Facebook Performance is Terrible

[Troy]

I think you Facebook investors may wanna keep an eye on this.  

 

I tried using my AALBC.com Facebook page for the first time in several months and the performance was so bad I couldn't even post a photo.  The browser continued to timeout.  I simply could not use my fan page.  This morning I tried again and experienced the same problem.

 

I just glad I have no dependencies on my Facebook page, if I did I would be in sad shape, because there is really no support for this type of issue.

 

I was, however, able to add the photo to my personal page.  But the performance there suffered too, but I was at least able to use the page.  

 

Given the number of people that regularly use Facebook, it really is astounding they don't have more problems. Ca they really scale to 2 billion users while fighting out hackers, maintain performance and increasing functionality?  It seems unlikely, but time will tell.

[Mel Hopkins]

I just returned to facebook and...the first few days were torture!  In fact, I wrote on txt.fyi about my terrible experience. I wanted to test out the ads and for $10 I thought it was a bargain to reach a specific group.  Needless to say, I've now killed my professional page - and only have a personal page because that is the only page that provides engagement and it's free.   I no longer believe facebook is the advertising juggernaut it claims to be.. I think something different and tricky is going on and i don't trust it. 

Edited June 24, 2017 by Mel Hopkins
added a link

[Troy]

Mel I too noticed that $10 coupon today, but I could not take advantage of it either, by the time I sorted things out it never returned.  

 

I agree with you on the level of personal page engagement versus the business side.  I noticed that many of my friends using Facebook just to share photos get much more engagement that I do on my business page--and I have well over 20K fans on my business page.  Facebook has locked down organic reach on the business side.

 

Google has made it much easier to track engagement from other sites like Facebook with their Tag Manager service.  I'm kicking myself for not implementing this years ago, because it is so my better that using the old Google Analytics code.  but that is a subject for another post.

 

I don;t honestly believe that Facebook was ever the advertising juggernaut the claimed to be.  Now I know they had a lot of revenue, but it is hard to tell, beyond my own site, how effective they were for brands relative to other advertising platforms.

 

I never heard of txt.fyi before now cute   That was a crazy story and speaks to the shiestiness of Facebook--image serving ads to dead pages.

[Mel Hopkins]

7 minutes ago, Troy said:

I noticed that many of my friends using Facebook just to share photos get much more engagement

This is exactly what I noticed too - as soon as I syndicated my blog posts to facebook - wordpress sent me a message and said my page views were booming, more than the whole time I've had the website..   

Speaking of which, because of your advice,  I do everything from my website now ...I even use the portfolio feature for my consulting business... I really think that you should host a webinar (paid or introductory) that includes your social media findings and how advantageous it is  to have a personal website  for community news and to extend our personal brand..

 I rarely "share" articles - I now  press and discuss them on my website, along with the books I read. This way it strengthens my brand; promotes other black media (getting ready to promote an amsterdam news article that did a feature on a black-owned airline) And I hope retains the power of our voice in media.  You are the champion of this cause and I support you! 

[Troy]

Black-owned airline (is it in Africa?), please share the link here too!

 

If you organize it Mel, I'll be happy to promote it and to go in with you 50-50%  We can discuss the details it that sound interesting to you.

 

I'm sure you have as many good ideas as I do

 

[Mel Hopkins]

3 hours ago, Troy said:

If you organize it Mel, I'll be happy to promote it and to go in with you 50-50%  We can discuss the details it that sound interesting to you.

Oh snap!  LOL... I got so much stuff on my plate... Ok, Bet! BUT put it on the warming tray, but not on the stove somewhere in the kitchen -but out of sight.. I need to get my portion in print first.  

[Mel Hopkins]

4 hours ago, Troy said:

Black-owned airline (is it in Africa?), please share the link here too!

 

 

4 year old start-up Fly Jamaica Airways, owned mainly by Captain Ronald Reece and his wife Roxanne.

[Troy]

Thanks for the article Mel.  I need to renew my subscription to the Amsertdamn News, I let it lapse...

 

Did the use of the word "Afro" strike you? I guess they used it in place of "Black." I read a lot of Black articles and I have not seen the use of terms "Afro-owned," or "Afro Family" used this way--even in the Amsertdamn News, they must have recently adopted a new style. 

 

I just did a search for "Afro Family" and all the results I looked at dealt with Afro in terms of the hair style, there were 86 (ignoring similar results) for "Afro-owned."  and the ones I looked at used the work in a different context.

[Mel Hopkins]

16 hours ago, Troy said:

 

Did the use of the word "Afro" strike you? I guess they used it in place of "Black.

@Troy , of course not, they are referring to the people of Afroia...    J/K

it used to - but when I began flying around the world I learned it was European /Asian term.. In fact, I think the Latin countries use it too.  But I became familiar with the term when dealing with the Dutch - I think the Dutch refer to black people as "Afro" descent.  

[Troy]

Yeah I see the author is based in the Caribbean, but the word is so infrequently used in that context I'm surprised the Amsterdam news ran it.  Maybe it is a new trend.

[Troy]

My Facebook coupon popped up again today and performance was better this morning and I was able to use it.  Facebook is slick; the coupon was for $10, but they prepopulated the ad with $11.  It was not worth the effort to figure out how to remove the extra dollar. If the ad is approved I'll let you know how it performs.

 

The image was posted on my Business page (where I was prompted to use the coupon) where is got 8 Likes, no shares, and no comments.

 

The image was also posted on my personal page where is got 94 likes, 4 shares, and 14 comments.

 

The photo was posted on the 23rd of June and since then and 22 people have clicked on the link. Those visitors looked at an average of 4 pages on their  visits. Which is a bit higher that the site wide average for the same period.  Almost all of those visitors were using a mobile device (your site must be optimized for mobile).

 

I suspect all of the visitors came from the posting on the personal page.

 

[Mel Hopkins]

5 hours ago, Troy said:

The image was posted on my Business page (where I was prompted to use the coupon) where is got 8 Likes, no shares, and no comments.

 

The image was also posted on my personal page where is got 94 likes, 4 shares, and 14 comments.

Glad to know it wasn't my imagination.  

[Troy]

No it is not your imagination.  Facebook actually announced that they have eliminated organic reach for brands.  While I was able to use the coupon.  I still can not access the AALBC.com Facebook page.  

 

This morning I tried to open to post a photo about the summer but advertisement special and I simply could not do it... I suspect the may have put my content on ice, so to speak, since I have not used it in so long to save resources for pages that are accessed more frequently.  I can't even get angry about this problem, because I don't even care...