Facebook made an announcement last week that made me pretty happy.
I’ve got a really big pet peeve about Facebook business pages that try tricks and manipulations to boost their reach. It bothers me a lot when I see posts ending with things like:
“Like this post to show your support for this fallen soldier.”
“Comment to vote no or like to vote yes on same sex marriage.”
It really makes me crazy. It must make someone at Facebook crazy too because they’re putting an end to it. In a blog post last week, Facebook announced that posts asking for Likes, Comments or Shares will be penalized and not reach as far as they once did.
Social media should work like this: be awesome, get shared. It’s as simple as that. When you get into the area of excessive tricks to force inflated engagement, you are making social media a worse place. Posting that pic of a child in the cancer ward asking for people to like your post is not helping that little girl; it’s exploiting her for your own personal gain and cluttering up the news feed. Facebook recognizes this and is acting accordingly.
So, try to come up with really awesome content or at least present it in a more interesting way than, “Hey, look at this crazy thing! Like me! Like meeeeeeeeee!!!!!!”
More details here: FB Newsroom – News Feed FYI: Cleaning Up News Feed Spam
Photo Credit: Jiu-Jitsu for Women