But what about how just a few months ago, Hannah and I laughed at Jon because of his trepidation, and feeling of anxiety and obligation to use social media? I think I’ve done a fair amount of poking around about Facebook, but it wasn’t long ago that if someone told me the weren’t on Facebook, I’d look at them funny and wonder why.

Are we really in a place yet, where we can not be part of the larger conversation that is happening on Facebook? I’m leaning towards yes, because even if you say something on Facebook, no one is going to hear you. But how long until people stop looking at you funny when you say that you’ve given up on their social media of choice? In the end, what I think it means for me is that I’m pulling the Facebook app off my phone, I’m still going to post articles to Facebook, but I’m pretty much not going to invest or worry about what happens to our page there. I’m not quite ready to implement the exit strategy, but I’ll be looking for one when that organic reach goes from 2% to zero.