Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB) has been on Forrester Research’s bad side for various reasons for some time, and now the firm asserts that advertisers should abandon Facebook, as the social networking site is biased with them, according to Business Insider. The research company released a report saying that advertisers should drop Facebook if they want to build social relationships with their customers.
Facebook downplays brands’ organic reach
The research firm released its report titled “Social relationship Strategies That Work” following Facebook Inc’s announcement on Friday that the company will cut down the organic reach of brands’ promotional page posts starting in January. The social networking company said that it wants to better the relevance and quality of users’ News Feeds by allowing useful stories in them instead of spam posts.
However, the new announcement downplays posts from the brands, suggesting that now advertisers will have to buy Facebook ads to connect with users. Advertisers did not welcome the decision made by Facebook, arguing that earlier the company opened the gate for advertisers to buy ad campaigns that increased their likes and followers, and now they are withdrawing their offer.
In February, ad agency Ogilvy said the brands that post ads on Facebook reach only 2% of users, and a Facebook sales presentation leaked to AdAge in March suggested to marketers, “We expect organic distribution of an individual page’s posts to gradually decline over time.” Other research from the social media analytic firm Socialbreaker said that along with decreasing organic reach, Facebook is also biased against brands in favor of other types of publishers.
Marketers advised to look for alternatives
Analyst Nate Elliot of Forrester noted that Facebook’s continuous efforts to curtail the organic reach of brands and the agony of advertisers over these decisions suggest that brands don’t actually have social relationships with their customers.
Elliot further suggested it is high time that marketers search for an alternative rather than clinging on to social networks and wasting a substantial amount of money and technological and human resources that do not deliver value. Elliot asked advertisers to explore new techniques, such as going for smaller social networking platforms rather than sticking to Facebook and Twitter Inc (NYSE:TWTR). There was no comment from Facebook about the issue.
According to Elliott, if the marketers follow Forrester’s advice, then in the next two years, “social marketers will finally stop obsessing over Facebook.”
