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Is free social marketing over - at least on Facebook?

Written by Tom Ryan

Many brands as well as large and small retailers have aggressively invested money and time building up the number of "likes" on their Facebook pages. The hope was that the "likes" would spread rich branded content like wildfire across users' news feeds.

But last week in a blog post, Facebook said beginning next year, the company would reduce the number of unpaid promotional posts users see in their feed. Many reports claim the changes, along with other recent moves, mark the end of businesses using Facebook as "free ad space." Instead, buying an ad will be the only way to get in front of targeted Facebook users.

For its part, Facebook said the moves come after widespread complaints of too many posts that read like commercials. Facebook's note identified three traits that make "organic posts — posts individuals or companies write on their walls for their followers to see — feel too promotional." These include posts that:

  • Solely push people to buy a product or install an app;
  • Push people to enter sweepstakes with no real context;
  • Reuse the exact same content from ads.

While the new policies are designed to decrease promotional posts, Facebook said it will not increase the number of paid ads users see. Facebook said, "This change is about giving people the best Facebook experience possible and being responsive to what they have told us."

The changes come as brands and celebrities have already been complaining their posts don't go "viral" like they used to. Facebook has said that's because many posts are bound to get lost in the 1,500 stories the average user now sees each day. Facebook's algorithms also narrow those stories down to about 300 most relevant to the user. Often, those are videos, photos, news articles and updates from friends rather than brands.

Critics claim Facebook is just focusing on paid rather than unpaid ads.

"Every day it becomes more and more clear that Facebook has abandoned social marketing, and is just a place to buy old-fashioned ads," Nate Elliott, an analyst at Forrester Research, wrote in an e-mail to Bloomberg News.

Facebook asserts that creative, engaging posts will still attract attention across news feeds. It has recommended that rather than looking to "go viral," brand should aim to achieve specific objectives, such as boosting in-store traffic or app downloads. Still, Facebook touts that advantages of Facebook ads, which offer not only tracking but the ability to tailor content based on interests and geographic location.

Brian Boland, VP of ads product marketing at Facebook, told The New York Times, "An ad maker doesn't want to serve content to people who don't want to see those posts."

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