Facebook is reporting that it has 1.35 billion monthly active users, which is almost 20 percent of the world’s population. This is seemingly exciting news for companies, brands, venues and events that are trying to reach broader audiences more effectively. But what started out as a platform for virtually free advertising, has recently taken on an updated algorithm that sorts posts through an almost pay-to-play method.
“Facebook is still the king of social media,” said Cassie Roberts, Partnership director for Saffire Events. “A lot of people feel like with all this stuff going on, Facebook isn’t as important anymore or everyone is going to other sources, and that’s really not the case. The only thing that’s happening is that free Facebook is what’s dwindling.”
Roberts explained the history of the Facebook algorithm during a presentation given at the 2015 Western Fairs Association Convention & Trade Show in January. Before, companies and venues simply needed to get other users to “like” their page, and then all of their posts would show up in those people’s newsfeeds. In 2013, the algorithm changed, reducing the number of business posts that would show up. In 2014, the algorithm changed again. Then, in January 2015, the algorithm changed another time, further reducing the reach of posts from “liked” pages. Now, Facebook is showing fewer posts that solely push someone to buy a product, attempt to make someone enter a promotion or promote sweepstakes or posts that reuse content.
“Facebook is always tinkering with their EdgeRank algorithm,” said Craig Ricks, vice president of Marketing for Paciolan. “Obviously they’re wanting to monetize their 1.35 billion active monthly users. So they’re trying to incentivize folks who are trying to increase their reach to pay, to do that with sponsored posts.”
Because of this, strategies for Facebook posting are forced to change.
“At Saffire, we say, post and advertise or don’t post at all,” said Roberts. “That’s the strategy we use, and I would strongly recommend that’s what you guys use, too. It doesn’t mean you have to pay for every single post you put up on Facebook. But the ones that are important, I would probably say pay for it or no one’s going to really see it.”
Staples Center in Los Angeles regularly conducts Facebook contests and giveaways on its page, picking winners for tickets to shows or gift cards to restaurants. Cara Vanderhook, senior director of Communications and Social Media at Staples Center, said it would take an hour or more of manpower to put together these giveaways, but they weren’t really paying off, even for a Facebook page with over 195,000 likes.
“An hour and a half of work for a post that gets 10 to 20 likes is just bad use of time, in my opinion,” said Vanderhook.
Staples Center works closely with AEG Live for many shows, so Vanderhook approached them about continuing the contest but boosting the posts to make all of the time and effort worth it. “They agreed 100 percent with us,” said Vanderhook. “so they’ve been putting money behind pretty much every contest we’ve done and it’s helped tenfold.”
With the new system, they are able to give AEG advertising administrative access, which simplifies the process of getting the receipts and charges to them that they can put toward their settlement.
“When I was explaining it to someone outside the industry who didn’t really understand it, they were like, well it sounds like they’re doing pay to play,” said Vanderhook. “And I was like, pretty much. That’s the easiest way to explain it. They’re kind of holding you hostage, and if you want to reach your people and reach the right people, you have to put money behind it.”
In the last two years, East Texas State Fair in Tyler, Texas has amped up its activity on Facebook, running a number of contests and promotions during the fair and quadrupling its page likes to almost 16,000. The fair has even adjusted its marketing budget in order to compensate the redirection. Last year, fair CEO John Sykes said they drew record per cap numbers.
Though he believes Facebook is “walking a thin wire” with the added costs required to get your posts seen, Sykes sees their strategy paying off through increased interaction and shares.
“I wouldn’t call it cheap or inexpensive,” said Sykes, “but for the audience that is on Facebook, I believe it’s a valuable investment. You have to work your demographics. We’re going after a certain demographic in a certain area, so we focus on that and zero in.”
Being able to target certain audiences is one of the great benefits of the new Facebook advertising. With greater targeting capabilities, ads are able to reach your fans, friends of your fans, users who are fans of similar pages, specific demographics, geographical locations and interests. Once you create an audience for your ad and see success with it, you’re able to save that audience and use it again with future posts.
Another valuable feature is the use of Conversion Tracking. Facebook allows you to create a pixel that can be placed on any page of your website. Anyone who goes to that page and then back to Facebook will immediately see your ad either in their newsfeed or wherever you set it to appear.
If the objective of your event or venue is conversions, social targeting is a great resource, because it’s targeting a prequalified audience who have already expressed interest in the artist or event. In that case, boosting the post and backing it with some money could be a valuable option that will close the deal.
However, there are ways under the new algorithm to make posts organically more visible to fans. Posts that contain photos are automatically organically more visible, while getting “shares” on a post also boosts its visibility without requiring any payment.
According to Roberts, one way to increase your chances of fan engagement on a post is to ask your fans to like, share or comment on something, which will increase engagement and, therefore, visibility. Putting the call to action in all capital letters also creates a higher return. And while sharing a post will get it more visibility, Facebook does not allow posts that require fans to share in order to enter a contest.
Facebook also regulates the amount of text you are able to have on your ad, not allowing users to create ads that have text over more than 20 percent of the space.
“It can be difficult for our graphics guy when we do giveaways with two tickets, a restaurant and a hotel night,” said Vanderhook. “We can’t put that much text on there, they won’t let us do it. And we want to be very cognizant of our partners that help us. Of course, we’ll tag them in our post, but it kind of sucks that they’re not always in our artwork.”
Part of that understanding for Vanderhook meant getting a call from a person at Facebook (an actual person) about some testing they were doing. They offered some services with training for ads and how to better use their money. The month-long training will cost $750, an amount Vanderhook feels will be worth it. The call also illustrated to Vanderhook that with the new algorithm and standards for ads, Facebook seems to also be creating a kind of sales process with actual people, the lack of which has always been a frustrating part of dealing with Facebook.
With a variety of goals, types of ads, audiences and budgets, the new algorithm will affect Facebook users in many different ways. Though the change may be frustrating (and more expensive), Facebook’s potential is still unmatched.
“It’s about $1 a day to close to 4,000 impressions and they’re targeted,” said Roberts. “So not only do you get more bang for your buck, but it’s to the people that you’ve said you want to see your content.”
Interviewed for this story: Cara Vanderhook, (213) 742-7273; Craig Ricks, (949) 823-1636; John Sykes, (903) 597-2501; Cassie Roberts, (512) 430-1123