Facebook, the most used platform by people but also by businesses to promote their brand, services and products. Some while ago things were simple, you did some great campaigns on Facebook, had great content which people liked, did some ads for new likers acquisition and everybody was happy. And by that I mean you reached our Facebook likers with the brand communication.

Now the game changed a bit and I am pretty sure it’s because of the IPO. What that does mean for brands is simple, Facebook wants more money, in other words they’ve cut the reach of brand pages to an average of 15%. To get more reach, brands have to pay for each post – Promoted Posts. This is affecting brands also because it is preventing them from reaching Listeners, the fans who do not like, share or comment but just listen.

The Math

A simple math calculation of what cost it implies to reach your audience with Promoted Posts below.

100.000 likers to be reached = 200$ cost to reach them with one post 3 posts per day X 200$ = 600$ per day 600$ per day X 30 days = 18.000$ per month 18.000$ per month X 12 Months = 216.000$ per year, only to reach your entire audience

There is obviously another price if we have a bigger fan base or if we have also other local fan pages, the baddest thing is that it doesn’t guarantee the reach. Not to mention that as a brand you could also want to get new fans.

Below is a screenshot of the prices for Promoted Posts depending on the reach you target:

From my perspective the short story on how Facebook pulled this off is:

Getting lots of users Educating brands that there is a market on Facebook Showing the brands they can have success but there is more if they use ads Leave them to pay a lot for ads and get as many fans as possible Cut their reach to their fans and leave just an average 15 % reach per post. Launch the solutions right on Facebook with big prices, promoted posts. And even here you don’t have any security that the specific post will reach all of your likers.

Next step for Facebook?

Could be charging for having a brand page on a monthly basis, charging global brands for the new Global Pages structure, then charging for targeting your users from your wall and the options can continue. Let’s not forget there is also promoted posts for personal profiles to reach all their friends. Facebook, a paid service for everybody?

The scams and spam on Facebook telling that it will be a paid service, are maybe the Nostradamus of Social Media.

What now?

Companies/Brands have invested a lot into getting new fans on Facebook to communicate with them and I am sure none of them thought that they will have to pay again for reaching the fans they already acquired with lots of money and work. Paying now for a service that was free several months ago is heavily affecting social media budgets, in some cases those can get cut and in some increased depending on the size of the company. As not many big brands can turn down Facebook at this moment, they can only continue with going along with Facebook’s plan, but for how long?