Facebook Blues...

I started a facebook page for fabulouslyflawedminiatures to post photos of my miniature work. I did not want to bombard my family and friends with a bunch of miniatures on my personal page. I thought I would just create a new page and who ever might be interested in seeing my work, can join in. I had no idea there was a miniature community lurking around facebook.

As time went on my "friends" began to grow and a great support system was born.

Little did I know that I would become dependent on "my facebook page" and "my friends". I enjoyed, meeting new people from all over the world, commenting on great miniature work, sharing ideas in the mini world and, of course, seeing everyone's dog (mine too). 

But this past Monday was a different day. I did what I normally do in the morning, check my blog, Etsy and facebook, but something strange happened. I could no longer access my account. I had no idea what was going on!

After a few minutes of panic, I took a deep breath and reread the pop up box. I would have to convert my wonderful, supportive facebook page to a business page. There was nothing I could do, as they locked me out! My first thought was, "my friends". 

I followed the procedure and within minutes, I had a new "business" site. I immediately noticed that

all of my "friends" were MIA! Where did they go? I had over 1,000 (and growing daily) wonderful (I love miniatures too) friends. As I starting looking around I noticed that my friends are now "likes". I can't see or comment on their work, previous likes and comments are gone, I am no longer part of any group…everything GONE! I tried everything to get them back…it was done :(.

I started to feel sorry for myself. I worked hard on that facebook page and people took notice!

In my frustration, I began to do a little research as to what was going on, here's what I found out. You can't have a business set up as a private (profile) page, it's against their (facebook) rules. It was never my intention to make my facebook page a business site, but I guess with the the name, post with a link to my etsy shop, posting everyday, likes and traffic, it fell into the deep hole and I got punished. 

I thought facebook was all about connections…well it is, but not for free anymore. 

As I began to think about this, it started making sense to me. Why should facebook allow me to use their site for free marketing??? Digging deeper into my research, that is exactly what they are thinking. Hence, the "switch". Now, in order for my wonderful, supportive friends to see my postings, I'm gonna have to pay for it. I can still post, but it's only going to reach a small percentage of my friends and I mean a very small percentage.

That problem can be fixed if I pay. So here's what I understand, based on what I have researched: 

(example of idea only)

Say...

I pay facebook $20.00 for a site promotion - I will get 18-71 likes.

I pay facebook 10.00 for a post promotion - my post (only that post) will be seen by 500-1500 people…

let's just say both of these will last for 5 days.  52 x 20 = 1, 040.00 per year or half that for the second senario. 

ARE THEY CRAZY!

I don't care about random likes, I don't want my post going out to Neverland to people who could care less about dollhouse miniatures. I want "my" friends back!

I understand the business side of this. I'm okay with paying $5.00 per month for a certain amount of weekly or monthly post to "my" friends. But I am not Walmart or Burger King!  I'm not looking for the type of marketing that facebook is forcing on a super small business like mine. I think they could have come up with something better.

I write this to share with my mini friends who may be unknowingly operating their facebook page as I unintentionally was. By the way, there was no warning or notice from facebook before they forced me to make the switch to a business page. It was just done.

Needless to say, I will be focusing more on my blog. I will continue to post on my new "business" facebook page. It will not be the same though, as I can no longer hang out with my friends. :(

I'm so glad I invested equal time in my blog, Pinterest, Instagram and Tweeter, fingers x'd that these other sites won't follow suit.

Feeling sad :(.