Some changes coming to Facebook

[Tom Wood]

I saw this thread at The Admin Zone and thought it had some interesting bits of info and discussion:

https://theadminzone.com/threads/upcoming-facebook-changes.151078/

Edited to Add:

In this Facebook thread, Mark Dawson says that the information presented in the link has been debunked:

https://www.facebook.com/groups/393917614473395/permalink/569443753587446/

"This has been debunked by FB. It has generously been described as one attendee’s interpretation of F8, but the FB employees I know have suggested it be taken with a large pinch of salt."

- Mark Dawson

My apologies for spreading ****

[Post-Doctorate D]

In my opinion, the key takeaway (but not "takeover" ) is that you should move your readers off Facebook (or other selfish media platforms) to a platform you control.

[LilyBLily]

Readers? What readers?

[Jeff Tanyard]

I saw this thread at The Admin Zone and thought it had some interesting bits of info and discussion:

https://theadminzone.com/threads/upcoming-facebook-changes.151078/

After reading that long list of new rules, I agree with this sentiment posted by one of the members there:

That awful list is a fantastic reason for completely dumping facebook and using forums instead.

[TimothyEllis]

Some of that is already in place.

It is no longer possible to post in a group or page, and share it beyond the group or page combination. I normally post in my group, share to my page, share to my timeline, and share to relative's timeline. Now I have to re-post to the 2 timelines explicitly.

In my opinion, the key takeaway (but not "takeover" ) is that you should move your readers off Facebook (or other selfish media platforms) to a platform you control.

How do we do that?

People use FB because it is FB. Those who dont like it are already off it. Those on it are unlikely to want to go somewhere else.

Maybe we need to start thinking about building the reader side of this site. But the problem still comes down to how do you get readers to go to a new forum?

[Post-Doctorate D]

People use FB because it is FB. Those who dont like it are already off it. Those on it are unlikely to want to go somewhere else.

A number of years ago, you could have said: "People use AOL because it is AOL.  Those who don't like it are already off it.  Those on it are unlikely to want to go somewhere else."

How many people use AOL now?

[TimothyEllis]

People use FB because it is FB. Those who dont like it are already off it. Those on it are unlikely to want to go somewhere else.

A number of years ago, you could have said: "People use AOL because it is AOL.  Those who don't like it are already off it.  Those on it are unlikely to want to go somewhere else."

How many people use AOL now?

But AOL was an access provider. Not the same thing as FB at all.

The question still is, how do we attract readers off FB and onto a forum? And keep them?

[TimothyEllis]

Just looking at the changes, I see what they are doing as this:

If it isn't bringing FB in money, they are going to close it down.

They don't want people sharing anything unless it's being paid for.

I also see it being an attack on large groups like 20Books. Any group with more than 5,000 people in it needs more than 3 admins, and so the expectation of only 3 admins means they dont want large groups.

And any group with more than a thousand is never going to be controllable by admins. Especially as far as admitting people is concerned, and making sure their posts obey rules. The requirement to have all posts vetted by admins negates the whole point of the groups in the first place.

What worries me more is with admins being so vulnerable under the new rules, rogue posts designed to get admins banned from FB will become common.

[Lysmata Debelius]

Are we sure this is legitimate?

[TimothyEllis]

Are we sure this is legitimate?

No, but the changes to sharing have already been implemented.

They have already begun stopping things being shared outside of groups and their linked pages.

So it's a bad sign this is legit.

[Tom Wood]

Are we sure this is legitimate?

I had not considered that as a possibility. I don't know the answer.

[Lysmata Debelius]

I ask because there are a couple of things on that list that seem a bit surprising, to say the least. Like that thing about the "reactions" being tracked, and " Sad or angry face reactions tells Facebook that the user is having a bad experience, therefore diminishing your organic reach."  If this is true, (and it might be!) it means that whoever is setting these rules haven't a clue about how interaction happens on facebook. My impression was that Facebook thrives on foregrounding exactly those posts that get a shocked or angry reaction, as outrage is a great way to compel people to interact and get sucked in deeper.

Of course, that isn't proof that this is not legitimate. People are often remarkably stupid, and the decision makers at Facebook might just be clueless.

[VanessaC]

I ask because there are a couple of things on that list that seem a bit surprising, to say the least. Like that thing about the "reactions" being tracked, and " Sad or angry face reactions tells Facebook that the user is having a bad experience, therefore diminishing your organic reach."  If this is true, (and it might be!) it means that whoever is setting these rules haven't a clue about how interaction happens on facebook. My impression was that Facebook thrives on foregrounding exactly those posts that get a shocked or angry reaction, as outrage is a great way to compel people to interact and get sucked in deeper.

Of course, that isn't proof that this is not legitimate. People are often remarkably stupid, and the decision makers at Facebook might just be clueless.

I haven't read the link but had to shake my head at this and the daft conclusion "the user is having a bad experience". People use Facebook to share all sorts of updates and information - not just writers. For example, I follow an animal rescue charity on Facebook who, of course, post about neglect and cruelty to animals - a sad or angry face is, in most cases, the only appropriate reaction to some of the stuff posted. Someone posting about a horrible event in their lives isn't expecting loads of smiley faces as a response ... and the Facebook user isn't having a bad experience, they are expressing an appropriate emotional response to the update ...

 

[Lysmata Debelius]

 Vanessa yes that is exactly what I meant.

[Al Stevens]

A number of years ago, you could have said: "People use AOL because it is AOL.  Those who don't like it are already off it.  Those on it are unlikely to want to go somewhere else."

How many people use AOL now?

The same can be said for Myspace.

[Al Stevens]

I suspect that FB is trying, without much success, to find ways to counterattack via algorithms the potential for more foreign interference in our political processes. They took a lot of heat for that.

[Kristen.s.walker]

I've never reached many readers on FB. My problem is that it's necessary right now to network with other authors. I actually deleted my account for about six months because none of my personal friends or family use it anymore. But I missed out on so many opportunities because I wasn't connected to the author groups.

Every time there is a group promo (Story Origin, Bookfunnel, Prolific Works), they want me to join a FB group to coordinate. Anthology opportunities are posted and coordinated on Facebook. Newsletter swaps. Discussion groups on covers, blurbs, advertising, website building, even SPFBO has a discussion group. I created a new account just for these and I'm on there all the time to keep up with it. I don't like the way FB groups work compared to forums, but none of these groups are using forums.

If group sizes or admin roles are curtailed, it may Force these groups to change or find a new platform. Or they may stick with it and the experience will just get worse.

[Post-Doctorate D]

Every time there is a group promo (Story Origin, Bookfunnel, Prolific Works), they want me to join a FB group to coordinate. Anthology opportunities are posted and coordinated on Facebook. Newsletter swaps. Discussion groups on covers, blurbs, advertising, website building, even SPFBO has a discussion group. I created a new account just for these and I'm on there all the time to keep up with it. I don't like the way FB groups work compared to forums, but none of these groups are using forums.

Group promos can, and have, been coordinated on here with threads in private forums.  Just need to entice more authors to come here and take advantage of the options.

I am in a couple writers groups on FB.  It has been months since I've even been on FB and I can't say I miss FB at all.  I wish people would use more non-FB options because FB is really not necessary.  People say it is but that's more out of a reluctance to change than truth, IMHO.

[Wonder]

I quit FB over a year ago, so I don't need to deal with these changes, but they're certainly interesting. And by interesting, I mostly mean bad. 

The whole "If you're sending tons of clicks outside Facebook it must be clickbait" thing sounds particularly devastating to those using Facebook for book promotions. For example, if a service like Fussy Librarian has 150,000 Facebook followers and those followers primarily use that group to click on links to the free books of the day, it seems Facebook might falsely label those posts as clickbait and shut them down.

It seems like having your own website and newsletter is probably the way to go for retaining access to your own fanbase. But there are many millions of people still using Facebook, so many authors will likely tolerate this nonsense for a while to keep access.

Wonder

[Vijaya]

I joined FB 3 yrs ago so that I could be part of a private writing group, but I hate the interface. Most of my family's on FB so I do enjoy the updates and pictures of the kids...but I'm taking stock and evaluating.

[EllieL]

I hate Facebook with a passion. It's simply too invasive for my liking. I have an account because it seems I have to, but I hate it and only visit once a week or so. So their latest fiasco really pi#(ed me off. Here's what happened. Yesterday, I was on Facebook to read a few messages, etc. I replied to a couple of them, and tagged 2 friends with 2 separate messages. This morning I got an email first from FB notifying me that someone had tried to hack into my account, so I needed to change my password. Did that. THEN they decided to sanction me for too much tagging, so I would have limited functionality of my account for 24 hours. For 2 freaking tags! Now tell me, does that make sense?
I repeat. I hate Facebook, and will avoid it as much as possible.

[Vijaya]

Wow, is that like FB jail? I'm not convinced we need FB, even without doing the expt. that I'm planning for August. Anyway, that's my hypothesis for now

[Bill Hiatt]

It is possible to do without Facebook. However, in my experience, almost every group promotion of any kind in which I participate has an implicit or explicit requirement to share on Facebook. So, for the time being, I'm keeping my account.

MySpace declined because other social media replaced it. That's what needs to happen to Facebook, but when it happens depends on someone developing a platform people find more appealing. If all the scandals haven't discouraged people from using Facebook, I doubt anything short of a better replacement will have much impact.

I was amused the lines in the linked article that began, "Teach your readers to..." I'm lucky if I can get readers to buy my books. I don't think I have fans loyal enough to change their FB habits just because I say so. Nor would I have much luck trying to create a reader group. That advice works for very established brands, but no so well for prawns. But at least I don't have to worry about admin responsibilities in a group.

Some of the newly prohibited things I didn't do anyway. Most of my posts are not ads for my books. And I don't share posts from my page on my personal timeline. (The friends who want to know about my writing follow my page. The ones who don't don't. That works out rather well.)

Someday, I'll probably phase out my FB author presence. But for the moment, I'll take whatever minuscule boost it gives me and keep my page up for social proof. Someone looking for me on FB can find me. What I won't do is advertise much.

[Joe Vasicek]

I deleted my Facebook in 2014. Got back on a couple of times, just for personal reasons, but I never really used Facebook to connect with fans or market myself and my books.

I've always been skeptical of claims that you NEED social media in order to have an author career. My books started to take off when I was teaching English in a small village in the Caucasus Mountains, where internet access was a 30 minute bus ride away. With only a couple of hours three or four times a week to do everything that I needed to do on the internet, social media was very low on the priority list. And yet, my books continued to sell.

I'm not a huge selling author, but I have managed to build an email list that consistently sells books. Not that that's the only thing I use it for. At this point, I've completely disconnected from all social media except Goodreads and Dissenter (and YouTube, I guess, though I never post comments anymore), and my newsletter now fulfills most of the roles that my blog used to fill. News, writing updates, personal notes, thoughts and reflections, and of course plenty of book deals and other stuff to check out. It seems to be working.

[Anarchist]

... I never really used Facebook to connect with fans or market myself and my books.

Same here. I participate in Facebook groups devoted to zero-carb, poker, and chess. But I've never used social to promote my books.

I'm 100% PPC and email.

[Bill Hiatt]

... I never really used Facebook to connect with fans or market myself and my books.

Same here. I participate in Facebook groups devoted to zero-carb, poker, and chess. But I've never used social to promote my books.

I'm 100% PPC and email.

What you do obviously works for you. The only real question I have is whether or not someone like you might have sold even more if you had been active on social media. Perhaps an author who has tried it both ways will weigh in at some point.

When I first started publishing, I knew an author who said his sales dropped every time he didn't post for a little while. Usually, a week was sufficient to see the difference. However, that several several rule and algorithm changes ago. Similarly, I've heard authors swear by FB ads. Because one can only target audiences based on the interest categories FB has identified, the targeting seems a lot less precise to me than what one can do with AMS, and of course people shopping on Amazon are actually looking to buy something on Amazon, while people looking around on FB aren't necessarily.

Anyway, I haven't seen anyone praise FB ads as enthusiastically in a while, but people do still make an argument for the importance of social media in general. For instance, https://www.oberlo.com/blog/social-media-marketing-statistics points out that 42% of the world's population uses social media daily, that FB is still the most popular choice overall, and that 73% of marketers say social media advertising is somewhat effective or very effective. Whether it's effective for indie authors specifically is a separate question.

[Joe Vasicek]

What you do obviously works for you. The only real question I have is whether or not someone like you might have sold even more if you had been active on social media.

I doubt it. There's an opportunity cost to everything you do, and time/energy spent on social media is time/energy not spent on something else. The scarcest resource on the planet is time.

If I had spent more time on social media instead of building my email list and learning how to do newsletters effectively, I wouldn't be in a place now where I see a 50+ bump in sales every time I email my list. Perhaps I could do even better if I'd learned social media instead, but then my readers would be on a platform that I can't control, that is actively conspiring to silence or ghetto-ize people with my political views.

It's all a series of trade-offs and gambles. If you don't want to be beholden to social media, you're going to have to take a leap at some point.

[Anarchist]

What you do obviously works for you. The only real question I have is whether or not someone like you might have sold even more if you had been active on social media.

I doubt it. There's an opportunity cost to everything you do, and time/energy spent on social media is time/energy not spent on something else. The scarcest resource on the planet is time.

If I had spent more time on social media instead of building my email list and learning how to do newsletters effectively, I wouldn't be in a place now where I see a 50+ bump in sales every time I email my list. Perhaps I could do even better if I'd learned social media instead, but then my readers would be on a platform that I can't control, that is actively conspiring to silence or ghetto-ize people with my political views.

It's all a series of trade-offs and gambles. If you don't want to be beholden to social media, you're going to have to take a leap at some point.

Exactly this.

[Bill Hiatt]

You're both absolutely right--there are trade-offs.

I guess I spend too much time fretting over the conflicting anecdotal evidence. Maybe all the techniques could work, but some of them would require much more time than others. And social media does seem to be a big time suck.

[Anarchist]

Anyway, I haven't seen anyone praise FB ads as enthusiastically in a while, but people do still make an argument for the importance of social media in general.

In my opinion, authors who aren't using FB ads are missing out. It takes time and capital to figure out what works and get stuff locked in, but once that's done, FB ads provide a healthy source of converting traffic.

That said, if I were forced to choose between AMS and FB ads, I'd choose the former.

[Vijaya]

I deleted my Facebook in 2014. Got back on a couple of times, just for personal reasons, but I never really used Facebook to connect with fans or market myself and my books.

I've always been skeptical of claims that you NEED social media in order to have an author career. My books started to take off when I was teaching English in a small village in the Caucasus Mountains, where internet access was a 30 minute bus ride away. With only a couple of hours three or four times a week to do everything that I needed to do on the internet, social media was very low on the priority list. And yet, my books continued to sell.

I'm not a huge selling author, but I have managed to build an email list that consistently sells books. Not that that's the only thing I use it for. At this point, I've completely disconnected from all social media except Goodreads and Dissenter (and YouTube, I guess, though I never post comments anymore), and my newsletter now fulfills most of the roles that my blog used to fill. News, writing updates, personal notes, thoughts and reflections, and of course plenty of book deals and other stuff to check out. It seems to be working.

This is so good to know. I enjoy teaching/public speaking very much and have found it to be the best ROI so far.

What you do obviously works for you. The only real question I have is whether or not someone like you might have sold even more if you had been active on social media.

I doubt it. There's an opportunity cost to everything you do, and time/energy spent on social media is time/energy not spent on something else. The scarcest resource on the planet is time.

If I had spent more time on social media instead of building my email list and learning how to do newsletters effectively, I wouldn't be in a place now where I see a 50+ bump in sales every time I email my list. Perhaps I could do even better if I'd learned social media instead, but then my readers would be on a platform that I can't control, that is actively conspiring to silence or ghetto-ize people with my political views.

It's all a series of trade-offs and gambles. If you don't want to be beholden to social media, you're going to have to take a leap at some point.

Thank you for writing all of this and the reminder about how precious our TIME is.

[Bill Hiatt]

Anyway, I haven't seen anyone praise FB ads as enthusiastically in a while, but people do still make an argument for the importance of social media in general.

In my opinion, authors who aren't using FB ads are missing out. It takes time and capital to figure out what works and get stuff locked in, but once that's done, FB ads provide a healthy source of converting traffic.

That said, if I were forced to choose between AMS and FB ads, I'd choose the former.

Perhaps its just because it's early in the morning for me, but I'm confused. Earlier, you said you're not active on FB, but you use FB ads? I'd take the statement above to mean that you do us FB ads yourself, but in your previous post, you wrote, "But I never used social to promote my books." What am I missing?

[Anarchist]

Anyway, I haven't seen anyone praise FB ads as enthusiastically in a while, but people do still make an argument for the importance of social media in general.

In my opinion, authors who aren't using FB ads are missing out. It takes time and capital to figure out what works and get stuff locked in, but once that's done, FB ads provide a healthy source of converting traffic.

That said, if I were forced to choose between AMS and FB ads, I'd choose the former.

Perhaps its just because it's early in the morning for me, but I'm confused. Earlier, you said you're not active on FB, but you use FB ads? I'd take the statement above to mean that you do us FB ads yourself, but in your previous post, you wrote, "But I never used social to promote my books." What am I missing?

I distinguish between PPC and social.

PPC = pay per click (AMS, FB ads, BB ads, etc.)

Social = social interaction/participation for branding, visibility, and sales.

[Bill Hiatt]

Anyway, I haven't seen anyone praise FB ads as enthusiastically in a while, but people do still make an argument for the importance of social media in general.

In my opinion, authors who aren't using FB ads are missing out. It takes time and capital to figure out what works and get stuff locked in, but once that's done, FB ads provide a healthy source of converting traffic.

That said, if I were forced to choose between AMS and FB ads, I'd choose the former.

Perhaps its just because it's early in the morning for me, but I'm confused. Earlier, you said you're not active on FB, but you use FB ads? I'd take the statement above to mean that you do us FB ads yourself, but in your previous post, you wrote, "But I never used social to promote my books." What am I missing?

I distinguish between PPC and social.

PPC = pay per click (AMS, FB ads, BB ads, etc.)

Social = social interaction/participation for branding, visibility, and sales.

OK, that makes it clear. It is certainly possible to run ads on FB without posting for other purposes. In the old days, interacting might serve to build following and reduce ad costs by increasing organic reach, but FB has diminished organic reach to such an extent that ads are about the only way to get your books out there, regardless of how much of a following you have.

[Tom Wood]

In this Facebook thread, Mark Dawson says that the information presented in the link in my original post has been debunked:

https://www.facebook.com/groups/393917614473395/permalink/569443753587446/

"This has been debunked by FB. It has generously been described as one attendee’s interpretation of F8, but the FB employees I know have suggested it be taken with a large pinch of salt."

- Mark Dawson

My apologies for spreading ****

[Lysmata Debelius]

 thanks for the update Tom!

[TimothyEllis]

And yet, the ability to share out of a linked group-page WAS removed as per that original report.

The only way to share something widely now is to post it on your timeline first, and share from there.

That did change. So what else are they going to sneak in?