Crikey, Screw Facebook
It seems the good folk at independent news outlet Crikey have finally had enough of the changes Facebook has been making to its algorithm, accusing the social network of ‘screwing’ publishers in a quest for yet more dollars.
Today Crikey’s engagement editor, Sophie Benjamin, penned a piece bemoaning the fact that the site’s Facebook organic reach has dropped by 30%, year-on-year, despite its audience climbing 10% on the platform, saying “Facebook wants to force publishers to pay to promote their content instead of sharing it for free”.
She adds:
More often than not, the posts I do see from publishers and musicians/writers/artists bear the light-grey “sponsored” tag up the top, which means they’ve had to pay money for it to be included in the news feed. Often it seems the only time I see content from a news outlet in my feed is when they’re using Facebook Live to stream a press conference or a round-table of journalists discussing current events. If I never saw a Facebook Live video of something that wasn’t visually compelling breaking news ever again, I’d be a happy woman.”
Indeed Facebook has made no secret of the fact it is promoting user-generated posts above those of publishers, marketers, brands and pages, going as far as announcing the fact in June with an executive admitting it “may cause reach and referral traffic to decline for some Pages”.
Benjamin then points out that Facebook is keen to keep people on its platform rather than pushing them to other websites, concluding: “But as publishers, we need to be realistic about what Facebook wants from this relationship. We’re not friends. We’re certainly not equal partners. We’re just another source of revenue for the platform.”
Interestingly, having started the article by mounting a defence of why people should pay for Crikey’s paywalled journalism the post on the website has been opened up for free to everyone.
As Tribe’s Jules Lund pointed out about marketers a couple of years ago: “Your first hit was free, and now little junkies you’ve got to cough up”.
And how does Crikey get its own back? With a bonus $20 off for new subscribers using the discount code “SCREWFACEBOOK”.
Cheers Dr Mumbo. By the way, the post was open because it’d originally been published on my personal blog. Nothing to hide here.
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Imagine if Facebook did try and show all of the content publishers pumped into it?
No engagement, publish more! Publish more!
Pay up or be more interesting.
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Ask News/Fairfax, the broadcast channels or OOH providers to give you ‘organic reach’ and they’ll laugh. Facebook (all social media) should be treated by as any other media outlet – its a means to drive people to your own platforms/articles through paid media.
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Old, pointless debate…
https://stratechery.com/2016/facebook-versus-the-media/
Or if you want the podcast version
http://exponent.fm/episode-088.....-facebook/
TLDR; Facebook isn’t killing traditional media, traditional media is dying and Facebook is growing – don’t conflate that with FB screwing media. So stop whining and get on with just figuring out the new world, it’s your only hope.
Seriously, Crikey’s is a straw-man argument…
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If it’s good you won’t need to pay. Sadly 99% of news media content isn’t very good. Hence no market for it. Complacency cost the industry big time. When you continually put the advertiser before the reader you can’t expect the reader to see value in anything you produce.
Everything is a joint venture nowadays. The fourth? estate my a***!
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Slow down there Croaky! That Stratechery argument ain’t new or as complete as you contend. Like Facebook, you’re showing all the signs of the same arrogance so despised of the ‘old world’ in media, retail and the rest.
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Awww c’mon, the fact the argument isn’t new was my point. I’m no particular fan of Facebook, but I won’t concede noting it’s commercial success is arrogant. Nor am I cheering the contraction of the old. I’m just deeply frustrated with some (like dear author) who think their way forward is to complain about another commercial entity who’s not even interested in competing directly with them.
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