Facebook has been a good place for my work in weight loss, health, and social media topics. I know not many others feel that way or get results, but in my case, I have been getting affiliate sales, coaching work, and book sales from Facebook.
I do not spend money on Facebook, but I do spend time. I’ve been working various strategies for a few years now, and they have sent me regular monthly income. Here’s how Facebook worked for me.
Facebook Pages
I have about 15 Facebook pages is various niches. All of my pages have keyword rich, evergreen posts. People find that work by searching my topics in Facebook. When they get to my pages, they find posts of interest with affiliate links. They also find my books, and coaching offers for various topics. Aside from posting on occasion and answering messages, I do not do much on my pages and money and leads come in.
Facebook Groups
I do not run any groups at Facebook, but I belong to almost 800 of them. These groups are in my niches. I post my offers in groups or interesting information on topic and get leads in that way.
My Facebook Feed
My feed is the last place I work, but it does give results. My most active groups appear in my feed and I can enter in to discussions. Many of my connections on Facebook are obese people trying to change, or others in my niches and I post encouragement where I can. I have gotten short -term coaching work in this way – normally to review the way people eat and suggest better alternatives for health.
All of that has action changed for the worse in the last few months.
Facebook has changed their algorithms so that most of what I see now is not people and groups, but is instead advertising, short videos, and news from large companies. Until recently I saw very little of this and blocked it as I did see it.
Most recently, I am seeing only advertising and then if I scroll my feed for a few screens – Facebook pops up with a notice that now says I have seen all there is to see and “Here are the top posts from Facebook.” With 1400 “fb friends” and 770 groups – I know much of that action is being screened out for this new fb trick.
All of this new “Top Post” action is from the Big Companies again. I have gone through this post flow that Facebook gives me and blocked at least 50 companies in the last few days.
At the same time – searches are no longer finding my pages. My most active groups no longer appear in my feed at all. I have about 5 of them I am in daily and now I have to search them out.
My job is to reach obese people and others in niche categories who are seeking to change and need help.
If I cannot find them – they cannot find me. Few people are as aggressive as I am in trying to keep a clean feed. So all of them are now being fed corporate media that will not help them and not finding my work which can help them.
I am not alone in with this problem. It the last few weeks – when I get to my groups – many others are posting the same thing I am “What is all this garbage on my feed now?”
A few anecdotes:
- One of my best social media groups is very large and grows continually. It is run by a very positive guy and has several great admins. I go there for inspiration, tips, and positivity. Today the pinned post is a call for help and stats about how traffic has died in the last 6 weeks.
- One of my top author friends posted that she had 50K in visits to her page in December 2017 and 5K in February 2018. She mentioned that December is normally a slow month due to the holiday and spring months should be in the 150K visit range.
- A “natural” health and remedies group I like is completely gone now – it is no longer in the list of groups I am in and I cannot find it by search.
Thanks to this problem, all the money I make and all the connections I make on Facebook have tanked – and tanked badly.
This is one of the many reasons I am in a panic about money and my financial situation is dire. The best think I can do is to just keep working and posting where ever I find a place to do it.
How about you?
- Do you still use Facebook?
- Have you seen this type of change for the worse?
- Do you have any good ideas about what to do next?
If you think this is bad - what happened today on Twitter is even worse.
My life changed when I lost "half my size" at the age of 50. Anyone can do this if I did. Ask me for help, and I will help you.