If you “like” Parenting Geekly on Facebook  you may have noticed that you aren’t seeing as many posts from me lately.  Facebook has recently changed the way that posts from your “liked” pages show up.  They only show the posts to those of you that recently (or often) interact with the page by “liking” the posts, posting on the wall, etc. For Parenting Geekly that is 13 of you right now.  That’s understandable, I don’t interact with most of the Facebook pages I like, but I sure do enjoy seeing them in my feed.  It’s why I “liked” them in the first place. They have recently given me the option of paying per post so that you can all see the stuff you already thought you were seeing, but paying for each post isn’t really an option for me, most small businesses, other blogs, non-profits and grassroots organizations.

I believe that Facebook should make money, and I understand that as a publicly traded company they have investors to keep happy.  I have paid money to advertise the blog, but paying per post is just cost prohibitive.  Unfortunately it’s also going to make Facebook pointless for many small organizations.

In my day job I am PR/social media consultant (plug: you can learn more/hire me here).  I specialize in helping small businesses and non-profits learn how to utilize social media.  Facebook was such a great tool for them because it was a free, easy way for them to interact with their supporters and customers.  My two-person dog walker client can’t afford to pay $15 each time they want their customers to see a post.  I do all the social media for the Skagit Valley Festival of Family Farms, a non-profit dedicated to preserving family farms and farmland.  It’s a worthy cause, and Facebook was our cost-effective way of letting people know about our event and how they can help throughout the year.  We operate on a teeny-tiny budget, there’s no way we can afford to promote our posts, not even once.

I don’t usually go into a ton of “behind the scenes” stuff, but I wanted you to know why Parenting Geekly’s Facebook feed may seem a bit more quiet.  I also wanted to share this article with you that explains how you can fix this in your feed.  It’s a bit of a pain in the butt, but I encourage you to go through the pages you like and at least make sure you are seeing posts from non-profits/causes you support.  Alternatively you can interact more with the pages you like by finding them and “liking” their most recent post or otherwise interacting with them.

Thanks to super-cool Geeky Songstress Marian Call for sharing the article on Twitter.

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