Ever since the hardcore newsfeed tweak of 2013, brands and businesses are jumping the Facebook ship in alarming numbers. Businesses and professionals are feeling as apathetic about Facebook fanpages as we all are. The main reason is because they feel they were no longer getting any value from them. Hundreds of known websites are jumping off the Facebook fanpage train as well. In fact, some of these companies declared that Facebook was actually hurting their business. Kissmetrics provides a comprehensive list of reasons why marketing professionals believe you should want to leave Facebook, some of them are:
- “Twitter is better.”
- “Facebook punishes organic posts and non-paid content.”
- “Facebook limits the amount of genuine interaction that your audience can have with you.”
These points are indeed good sound reasons why you might be feeling a little Facebook exhaustion. You’ve most likely reflected on a few (or even all) of the points listed during your time marketing your brand/business/website on Facebook fanpages. We have noticed that users who like businesses on Facebook, the platform will intentionally limit the interaction between the business and the end-user. This seems very unfair because businesses have worked hard to gain their followers and then Facebook decides they don’t get to engage them any more. Not only that, Facebook is turning their backs on people who actually made them popular. All those TV, radio, and billboard ads sporting the “follow us on Facebook” logo were placed there at no charge to Facebook, yet they greatly benefited from such campaigns. Will business continue to invite people to Facebook? With each passing day, this seems more and more unlikely.
Now that was the bad part, however, Facebook fanpages are not completely useless just yet. Facebook has its fair share of obnoxious online trolls spewing their opinions that no one cares about, saying that “Facebook fans are worthless”. So, should you delete your Facebook fanpage?
We believe you should think this through before leaving. Just because popular sites like Forbes and Copyblogger aren’t getting any value from Facebook doesn’t mean you aren’t or shouldn’t try to. While Facebook might no longer be the most ideal place for your customers, you can’t ignore the fact that a large audience is all in one place (1.4 billion users, to be exact). Sure, Facebook can be difficult to work with these days, and now might be a good time to reevaluate your social media marketing efforts. However, you should pass on deleting your Facebook for now as it is still the undisputed king of social media.