I am not sure wether you’ve noticed it, or not. But Facebook has been driving less and less traffic to my blogs. What used to be obnoxious amount of vitis, shrink to a point of non-importance. Don’t get me wrong, Facebook still drives traffic to my website, it’s just shrunk in comparison what it used to do. And it keeps shrinking.
My Facebook page is the sticking point of it all. Ever since they’ve introduced the concept of Edge Rank, the traffic that would come through my personal publishing on my wall or on my fan page, suffered extensive diminishing returns, to a point, where I wasn’t sure is it worth publishing at all? So I didn’t. For a long time I felt guilty about it, but in 2013 a lot of things happened. There was a rise of Google + and I’ve leveraged Twitter extensively.
Not only I’ve got better engagement on  Twitter (and App.Net), I’ve also started getting more traffic from these sources. On top of that, I’ve noticed that Google + engagement increased my Google Authorship rank, and helped my personal brand awareness.

So after a lot of contemplation…

…I’ve decided I had enough. Enough of thinking about Facebook as a platform that is hard for monetization. I believe that Facebook is either going to make it or break it for itself. But beside that, it’s broken beyond repair for my personal use. It’s an utter waste of time. Not only it’s not the time to run Facebook if you are a small content publishing business owner, it’s the right time to completely abandon it.

Where I do see usage of Facebook in your marketing efforts?

Facebook can be good for local stores, and small communities. If you are running a business that has a small and engaged community of clients, having Facebook makes a viable option. Also if you know who to target, you can make the leverage out of it. But that’s all I can think of Facebook in the small business scale.
Facebook for big brands is a whole different ball game. And I am not sure that I want to access that corporate world. It requires a lot of 9 to 5-ing, that I am presently active in, and I think I want a break from it.

For those who whine how this isn’t fair

It’s not. But we knew it. We knew it years back. We knew that our fans, aren’t our fans. We knew that Facebook our fanpage is not the property of our own, and that’s that. I am sorry if you invested a lot into your Facebook presence, I really do, but it was a risk, that some people monetized on, and some people failed to monetize.
Either way it was a good lesson. Do you feel betrayed? Ofcourse you do! I feel for you. I knew better not to trust Zuckerberg. And now I am reaping the profits of my smart business decision.
 

So what is my next social media move?

I am starting to feel this way about Twitter now. That’s why I am not putting all of my eggs in the Twitter basket. I feel that Google + is doing alright for now, and it will for the time to come. And right now, I am on the forefront of trying out something new.
I am experimenting with new platforms like App.net (yes, a paid social network), and Google +. Seems like these two will have the most radical impact on my social media presence, and will drive me the traffic that I actually need. I am also experimenting with Tumblr. These aren’t exactly the mainstream social media channels, neither of them. But I foresee the pretty good future for all of them.