Oh, Facebook.

Have you noticed? Facebook is really changing things up again. It’s driving me nuts both as a user and as a page owner.

Last year, they made some changes, but as long as you were making an effort to be engaged with your fans, you could work around it. Now, it seems they are taking all of our fans away from us in huge chunks. Things my Facebook fans used to love for me to post, are now not even seen by 10% of them, certainly not enough to engage with my followers. I’ve even assumed more than a few bloggers had just stopped altogether because I was following them on Facebook and hadn’t seen an update for months. Only to find out, they’d been updating, Facebook just wasn’t showing me their updates. (Even though, I liked their page, specifically so that I could see their updates!)

I digress.. With all of the changes happening, many of us are wondering if it’s really worth while to spend lots of time and energy on our Facebook pages. It’s certainly not producing the same return as it once did.

Over the next week or so we will be sharing several alternatives to Facebook. Ways to get your blog out there and engage with your following outside of the big FB.

I’m truly starting to wonder how much longer Facebook will even be around. It seems to be going the way of myspace and friendster at an alarming rate. As bloggers, we have to stay ahead of the curve. Be early adopters to new social media networks, so that we can already have an established platform when the masses switch over. Personally, I’m slowly shifting my time away from Facebook and starting to invest in other platforms. I’m not jumping ship altogether, as many of my fans still use the social network, but if my posts aren’t seen, then it’s time to stop fretting and start finding other solutions!

Stick around this whole week to learn ways of promoting your blog and engaging with your audience outside of Facebook.

Also, Becky and I wanted to ask for your input – Since Facebook pages aren’t a great way to interact anymore, would you be interested in joining a Blogging on the Side Facebook group? We could share posts, answer questions and interact in a way that wouldn’t be hidden as much by FB. It could create a real sense of community among the BOTS readers and writers! Group members could ask questions and help each other out more so than is possible on a regular page.

Leave a comment if you are interested in joining such a group! We would be happy to start one if there is interest.

***We’ll update here, as posts go up in the alternatives to Facebook series***

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