The article (link below) asserts that the latest Facebook changes implemented on September 20 are for the good. I’ve heard nothing but howls of dismay from page owners whose pages no longer get seen by a large number of their followers. So I disagree with the article’s basic premise and this is why:

Facebook’s changes are being ‘sold’ as designed to encourage engagement. The question is, what about all the people that don’t want to be ‘engaged’ with their favorite brands, but merely follow them because they want to stay informed?

My morning’s Facebook checking used to be interesting, with posts from APOD, ArchDaily, the Retronaut, my local conservation department and calendar update reminders from organisations I interact with in the real world. All of a sudden these have all disappeared. A lot of Facebook’s value to me, and I suspect many others, has vaporized overnight.

There are lots of desperate page owners pleading with their followers to create an interest list and add their pages to them. That’s fine if their followers subsequently remember to actually look in the lists. Unfortunately most Facebook users won’t have a clue how create an interest list, or won’t be bothered.

I could add interest lists – but why bother? I’ll go back to the much more reliable, dependable, and more importantly out of Facebook’s control RSS feeds. Something else I can’t see the average Facebook User doing either.

There are a mass of organisations/brands that were using Facebook to keep their communities informed. Facebook may lose the support of those brands and their followers as the brands find other ways to engage with their communities which aren’t dependent on the whims of a Facebook marketing exec.

Finally, I’ve not seen much mention anywhere of the devastating changes that Facebook has made in the area of Page to Page interaction, which seem to have come in hard on the heels of the September 20 changes. These are killing B2B interaction almost completely.

The changes come at a good time for me. We were already working on moving away from Facebook to other more reliable channels and we’ve already seen a resurgence of search engine based traffic. We’ll be concentrating on doing more of that and putting a lot less effort into Facebook. Not just for ourselves but also for our customers.

Here’s the article: Why FB’s Algo Changes Are a Good Thing for Brands