Anton Emmanuel's Blog

As I sifted through section 106’s blogs, a particular post caught my eye. Written by Jolena Sun, the post discussed the notion of ‘organic reach’ within Facebook’s online user interface.

Organic Reach, by definition, is the total number of unique users that are shown a Facebook post through unpaid distribution. Conversely, ‘Paid Reach’ is the total number of unique users a post is exposed to as a result of paid advertising.

Recently, in an obvious monetization effort, Facebook has limited the organic reach a particular post can attain. Now, a ‘pay-to-play model’ has been instituted in which businesses must increase their marketing spend in order to ensure their posts effectively reach their target audience — that is, their likers.

While this has raised furor amongst small businesses sounding claims of unfairness, it is equally important to consider how Facebook’s perpetual need to appease Wall Street factors into their business decisions.

The inevitable curse of being a market darling is the need to satisfy Wall Street’s hunger for quarterly growth and progressive monetization figures. Every quarter Facebook’s financials are minutely scrutinized with an overly emphasized focus on short-run results. Often, this can be done at the expense of the company’s long-run vision. With mounting pressure from analysts and investors alike, Facebook is forced to protect its stock and be innovative in spurring new revenue streams.

As the business model canvas illustrates, revenue streams are vital for the health of any business. And although I can resonate with the plight of small business owners who are stacked against the mass marketing budgets of corporate giants, I feel Facebook is not culpable of any wrongdoing. In my opinion, Facebook has been one of the greatest boons small businesses have seen over the last decade. With cerebral algorithms and global reach, Facebook offers an unprecedented marketing platform. In fact, as Jolena contends, I would also argue that a higher proportion of ‘Paid Reach’ posts reduces the mass information dump that is present on Facebook newsfeeds. As a result, the probability of the target audience actually seeing relevant posts increases.

Segueing to the value proposition canvas, does this not address a major pain that businesses have? That is, whether their posts are effectively reaching their end-user?

Without the guarantee of effectiveness, Facebook’s value proposition languishes. Therefore, it is my opinion, that the move to limit organic reach was ideal both for Facebook, and its users.