So I'm just going to come right out of the gates swinging and put it out there; dedicated Facebook business pages are not relevant anymore. The year is 2017 and Facebook has evolved into one of the most efficient advertising machines out there, giving users the opportunity to spend money at every glance. In doing so, it has become the same old commercial that everyone hates and has destroyed the need for a Facebook business page at all.
Let me be clear, I still have and maintain a Facebook page dedicated to my photography work. I routinely upload new content, engage with my audience, respond to messages, post the occasional travel notice or promotion, and share new work with groups. Basically, everything that you're supposed to be doing on an active page. This doesn't change how I feel about Facebook one bit; I firmly believe that business pages are not worth the time they require to manage and update. At this point, specifically regarding my business page, I am just going through the motions.
Everyone seems to hate the current Facebook experience. We log in and get blasted with notifications about more ways to spend money on advertising. Boost this, boost that, click here to buy more reach. Plus the in-feed advertising has gotten out of control. Every single time Facebook comes up in casual conversation, it's always clouded with negative connotations about click bait style sponsored posts, fake news articles, and the most recent item we just looked at on Amazon. It is the television commercial that literally never ends, the show we were watching never comes back on.
I don't care what a certain celebrity looks like now, I don't want to see fifteen scary facts about the ocean, I don't want to buy Lightroom presets, and I certainly don't care whether I will or won't believe what one of the Kardashians is doing next. As the Facebook experience becomes increasingly volatile and every inch of our screen filled with sponsored posts, with business pages being nothing more than a reminder about ways to spend money, where are we supposed to turn?
Some of my favorite platforms include Instagram (the irony of course is that IG is owned by Facebook), 500px, Youpic, Gurushots, and Tumblr to name a few. They feel like creative spaces where people can share and connect with other artists. Find inspiration, clients, and market your skill set all without the volatility and ad spam found on Facebook. Are they perfect? No, of course not. Facebook is such an engine at this point that when it comes to marketing, it's near impossible for other platforms to compete. However, there is a pleasurable peace in not being bombarded with notifications about boosting posts and buying reach.
Let me know how you feel about the state of the Facebook experience in 2017. Do you feel as negative towards the platform as I do? Maybe you view it as a perfectly tuned advertising tool that works wonders for your business, using boosts and sponsored ads to market in ways like never before. What about your clients? How do they feel about Facebook? Are they sick of the commercials too? Food for thought, let's about it.
Ye olde "bite the hand that feeds" comes to mind haha.
I just commented on a Mark Zuckerburger post as he was trying to promote their new video crap. I asked if the reach would be screwed for that as well. No response. Say bye to Instagram as they add the same stuff soon. Twitter is boring and most photography sites are just photogs surrounded by other photogs. And even photogs are perverts so the most popular pics are nude women. Go figure.
Word of mouth is all that's left. I'm surrounded by models and cosplayers that have had their reach destroyed as Facebook holds followers hostage. So basically, $10 for about 1k of the 31k followers I have to see my post. Followers that followed me to see my post! Now I get comments like "How come you never post anymore?" Even though I do. But pay up and see how fast fake middle east profiles start liking your stuff without ever leaving a comment or liking anything else. IT'S A SCAM. So much for a social site being social.
Word of mouth and referrals are the thing source than can never be replaced.
Also, it seems extremely improbable that Zuckerberg would respond directly to a comment, especially one with such negative implications.
I didn't expect a reply to an answer he won't give and that I already know. If he cared at all, it wouldn't be the ad spam, pay to post mess that it is.
Same problem here, about 1-5% of my followers actually see what I post =/ Word of mouth is what actually gives work these days!
The few photographers that I know locally that have business pages all say the same thing, it's a pain in the butt. Photos getting stolen, dealing with fraudulent negative reviews, constant messages from people asking questions that are easily answered just by looking at their Facebook page or website, and constant bombardment of "pay this much to reach 50 more people".
I have absolutely no desire to deal with any of that. Facebook for me is now just keeping in contact with people I work with/for, and keeping up with friends that are not local.
As far as images being stolen, that's a possibility regardless of platform. Personally, I don't feel that FB is easier or more common for images to be stolen.
As far as people asking the easily answered questions, that is just a part of the job. At the end of the day, we are all customer service experts. Customers asking questions should be viewed as a positive opportunity to engage with a potential client!
I agree that FB does feel like they bombard us with notifications about more ways for us to pay for everything, which definitely gets on my nerves haha.
I dont mind my FB business page I think its just really slow an blocky to use.
Not sure if it is applicable, but what browser do you use for FB? I recently found the Firefox runs extremely slow specifically on FB (possibly a memory leak?). I switched to Chrome and have a much smoother experience from a technical standpoint.
Whenever I pay for advertising on facebook, I end up getting lots of likes by fake accounts which is of no use to me or my business.
It can be challenging using targeted ads to make sure you're reaching only the intended audience.
We have a different challenge than most, moving every two to four years. Facebook has been valuable for us in building an initial client base - we typically have to spend about the first six to twelve months running specials (sometimes at near to a loss), and once we've built up enough followers it gets close to self-sustaining. The thing is by that point we're also making a decent amount of our business off self-referrals, and they tend to feed each other.
Wow, that does sound like a challenge. Though at this point you must pretty much be expert in quickly building up a client base in a new location!
Hey I read this article so where are my 2 free British Airways round the world tickets?
Seriously as a person I log into FB to see what my far away friends are up to. Everything else I ignore.
I don't use it for business but I know some who do and get work from it. But they do so by paying for carefully targetted well made ads. It is no longer the free tool it was back in the day. It is now just like any newspaper or magazine... you have to pay for advertising and do it well to get results.
One of the things that I've seen recently is people who run really broad ad campaigns only with the intention of inflating their page's raw number of likes. This seems like a really odd thing to do, when you consider that they then must also continue to pay to reach anyone whose like they just bought.
Also, if a campaign's purpose is just more page likes, but the page doesn't generate clients, the campaign was run with a 0% ROI.
When I see someone's page jump by a few thousand likes over the course of a couple days I can't help but wonder how much they just spent and what was the point of that haha.
The two biggest wastes of time I have currently in trying to develop photography business are: 1.) Facebook Business Page and 2.) Thumbtack. In both cases, the time spent on both platforms costs time and generally returns little to nothing for that time invested. In most cases, the core feature called "organic" networking Facebook provides has become a meaningless thing as their manipulation of that vehicle to force more "ad buys" has ensured only a fractional percentage of people who "like" your page will actually see any post and secondary or tertiary views of your content has become non existent. 4 years ago, a post would have a baseline of 2K views. In the past two years I have seen posts trend to 10% of that number and ultimately the people "seeing" the posts are not potential customers but rather other photographers wanting to follow my work. Nice to have people liking your work, but that rarely pays the bills.
Haha, I feel like a video about Facebook's evolution could be made and set to the Bob Dylan song The Times They Are A Changin'
I have been experiencing the same problems and have started developing a company that builds unique apps for small businesses so they can have their own environment to connect with their clients better. I'm curious, does anyone see a value in having their own mobile app for showing off their portfolio and sending push notifications to their audience? I'd also like to know if there is something specific someone would like their own app to do.
The first question that pops into my head - would clients also have to download the app?
Yes, it would be just one time download like you would Facebook or Instagram but now you would control everything in the app and everything coming from it.
I shut mine down at the start of 2016, haven't missed it. I was getting 0.5% reach to my current followers. I actually hope they do the same thing to Instagram. As a platform it's terrible for sharing photos. The sooner we can move on to something not so toxic and completely designed to make money off you the better.
EVERY photographer I have spoken to in the last 12 months has said that Facebook is pointless, that includes one with over 1 million followers.
To play devil's advocate though, a new platform can't just exist with zero intention of ever making money while also giving us everything that we ask for.
I try to stress that it is both okay for a business like FB to go after profits and revenue, while also striving to foster a positive environment. The problem, is that currently, FB is the one reaping all the reward while small business feels like you're shouting into the void.
If we think of it like a pendulum, where one side we are happy but the platform is unsustainable and the other side the platform makes all the money and we get little if anything in return. Finding the center point where both a profitable business platform can exist while users can enjoy the experience and also reap the benefits of their hard work should be the goal.
Yeah it's swung way too far! They could make money from ad's and sponsored posts to people who don't follow your page, but to deny your work to the people who already like your page is a step too far. At the end of the day we are content creators, if we stop using the platform, no more content. with no more content people move on...and they are. I truly think it's slowly killing itself, not to the point where it can't be pulled back but, put it this way, if a new platform that didn't do this popped up, how fast do you think people would switch.
I use my FB page to primarily link to my other platforms like IG and my website. The engagement and adds pushing is been getting worse ever since I made the page. Now it's just there because it has to.
EDIT: The real question is what will the next big thing after Instagram?
While there are a lot of things I don't like about Instagram, for now at least, I think it is probably my favorite social media platform.
As far as what comes next? Who knows. . .I do feel like FB is actually, through the toxicity of the experience, creating the room for a new competitor. At the same time though, you have to wonder if Facebook is basically "too big to fail"
Nothing is too big to fail if they do not evolve. I too think instagram is the best at the moment, but still I am afraid to switch to a business profile on IG. I think it will juts be a matter of time until the business side goes the way of the FB pages.
Great post!
I have a FB "fan page" and I really only post to it on occasion because I feel like I should.
Would be better off to just delete it.
Would love to find another platform dedicated to the craft where folks can interact and learn without all the other BS that is associated with FB.
Especially as a newbie.
Thanks
Thanks for your comment Jon. As far as "is FB worth it" that just depends on how much time (and money) you're wanting to dedicate to it.
Personally (and I said the same thing in an earlier reply to a comment) I would not at this point recommend anyone be dedicating the time it takes to grow a FB page. Your time is better spent on other platforms. Instagram obviously comes to mind as a much more accessible platform for growing a business.
FB is little more than a convenient habit. Google stock is climbing. Their model continues to generate record revenue.
Maybe it's time for some competition?
Between Google, Apple, and Amazon, you have to wonder if one of them has had think tanks dedicated to taking on Facebook on the social media front.
The world may never know haha.
At one point I heard Google Plus was making a comeback.
Haven't heard anything since.
I would love to see some added to the G Suite that competes with FB.
I use soooooo much G Suite as it is.
"Do you feel as negative towards the platform as I do?"
In a word: yes. We maintain our FB business page only very casually, and for the reasons you outline. But because we only use if to publicise our touring schedule, and hardly engage with comments, no problem. I hardly visit my personal page—it's as bad as all the others: one liners with little content.
Is the present time the zenith of our civilisation? If FB is any indication, no.
I permanently deleted my Facebook 4 months ago. I got sick and tired of seeing all the negativity, gossip, politics, people posting about their personal stuff that should never be posted online, and never ending ads for stuff I will never buy. I have been a very happy camper since. I'm also not running a business so I can do that. Point I'm making is Facebook is a cancer of the mind if you can do without it you should really get rid of it. Some of you may think you could never get rid of it. Think reaaally hard about it. You probably can.
I agree with you but one might be tempted to just get FB Purity plugin for Chrome/Firefox etc. and never seen any of that nonsense in your feed.
Personally, I support the use of ad-blockers so thumbs up there. The problem though is that the more that people use ad blockers the more the developers find work-arounds, that combined with the fact that the ads are still there even if a single person doesn't see them doesn't have a net positive effect on the platform I think.
I just checked and my last post to my business page was November of 2015. For me, FB Business Pages have been dead for at least as long. I stopped posting to mine when I realized my posts were not reaching all of my followers. It's ridiculous to me that people who choose to follow me won't see my posts unless I pay FB, and that I get more exposure simply by posting to my personal account. When I was generating revenue through photography, most of my business came from referrals thanks to clients posting my shots on their own personal pages with credit attribution anyway.
Thanks for the comment TC, as always referrals will always beat social media haha!
Also, and I've said this before, I think that for us to expect a 1:1 ratio of followers to reach is both unfair and unrealistic. It comes down to the total amount of content online, some things have to go unseen on some level, there literally just isn't enough time and enough eyes to see everything that gets posted.
The problem that we experience is when the ratio is so far skewed that usage of the platform in and of itself becomes less worth it than the time it takes to use the platform. That is the questions that FB faces, how can they make sure that users aren't just giving up on FB altogether in response to frustration.
One of my biggest frustrations with my business page, other than everything everyone has said here is when I post a new photo to an album, it puts it at the bottom and you have to scroll past 'every' other photo in the album to get to it. Unless I go to the photo and manually move it to the top row of the album, it doesn't matter how you set the album, set the chronology of the album, etc. Drives me bonkers.
Sad thing is, Instagram is becoming exactly this. One continuous ad after another. The other terrible part is the lack of organic reach. Yay, 100 people saw that post and only 3 people liked it. Why can't I see who those 100 are so I can remove the dead weight from my page.
Even though I own a business I currently don't have a page on Facebook. The reason I'm here is to ask a question about the cost of boosting posts. This is something I know that Facebook offers. Any help would be appreciated.
Don't do it. Boosting posts is a complete waste of money. If you wish to spend money on Facebook, create a targeted ad that will give a better ROI.
Excuse me for being late as you wrote this article a year ago. It is still relevant though. I experienced it off and on for 3 years. But since early 2017 it is gradually going down. And not only on Pages but also personal profiles. I resisted creating a page for long because I did not want yet another page to manage. Already managed someone else page and saw how much work they actually are for a very minimalistic outcome. So, there I am posting my professional work on my private profile and end up in a stream with all the smartphone pics and meme and if it wasn't for my longtime friends, also into photography, there probably would not be any likes at all. In need of separating things, in March 2018 I created a page. Not only for my photography but also design. Needless to say, the page is not working too well. I feel I am at war with Facebook almost every day. Whether I am writing thoughtful posts, which there is no attention span. Or post-professional photo's, designs. I get more likes on simple snapshots with my phone or any short dull posts. When the toxicity reaches unhealthy levels, time to limit time on FB. On the weekends I try to not be on there.
Besides the platforms, UI is not intuitive. Every time they add some fancy stuff they break other things. It's phone app oriented. And they skimping on bandwidth, too many videos, live broadcasts it's slow. I still maintain, but I gave up to look at it as a valuable addition. It may or may not get better, who knows. But there are other platforms which are more useful, depends on individual needs. For my designs stuff, as an example, I have more luck with Pinterest. While these are my thoughts on the subject, I have a fair amount of friends which share the same or similar.
I have five million Indian followers pages and groups on Facebook and I can say from my own experience that Facebook is completely dead. Till 2018 we were earning more than 5000$ every month but today not single penny. Now I'm thinking of trying to focus attention on Instagram. There is no point in wasting money on Facebook anymore.