Remember Facebook’s doomsday March? If you dabble in social media, there is a good chance that Fanpages are your go-to tools for reaching the masses. Or at least, they were. Since March, Fanpage owners all across the globe reported a loss in earnings, reach, and activity. Giant affiliate companies such as Render Media have quit paying publishers, and have fired over 90% of their staff. Big publishers like LittleThings.com were also hit, and forced to close doors. Overall, the Facebook Fanpage market came to a screeching halt. With the recent Facebook’s privacy concerns and #DeleteFacebook movements, things are getting even worse. Even the big guys like Space X and Playboy announced that they would delete their Fanpages. But is it all over for Facebook Fanpages? For the big guys, perhaps. But for smaller publishers? No.

Now that the dust is settling, we’re seeing Fanpage admins adjust to the new rules and improve their strategies to comply with Facebook’s new rules.

What are the major changes?

  • One of the most significant changes we’ve seen is keeping content unique to a Fanpage. Yes, this is what killed the big dogs, as Facebook will go after your Fanpage if you decide to share the same links on a number of pages.  To stay afloat, smaller Fanpage admins have to keep the content unique to a page, and make sure the material is on topic with the Fanpage. In short, if you own a page about dogs, don’t post about cats.
  • Create your own content. If you didn’t create what you’re pushing, Facebook doesn’t want you to share it. It’s a part of their new branded policy, and they will go after Fanpages who break this rule.
  • Don’t crosspost your content on other Fanpages. While we didn’t hear anything about Facebook deletions when content gets cross-posted, we have seen/heard about significant reach drop when such tactics are used.

In short, Facebook Fanpages aren’t out yet, but they became very difficult to scale. Smaller admins who are happy with low-end traffic will be quite OK. But siphoning large amounts of traffic to a single article from a network of Fanpages is very risky, as Facebook may (and probably will) delete them.