I have been meaning to do a Facebook update page for awhile now. I know many of you like to follow blogs via Facebook and I wanted to post a little update about what is happening on Facebook lately.
If you have liked various pages on Facebook you are not going to see what they are posting. This is incredibly frustrating for everyone and I have done every single thing I can think of to get posts to actually show to those that like my page.
Currently My Frugal Adventures has about 55,000 Facebook fans. On average about 1,000 of those 55,000 actually see something I post. Sometimes it is just a few hundred and the highest I have seen is 3,000.
Here is a sample post from yesterday to show you what I mean. This CVS post went up 14 hours ago. In 14 hours, 1,690 people actually saw the post. That is 1690 people out of 55,127 that like the page. And that is actually a fairly good number- sometimes it is as low as 200 people!
So not even 1% of the people that have liked the page actually see the posts. Why you ask? Well Facebook would like for sites like mine to pay outrageous sums of money to have you see what I post.
What do they want me to pay? Over one million dollars a year. (WHAT?!)
Yup. Not a joke. Here is how it looks-
I would need to pay an average of $200 to reach 30,000-57,000 fans PER POST. And even at $200 a pop I am STILL not guaranteed to reach all the people that have liked the page.
Now yesterday alone I posted 17 things. So in order to have the people that have liked my page actually see the things I post, I would need to shell out $3400. In one day. Or $23,000 per week. AND I am only guaranteed 40% of the fans will even see the posts.
Disgusting? Yes. It makes me sick to even think about.
Now I have tested this feature from Facebook and guess what? It still doesn’t work! I paid to “promote” a post as they call it just to see what would happen. I paid $75 which is supposed to guarantee 11,000-22,000 people see the post. Well guess what? It can take up to 3 days for that post to circulate to that many people. That was the first surprise- 90% of what I post won’t last 3 days so this is completely useless to me. I checked and after 24 hours that post I had paid to promote had only reached 3,500 people. So despite shelling out $75, I still hadn’t even hit 1% of the people that like the page.
What is the solution? I have no idea. I have played with a zillion ways of putting posts up on Facebook and I can not figure out anything to make this work.
Even if I did have a million dollars laying around, I certainly wouldn’t spend it on Facebook. So as a blogger this just literally makes me sick. On a personal note as a Facebook user, it makes me livid. What the heck is the point of liking pages and friends if Facebook won’t let me see what they have to say?
So we are going into the holiday season now and the great deals, great coupons, fun articles, tools for organizing and enjoying your holidays will be coming like crazy. If you rely on Facebook to see posts from me, you will likely miss every single deal I post.
So in addition to Facebook, you might consider the following:
1. Just coming to visit the page directly. (That is obviously the best way to stay current on the cool stuff going on.)
2. Follow me on Twitter. (I tweet about 70% of what I post so you catch a lot of stuff but not all of it.)
3. Subscribe to the newsletter. This is a free service and the newsletter goes out once per day at noon PST or 3pm EST. Since it goes out once per day, anything I post that day after 12.01pm PST does not show up until the following day’s newsletter. So just note super hot coupons, freebies or deals may not last until you get the newsletter. This is a good option for those of you that just want to skim what is posted- the titles of each post are summarized at the top and you can click on what you are interested in.
4. Follow on pinterest. I love pinterest and I don’t post any of the deals, coupons or freebies over there but if you like recipes, crafts, articles and other little tips – Pinterest is awesome!
And if you want to try and make Facebook work for you- here are a few things you can do. Note these won’t get the posts coming into your feed regularly but it will help a tiny bit.
1. Like, comment or share posts on Facebook. That does dramatically impact how many people see the post. Even as few as 5 people (of 55,000) click the like button under Facebook posts can make the number of people that see the post jump from 1,000 to 2,000. It is your way of telling Facebook- yes I like this content and I want to see it.
2. Another option is to go to my Facebook page and hover your mouse over the like button. You will see a drop down menu appear- click on “show in news feed.”
Again this will not solve the problem but it may get a few more deals showing in your news feed.
So that is the scoop! I’d love to hear what you think of this Facebook mess and any other little tips you guys might have! I haven’t thrown in the towel on Facebook altogether but I am not counting on them to show me stuff I have asked to see.
bree says
Thanks for this post. The last time I entered one of your giveaways I clicked that I liked you on fb and then it hit me that I hadn’t seen any updates from you on fb for quite some time so I went into my fb and checked and I did in fact have you liked on fb but couldn’t figure out why I hadn’t seen anything. It’s all making sense now…..Curse you fb!
Nicole says
Geez Charlene, are you saying that facebook is not worth a million dollars? hehe Sounds like they want to make up for the falling stock prices with you alone. Thanks for the update. I was wondering what happened to all the posts.
Liz says
I hate the general newsfeed from facebook, so I have set up various lists. Of course, I cannot remember how I did this, but it is possible. First, I have friends lists. So, I can quickly see what the moms around town are up to or my family, etc. But, I have also set up a couponing list. I grouped a few facebook pages with deal alerts (yours & black friday ads) into a list and , now, it shows up on the left column as an “interest”. I just click on couponing and all the posts show. I hope that helps.
Sara says
Sorry Charlene to hear about the Facebook stuff!! 🙁 I have a Facebook account but thinking about closing it! What a money hungry company!!! Thanks for all that you do to save us all money!!!! 🙂
Dee says
Thankfully I don’t rely on Facebook to see your posts. I RSS feed it to my iGoogle page (but that won’t last past another year and is often hours behind) and I usually go to the page twice day.
Julianne says
I create “groups” on facebook and view the posts through those groups. One for friends, one for deals, family, games, etc.
I also use the newsletter and the RSS feed.
Amber says
Thanks for the heads up. I’ve been wondering why my liked pages haven’t been showing up. I haven’t seen one of your posts in my feed in ages. I’ve been trying to figure out how to get posts to show and I haven’t been able to fix the problem. I even tried unliking and reliking pages to no avail.
The next best thing I could find is is to hover over the “liked” button on the fan page, click on add to interest list, create a new list, add all of the pages that I’ve liked that I want to see posts from. It won’t show up in your news feed, but it will have your interest group listed on the left side of the news feed under “interests.” When you want to see what was posted, you just click on the link to your interest group. It’s a little more work, but it’s all in one place.
Pam says
I had no idea of anything you just described. I actually receive all of your facebook posts. I am quite appalled! Personally, I depend on your webpage and visit multiple times a day 🙂
Melissa says
Quit! That is what the other blog I read just decided to do. freebies2deals. That is frustrating. Personally I don’t Facebook, but I think if you want to see a deal you should just keep checking your site often.
Rachel says
That’s awful. I never see your posts on Facebook and I want to! No such thing as FREE speech anymore. It goes the same for Yelp, as a business owner, if you want people to see your positive reviews, you have to pay advertising fees for them to show up. I signed up for the newsletter so I can see more of your deals!
Charlene says
Melissa,
I am not going to quit because I don’t really see that as a solution… It is hard to know what to do but I figure 1000 people seeing things is better then 0 seeing things ;). I am hoping Facebook turns things around though- even a huge company would never have the budget to afford the fees they want. If I had 90,000 fans I would need to pay like $500 per post so just imagine the companies with a million fans! Granted they don’t post as much but I bet one single post would set them back a few thousand dollars.
Charlene says
Pam,
You do? We have a family member that is not a Facebooker at all- he has 6 friends :). He likes my page and a few other brand pages and I watch his news feed and I might see a few things here or there but certainly not 15-20 posts per day. There is just nothing in his newsfeed which is so stupid to me.
Cathy says
Hi Charlene,
Is it possible to receive every post individually with email as you post them? I would like to see this choice. I don’t think there would be any cost because it is not much different than the daily long email. Yes, it might fill my email inbox but I would be getting every deal right away, and would especially appreciate with holidays approaching. Is this possible? Please let me know if you offer this choice.
THANK YOU for all of your hard work.
Cathy
P.S. i live here by San Jose, maybe 20 min drive to Menlo Park and the Facebook campus. It may be time to hunt down some Facebook booty…
Charlene says
Sara,
I haven’t followed all this stuff about their stocks and whatever it is. I know that some things just cost money and I would be willing to pay a fair amount if I had too but the amount of money they want is just mind boggling. Even if I had a million dollars to throw around I can think of much better uses for it ;).
Charlene says
Liz,
Here is what I think you are talking about?
http://myfrugaladventures.com/2011/11/facebook-changes-how-to-get-your-news-feed-back/
Just curious for those of you that DO see my posts- about how many per day do you see?
Stacie says
I was so frustrated when I noticed that I was not seeing my couponing websites updates on FB a couple months ago. I thought it was because I hadn’t been clicking like or clicking on the links. I spend hours trying to figure it out, hitting unlike and then “like” again, but it didn’t work. I eventually did the same thing as Liz. I made a group under “Interests” and put all of my couponing groups in there. I can go there and see all the updates. At least I think I see them all! For instance as of 12:50pm PST, I see 8 updates from MYA for today. It’s not as convenient though because I have to go to the group and sometimes I forget and miss a good deal.
Charlene says
LOL, well 17 was a slow day :). During the holiday madness I post more like 40. So I think you would be cursing me before too long. I am looking at switching to a new newsletter company that will allow more flexibility then feedburner, so hopefully I can offer more options for people that want to sign up. There was a text alert thing some people do but that seems annoying to me so I haven’t looked into it as much.
Thanks for the support Cathy!
Pam says
Charlene,
I must confess first off that my facebook is strictly for couponing. I don’t use it at all for socializing. I have no friends and only get business posts from all those facebook accounts that I have “liked” just to get coupons. I have a very active newsfeed. Now, as far as your posts, without knowing exactly what you post, I can say that I get exactly what is on your blog. If you post something on FB, and not on your blog, then I’m not sure I would know. I hope this helps.
Pam says
I’ve received 6 fb posts so far today.
Kate Davis says
Charlene, I hope you sent your post to FB directly!
Kate
Liz says
Yes Charlene! That is exactly what I did! And it automatically comes up in “most recent” order. I like that it gives the title of the various posts, so that I can quickly link out to what posts interest me. Not everyone posts as clearly as you & includes easy links to their website. So, thanks for all the work you do!
Jean says
Just an encouragement – there are some of us NOT on facebook at all. I go to your webpage directly a few times a day and appreciate all the posts!
Lindsay says
I have put all my deal sites into a group and view them that way. Some of my other sites have stated a group page that you can be added to so you see every post for sure. But, you get a notification for every post, which can get annoying.
Cathy says
Lindsay (or anyone that knows),
Are you putting all of your deal sites on Facebook or another place? I wouldn’t mind getting notification for every post that Charlene authors.
Kim says
Very interesting….I’m pretty sure I see ALL of your posts on facebook (11 today). Often I see a post on facebook first, before I have had a chance to check the blog.
My Vegan Journal says
i share your frustration! I have over 11K “fans” on my fb page and the same thing has happened… the only thing I’ve noticed is that fb will let more “fans” see the post if it’s just a simple update – but as soon as you attach a link or photo – forget it. They’ll only let a few hundred see it – or a couple thousand if you’re really lucky – which is a small fraction of the “fans” who like the page. Drives me batty!! If someone “likes” a page, they should be able to see the posts in the newsfeed!
Charlene says
MVJ,
I have tried that too. No links or images and over the weekend like 200 people saw that post :). So it just doesn’t seem to make as much of a difference in the method of posting. Usually the posts with the large images I manually add seem to get the highest reach.
Megan Hartzell says
I think this is ridiculous that Facebook is now trying to profit in ways they haven’t before. I am fortunate enough to have a blogger account set up so I can follow through them and I get all of your posts through that feed. I don’t know if that is too difficult to explain to your followers but it may help? Best of luck!
Julianne says
Ditto what Liz said. I create lists that group business pages that would otherwise not show up in the general feed- I have one for coupon deals, one for food trucks, etc. They show all posts and in chronological order.
Amy says
I get all posts from other places I “liked” when they share a post.
If you share every one of your posts we should all get them-I hope.
Cindy says
Hi Charlene,
I’ve only received two of your posts on fb today & three from yesterday. I usually come to this page 3 or 4 times a day to check what you’ve updated. What a bummer about fb, if itwasn’t for couponing, I would have closed my account by now. Thanks for all you do!
Endcapps says
I just do what I’ve been doing since MFA’s infancy … visit your blog, at least 2x-a-day! Please keep up the good work, Charlene!
Christen says
I deleted my facebook page a month ago. I spent way too much time on it. I don’t miss it at all. A lot of people are getting tired of it, I wouldn’t be surprised if it eventually fades away like myspace……
Susan J says
I would visit your website over facebook any day! (: Thanks for all you do!
Toby says
FB is last on my list to check. I only check it 2-3 times per month. Don’t have much friends. I don’t want to get into the habit of having to check it. It has so much junk. I rather check your blog.
Jenn M says
Hello Charlene,
I have noticed other bloggers posting updates but instead of attaching a link or picture; they post the link in the comment sections in order to get the deal link out there. After doing this, I believe more people will see your update. Likewise, I highly suggest people create a group or interest in order to see all their deals. I have done this fpr all my particular interests and I do see much more than just what is in my newsfeed.
Taryn says
I am absolutely in LOVE with the ‘Pulse ‘ app on my Kindle Fire. I have several blogs I like to keep up with, including yours, and I can easily scroll through the headlines, starring ones I need to go back to and clicking through the actual article. It’s awesome!
Leslie says
Another coupon blog I follow has talked about this several times. She always suggest to do goggle+. I don’t really do Facebook. I just follow the blogs via their website.
Sylvia says
I follow you on Twitter and also go directly to your website several times a day. That’s more than enough for me. I know I’m also a fan on FB but I have long since abandoned checking frugal posts (yours & others) there.
esmer says
what a joke facebook is!! that gets me mad!! I was wondering what was going on 🙁 the only post I see are from coupon connections, but the rest have gone missing, and you are one of them. I keep looking at your webpage so I have kept up to date.