Is this the beginning of the end for Facebook?

In last week’s round up we touched briefly upon the changes Facebook have made in relation to verified pages and the rules around sharing content which you yourself have not created. However, after a little more discussion around the office we have decided that these changes deserve a little more coverage than we initially gave them, especially when you look at how this could be about to change the face of Facebook marketing.

Before the change, we as marketers had two choices when we looked at Facebook marketing. Either create an ad campaign, using Facebook’s own ad platform to promote your advert to a handpicked, campaign specific, targeted audience or create unique highly shareable content and say a little prayer to the Gods of Natural Pick Up that your awesome content would be shared far and wide.

However, it would now appear that unless you have a verified page, you are not able to share any content that you have not created. And it would appear that due to receiving a large number of requests Facebook are currently not verifying any more pages unless you are a celeb, public figure, sports team, media or entertainment.

This means that those of us without a blue badge are unable to share text, photos, videos, articles/links…(unless we have created them ourselves) quite as freely as we did once upon a time.

Further reading into this subject seems to suggest you should be okay if you share content using one of the share buttons that appear to be everywhere now, but if you upload content in any other way you would be going against this new guideline, and some sources suggest that not only would you be breaking the rules, but the innocent party (the person whose content you have shared) could be contacted by Facebook with a hefty bill.

Having talked through the changes with some of my colleagues, we can’t help but feel that these new guidelines are going to force a massive shift in how people use Facebook.

We all know that people are more likely to share things that make them look intelligent and/or funny and that a lot of the popularity of sharing is to do with how easy it currently is. I have to wonder what happens to people who share content onto their page, which has been published against Facebook guidelines on the source page?

Also what happens if you have linked your Facebook account with your Twitter account, and you RT someone else’s content?

I asked some of my colleagues for their opinion on the changes.

Hannah said “I think they could see a drop in revenue, this may well affect how strong an advertising platform Facebook is. It may be that this leads to other platforms coming in and offering something better value for brands than Facebook. We have seen the likes of Instagram and especially SnapChat becoming big players for brands recently, who knows who may come in, Peach anyone?”

Sian thinks: “My first reaction was that Facebook has shot itself in the foot. People are already wondering what Facebook’s place in the social media world is now that their algorithms so heavily limit the number of people seeing your posts and youngsters no longer signing up to it, instead heading to Snapchat and Instagram to share their updates, or even taking it less public to WhatsApp. From a blogger’s perspective, I noticed hugely when Facebook stopped showing as many people my posts, and now limiting the type of content I can share? I think we’re only going to see a steady decline for Facebook now as less people and brands use the platform.”

Kean thinks: “”With most articles simply regurgitating the original Facebook announcement there seems to be limited information of how this applies in a variety of use cases; and I think this has led to confusion. When first hearing about this I did think it was ridiculous that it would affect average users posting cat videos. However in reading more on the subject my instincts are that this is not about restricting normal users from sharing content but from making 100% clear when verified high profile users are sharing third-party content as this often is done as a form of advertising agreed between the content author and the page.”

Stew thinks: “While these new policies may initially put off non-verified users from sharing branded content, the real losers will be the brands themselves. Many of them will soon have to pay Facebook directly for advertisement slots instead of piggybacking shares and likes through bloggers and brand partnerships.

Although, initially a good thing for Facebook, this could be a big step back for the company’s future advertising earning potential as brands will undoubtedly find new ways (and new networks) to maximise their social media budgets.”

Having discussed this (a lot) today, I have to admit that most of us are still a little bit unsure as to what these changes mean and it feels at the moment that for every new article we discover, all we find is yet another way to interpret the change and more confusion.

So what do I think?

I will be honest I am still not 100% sure. Initially I thought this was the beginning of the end for Facebook as we knew it and I was all ready to write a goodbye Facebook post. However further research has me slightly more confused and a bit less sure. It would have been easier had there been a blanket ban and some very black and white guidelines. However, we are left with you can’t share content unless you are verified, but you may be able to do it if you use a share button… if that’s the case then I don’t see how anything has changed and I can’t help but feel this is all a big fuss about nothing. However, if that isn’t right and people are going to start receiving warnings about sharing any external content when their page isn’t verified…

I know for the clients I work with on Facebook I don’t want to run the risk of getting their pages flagged up as rule breakers and so for the moment, until something more comes of it, I will be wary of sharing any third party content. Although I am very aware that purely promoting your own content goes against everything I have been taught about social marketing.  I have to worry if this is about to be the death nail in an awful lot of small business Facebook pages, as it will be the smaller pages with a few thousand followers or less whose pages aren’t going to get verified any time soon that are left marketing in this grey area.

I think it may be a case of watch this space.