What's Up With Timeline, Facebook?

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When Robert Plant sang about being Dazed and Confused, he wasn't talking about Facebook. However, Timeline is causing just that.

First things first. I embrace change. Let’s make that clear.

Switched over to Timeline for my personal profile not too long after the announcement; why not? It seemed okay; it’s cool if you post a lot of photos like I do, except that it does crop them so your friends need to open them up to enjoy the complete picture. The left, right, left, right style works, but since everything is larger, you need to scroll more. Can live with that.

More recently I switched my MODern Marketing 4 U page on Facebook to Timeline. Since Facebook really isn’t central to my overall business and I only post three to four times a day there, it’s just fine and dandy with me.

Then, my other page, Groovy Reflections, made the giant leap. That’s when all heck broke loose. A drop-off in fans like there’s never been before; not a lot mind you, but for this page, it was more than usual. But that’s not the issue. Neither is the fact that the page takes forever to load up; we’ll let that slide for now.

Seems something is causing Facebook to selectively choose which posts show up in fan’s new feeds. And interestingly enough, it happens mainly when I include a link to the Groovy Reflections website.

You’re thinking…how do I know this? The page usually gets 5 to 50+ likes on any given post, so when you’re getting ZERO likes on a post, one can safely assume something is wrong.

Threw a question out twice about a half hour after no likes on a post to the 4400+ fans and asked them what was the last post they saw. Their responses clinched it; some were not seeing the last post, while others weren’t seeing the last TWO posts.

Businesses, beware. Facebook’s Timeline just made more challenging to have a successful Facebook page.

After a Google search and exploring Facebook’s help for a solution, I come up empty handed.  Then I reported a bug to Facebook. This auto reply installed showed up in my mailbox:

Thank you for submitting this bug report and taking time to help us improve the site. Unfortunately, we are unable to respond to every bug report individually, but we are reading them.

Great. Sounds like I won't be hearing from them. So, Facebook, tell me, as a business, how do I continue to create awareness for my brand? I have no control over the algorithm that picks and chooses what my fans can see. Is that fair to my business? Google+ doesn’t do this. Each post should bear the same weight and same opportunity to be seen.

Should I not post at certain times of the day? Should I not use certain words that you may deem as spammy? Would appreciate some clues here so that I can continue to connect with and engage my fans.  Sounds reasonable, no?

In turn, you, Facebook, will be privileged with my on-going presence on your social network. Oh, and if someone knows the solution, please DO share it.

I dedicate this tune to all the fans on my Facebook pages that are Dazed and Confused. Click here.