Precious goods

Those who are interested about web marketing are with, no doubt, aware about this fact: Facebook stopped its organic reach during this January. The “common” of users already suffered this algorithm changes when they realized that their timelines were now “filtered” that “News Feed is designed to show each person on Facebook the content that’s most relevant to them“. In short: your “friends” say things not enough relevant to appear in your timeline… This could be not a surprise (and sometimes true…) but you still have so much not relevant feed on your timeline! … among them more and more “sponsored posts”. So what could be “a relevant” post for the Facebook ell? How an algorithm can decide as relevant for a text content or a multimedia message?
The new Facebook policies (included push up the videos contents, automatically displayed, that is particularly annoying when you navigate through the mobile applications, that concern quite a lot of internet users!) were already a concern for “common” users but now, they touch also brands. Indeed, now, to have your content (and I insist on the “YOUR” content) displayed on your timelines fans, you have quite no more any other choice than pay. To be short, that means that, one more time, using social medias is not free!

The problem is between the user-producer and the platform behaviour; it is not a new problem but more and more sensitive. As content producer, you spent time (and somehow money (or literately money)) tailoring your content, your message, your production. At this step, there is, in my opinion, no difference between a professional who works for a company or an artist or also a “common” user: everyone creates something, put it on the social media such as Facebook (but it is true for the others too!), shares and spreads it through the network you built but, eventually, this content is not your property, that doesn’t belong to you but to the media, your content can be, at anytime and without real explanation than an automatic message, cancelled by the media. Facebook is particularly famous for this. And there, you can be in front of a so absurd situation that it is often easier to spread your Jihadist message than publish a picture of a Greek statue (or any other work of art) or a campaign against the breast cancer… So you are the core of the media business, without you, your actions and your content nothing could be exist but you are not the owner of your intellectual production and you have to accept, without any debate, media rules (for example, no matter you are in France or in Nicaragua, as user, you don’t have any right and if you have any demand, you cannot put the case on front of your national tribunal but only in front of a Californian one!)
“Hey #Facebook, @markzuckerberg and @sherylsandberg, you really think that you can finish a post by a #JeSuisCharlie and, in the same time, banish a Museum commercial in which one appeared an Antique male statue because we can see its sex? Seriously…”

Although, you can read on official Facebook website that “Fans absolutely have value. Fans make your ads more effective. […] You can use insights about your fans […] Fans can give your business credibility […] Fans may represent your best customers”. It is clear then that “Fans” so, to be clear, (quite) all Facebook users, are gold valuable goods. And Facebook is making money on us. This is, again, not new and it’s now a common web saying that “if it is free, you are the money”. The question now can be formulated such as: how can we use now social medias? Indeed, we all used in our ways Facebook (and other “social” medias), we did what was our interest with this platform that was seen as a solution to amplify and spread exchanges, discussion and contents. Brands used it like a meta-newspaper, institutions (such as cultural or charities, …) as a way to exist and share content, amateurs to share knowledge and organize their activities, users to share lol/nice/dreamful/funny/achievement/… content and talk (as an extension of the former MSN Messenger chat). But the freedom of the beginning is less and less accessible so what could be the next step?

We are free to use quite every platforms or social medias we want (except in some countries where expression freedom is seen as a dangerous attack against the country identity) so nothing linked us to one more than another but we have habits and also, we want to be where others are! Content is growing exponentially every minute so we are obliged to pass by mega-hubs to try to reach a few number of readers! But, in the mean time, even Facebook is more and more over-flooded by content:

“There is now far more content being made than there is time to absorb it.
On average, there are 1,500 stories that could appear in a person’s
News Feed each time they log onto Facebook. For people with lots
of friends and Page likes, as many as 15,000 potential stories
could appear any time they log on.”

So, is a solution could be to create your new space? So many tried and failed miserably so often (i.e. Google+ or Ello). That doesn’t mean that any hope will fail but that even for the biggest internet company, it is really hard and a terra ingognita. Of course, other solutions exist, among them totally stop using social media or using them better or with more cleverness, but what is sure is that this new step forces us to re-think our position, the one of our structure as professionals and continue to create and imagine new solutions (even with “old” tools)!
Maybe our next slogan will be

“inspiring by hacking, made by us, with you!”