I used to absolutely love, love, love Facebook. I would spend HOURS online, checking in with my friends, sharing the brands and companies that I loved, and just interacting with the world in general.
Since Facebook went public, however, it is becoming more and more about the almighty dollar and making money – not the social network that promised to make the world more open and connected.
I read an interesting article this morning from Daniel over at Dashburst about this issue – 7 Reasons Why Facebook Doesn’t Give a Sh*t About Your Business Page.
Most of my posts on Life in a House of Testosterone are only seen by a percentage of people. I have over 4,000 likes on my Facebook Fan Page – yet the majority of people who “see” my post ranges between 30 and 70, with a few posts hitting the triple digits – but not many at all.
Bloggers depend on their fan base being able to SEE what they are blogging about, being able to interact with their fans and create conversations and participation. Facebook is no longer the viable venue for this it seems.
The “usual” giveaway form sites offer the following choices when hosting a giveaway:
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| Giveaway Tools Entry Options |
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| PromoSimple Giveaway Entry Options |
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| Punchtab Giveaway Entry Options |
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| Rafflecopter Giveaway Entry Options |
Now, you can always use the “Invent Your Own Option” choice and add a Google+ entry option in there – but be aware that Google does NOT condone this practice.
Since only one of these four (Punchtab) offers the choice of using Google+ as an entry, it leaves bloggers in a quandry about how to get their information out to their followers in lieu of using Facebook. Your only real alternatives appear to be to use Twitter or Pinterest. Having them subscribe to your RSS feed or newsletter is another option but – if we are honest with ourselves here – how often do you actually “read” the newsletters you receive from entering a giveaway? Nine times out of ten, you either unsubscribe after the giveaway is over or you just delete it without even giving it a glance.
So, unless you regularly post an update to your blog about how to get your Facebook Fan Page posts seen in your followers news feed – it doesn’t appear that things will be changing with Facebook anytime soon. A sad view, I know, that something that was once such a genius idea, has just turned out to be another victim of corporate greed since going public.
