Those Facebook giveaways WPLG, WTVJ and other stations ran to get more likes for their pages are about to be made pointless by Facebook. The social network is in the midst of rolling out a “strategy pivot”, aimed at brands with Facebook pages, that would slash organic page reach down to 1-2%.
That is to say, just 1-2% of users who like a brand’s Facebook page will see new posts from it in their feeds. And if a brand wants to reach more of those who already like their page, they will have to pay Facebook extra by using the ‘Boost Post’ feature which has been available to page owners for a while. Using Channel 10 as an example, they have over 100,000 likes, that means that fewer than 2000 people will see anything they post on their Facebook page on any given day, excluding stories people choose to actually share with their Facebook friends.
Using the ‘Boost Post’ a Miami TV station can increase the amount of people who see their Facebook page post in their feeds. Currently five dollars would get them an extra 1100-3000 views, targeting 18-54 year olds within 25 miles of Miami
It’s not known why Facebook is doing this, after encouraging brands to develop their pages, but it probably has to do with the need to drive more revenue, and probably because many brands relied heavily on growing their Facebook page likes then redirected as much of that mass of people as possible to their websites. That is what Channel 10’s strategy is. They ran giveaways, then followed that with posts about lists, photo galleries, and other emotional topics that got users to either share or click the link and visit Local10.com. Once there the user would browse a gallery or a top 10 list requiring them to keep clicking the next button which loaded and reloaded the ads on the page, increasing page views and causing online ad revenue to go up. Channel 6 if I remember correctly encouraged people to tune in and watch their morning and evening newscasts instead.
Many TV stations are already finding it difficult to get noticed and stay relevant in a sea of web content. Unless of course station’s decide they don’t mind paying to get noticed.
