Earlier in the week, while Jack was poring over We Heart Dad’s Google Analytics data, he noticed a disturbing trend.
From a high of 300+ sessions per post in late February, traffic to the site started to decline noticeably, beginning around mid-March.
What’s going on? he demanded. Am I not cute enough?
“No, Munchie,” I assured him. “You’re still plenty cute.”
You’re always dressing me in stupid outfits when you take my picture, he railed. Look at me in the one above! Red and orange? Are you colorblind?
“Pretty sure that doesn’t have anything to do with it,” I said.
Is it because you keep posting those elegiac snore-fests about Ryan? Jack demanded. How he’s growing up so fast and yadda yadda yadda?
I shrugged. “When you’re a parent you might appreciate that stuff. You do realize you’re the only baby who reads the blog.”
Jack was unsatisfied. Maybe I should write shorter, he said. Maybe I should be less circumlocutionary, he insisted. Maybe I should start cranking out baby memes.
I shrugged again, impressed that a baby could correctly use “circumlocutionary” in a sentence (or use it at all).
“I don’t think that’s what’s going on,” I said.
Well, what is it then, Dada? he spluttered, turning back toward the screen. Tell me!
It’s Facebook. Or Facebook Pages, more precisely.
Let’s say you have a blog. Maybe it’s about your passion for collecting acorns, or maybe it’s a catalogue of your questionable home design decisions, or perhaps it’s an anonymous screed blowtorching the idiots you work with.
Maybe it’s about being an at-home parent.
You create a Facebook Page for your blog. Seems sensible, since your posts are shared on Facebook.
Eventually, your Page has X number of fans. You might expect that when new blog posts are shared to your Facebook Page, your fans will automatically see your latest updates in their Facebook feed. After all, they opted in, right?
Wrong.
The moment you create a Facebook Page, Facebook classifies you as a business and your Page’s fans as your customers. This applies whether you are General Electric or kitties-r-awesome.com.
As such, all of your Page posts are now considered advertisements. And Facebook is not about to let you market to your customers on their platform for free.
So two things happen as soon as you create a Page:
- Facebook immediately begins spamming your inbox, shaking you down for money to show your posts to Facebook users. This includes your fans, who in many/most cases thought that by “liking” your Page they’d see your updates in their News feed.
- Facebook all but chokes off traffic coming from your Facebook Page, to roughly 2-5% of your Page fans, until you cough up.
Not knowing any better, back in mid-March I created a Facebook Page for the site. Aside from some blips, the drop-off in traffic since then has been demonstrable.
Looking at the Facebook analytics data, the reason is obvious.
Facebook is still responsible for the vast majority of We Heart Dad’s referral traffic. I forget the actual percentage, but it’s north of 70%. Post-Page creation, Facebook began showing WHD’s post updates to an ever-dwindling number of Facebook users — including folks who have liked the Page.
We Heart Dad isn’t being singled out in this regard. The problem of how to reach your audience vexes the entire blogosphere. It’s a tough racket. Even for those who create compelling content, the barriers to transmission are formidable.
As far as I know, Mark Zuckerberg doesn’t have a problem with at-home dads, or babies, or even with verbose bloggers. As a publicly-traded corporation, Facebook is required to maximize profit. Their latest algorithm changes are actually designed to ensure users spend less time on the site, in order to drive up ad rates.
To play devil’s advocate, if you create a Facebook Page you might be a business, and everyone who has liked your Page might be your customers.
Despite what some of my estimable in-laws might think, I’m not a socialist. I don’t necessarily think it’s unreasonable that a social media platform would charge businesses for selling stuff on their network.
On the other hand, just because you set up a Facebook Page doesn’t imply that you’re a business in the dictionary sense.
Maybe you’re the head of the local PTA. Or maybe you just write a blog about your family, and if you actually made money off of it they’d be in your grill about why you aren’t doing it more.
At least at the moment, We Heart Dad is not a business. As our VP of What’s Going On, Jack assures me that the blog remains revenue negative at the moment.
I write this blog because a handful of people encouraged me to do it, most of the people who do see it engage with it favorably (although two people on Facebook hid my last post — on Mother’s Day. Shame!), and although it’s a lot of work, most of the time it’s fun.
Anyway, you might be wondering how does all of this work? Or you might not, but I’m going to pretend you are so I can answer my own questions.
How it all works is actually pretty simple, despite much of Facebook’s inner workings remaining a black box.
That 2-5% mentioned above is called “organic reach” in the biz. It basically means how many people see a Page’s posts for free.
Factors affecting a Page post’s organic reach include prior engagement with the Page’s content, current engagement with the post in question, and algorithmic voodoo.
Facebook’s algorithm prioritizes comments, shares, and emoti-thingies — in that order. The algorithm salivates over video, and poops on posts that are text-only.
Regardless, even if your post garners a wall of comments longer than the Dead Sea scrolls, even if it’s shared by more people than live in the state of Delaware, there’s a heavy drag to organic reach baked into the algorithm.
Post is doing great? (In relative terms, of course). Facebook says, “Your post is doing great! Buy an ad to make it do better!” Post isn’t seen by anyone but you and your baby? Facebook says, “Buy an ad so more people will see it!”
Just because you’ve seen updates from We Heart Dad on Facebook in the past doesn’t mean you’ll see them in the future (which may suit you just fine).
If, however, I raided Jack’s diaper budget to pay off Facebook, you’d see every update We Heart Dad puts out — whether you wanted to or not. (On the bright side, I’m wordy, not prolific).
Bottom line: here as in much else, the house always wins. There are two ways around this morass, however. More on that in a moment.
Now, some of you might be thinking, “Wait a second. I haven’t really “engaged” that much with We Heart Dad’s Facebook updates. So if the algorithm chokes off organic whatever, how am I seeing an update for this post?”
Simple. I paid Facebook for you to see it. Seven bucks.
Don’t worry, Munchie. Your diapers are still on auto-delivery from Amazon.
However, even if it wasn’t galling for me to pay Facebook $7 every time I published a post, the price wouldn’t remain $7. It used to be $3.
Pretty clever, huh? Or diabolical. Someone at Facebook has read a book or two on game theory.
Jack’s fired up about this. I told him you can’t fight the Zuck, but he’s been on my case ever since I mentioned that there’s actually a simple way for all of you to get updates from We Heart Dad in your Facebook feed without me raiding his diaper fund.
Fortunately, it’s easy for you to do, and Jack has been hard at work learning Photoshop in order to create a tutorial. He even got dressed up for it.
I had my reservations. Mommy said it’s pointless because people won’t swipe a couple of screens on their phone and press a button.
Mommy also said Dada’ll have to write some long-winded explanation for why this is necessary and such a state of affairs is intolerable and while we’re on the subject of Dada and his foibles can he please close the shower curtain when he’s done showering …
Anyway, you don’t say no to Jack unless you’ve packed a lunch.
So I give you Jack’s tutorial on how to see We Heart Dad’s updates in your Facebook feed:
Note: Jack’s tutorial also on a separate page: How to get updates from We Heart Dad in your Facebook feed
Mobile:
Go to We Heart Dad’s Facebook Page, be sure to Like
Tablet:
Go to We Heart Dad’s Facebook Page, be sure to Like
Desktop:
Go to We Heart Dad’s Facebook Page, be sure to Like
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