Facebook Concerns – sudden Ad cost and Edgerank changes

For quite some time now Facebook has been raising controversies and concerns. Very often I get people asking me whether social media is a bubble, what after people move on from Facebook? Every now and then I come across someone who just got off Facebook tired of privacy concerns or  due to the increasing clutter on their timelines! I have a mixed view on these changes.

PRO : Facebook is making itself very marketeer friendly and that means brands will prefer Facebook and exciting brand presence may keep the fans on the platform. Like in any city you will find that the marketplace even though cluttered and crowded is still the most popular region!

Recently a lot of their changes hit me as a marketeer and I wonder whether they are doing too much too soon that even antagonizes the marketeers?

Edgerank Algorithm : Huge reduction in photo post value

The Edgerank algorithm decides which posts a user will see on their timeline. New features get higher weight in the algorithm – so some time back Questions and Offers started cluttering our timeline. Clearly in the last month or so I can see a drastic reduction in the value of photo posts on some of the pages I am managing! I have lately been generating a lot more text/link updates and reducing photo updates! Clearly the Edgerank algorithm seems to be favoring text/link updates over photo ones!

While I have accepted that Facebook will keep tampering with everything…What I found most disconcerting was how abruptly and drastically the change was implemented. A steady and slow decrease of photo post value would have been much better appreciated!

Some interesting reads about this on Edgerankchecker and All Facebook!

Facebook Ad Costs : sudden cost shoot up and no customer service!

For an ad campaign all of a sudden the 4 INR CPC ads have jumped to 10 INR CPC. Its a very big, more than double jump and requires many budget adjustments to accommodate!

What makes it more disconcerting is that there is no way to communicate with Facebook. There is no customer service from their end. As a social network they don’t have to provide CS ok, but when marketeers are spending a lot of money on the platform how is it that we cannot expect any service from their end? Even Google Adwords provides customer service and they have some very helpful forums in place.

The reason I am vocal about the above two changes is because it adversely affects the marketeer. I understand that Facebook is making the platform more and more marketeer-friendly and honestly I think it has its value in the long term, even though people (including me) get bugged about the clutter. However, if they start doing the similar abrupt changes for marketeers also then I feel they are going nowhere! What do you think?