Networking Saturday; Link Your Shop or Blog 5

Facebook is making changes again in how we utilize it as a tool for branding and promotion.  How does this affect us as a small business?  And personally, How does this affect my poor little shops?

Well of course time will only tell but the big concern right now is the the changes in the algorithm it uses to direct feeds will minimize the organic reach of a page.  There has been some talk about how this change in algorithm will drastically limit the percentage of users that receive your posts within their feeds even if they have turned on notifications from your page, unless of course you pay.

This is true but with further investigation the actual change is a little more complex than simply looking at unpaid vs. paid.  My hope is that those of us who step up our content and provide quality information will still have a fighting chance at being seen.  The algorithm puts a higher emphasis on content and viewer interaction or "talk" about the page.  I, being the layperson I am, will not be able to go into as much detail as I would like because while I somewhat understand this new system, it's not enough for me to be able to explain it well.  So here are a couple of great resources for you to read more details Facebook News Feed Algorithm Change Reduces Visibility of Page Updates, Questions to Ask Your Social Media Manager About Facebook’s Newsfeed Changes and Facebook News Feed Update Gives Brands More Reach

Like many online entrepreneurs, I have dreamed of a Facebook page being the magic to increasing my sales but realistically it has never impacted my traffic as much as other promotional techniques.  So with that being said I prefer to look at the glass half full and say that for most of us this change will not hurt our businesses at all.  It may impact those that have built a business of selling Facebook "likes" since you can have as many followers there are available but if your content is no good you will be virtually invisible.  It also means that networking is going to be that much more important in the very near future.

If we focus our resources in "talking" about each other it is going to have much more weight than simply promoting ourselves.  Next week I am looking into a little more information about Google's new Hummingbird Algorithm and how networking is also going to give us great edge for our overall internet visibility.
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If you have any great networking opportunities you would like me to feature please contact me directly at ButterflyInTheAttic at yahoo dot com or post the information in the comments section.  I will add it to next week's post. 

So now a little homework; think about how the changes in the Facebook Algorithms are going to affect you. Are you concerned? Me? right now I am not concerned at all.  I think that while it isn't good that I have done such a poor job of driving traffic to my sights from Facebook, it will save me from seeing a dramatic plunge. 
My homework showed me that I am going to need to work on quality posts for my Facebook in order to increase my traffic rather than relying on gathering as many bodies to my page as I can. 

So without further introduction here is our great opportunity to network with each other now. Please Join me :)

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Post any of your family friendly sites (blogs, shops, FB, etc.)  What ever sites you would like to share. 

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