I have recently been learning a bunch about marketing. My wife has started marketing her fourth novel. Along the way, we have also started boosting Facebook posts about the freebie opportunities. And in my quest to better understand these types of campaigns, I have stumbled into a concept called “organic reach”. That is cute language for “reaching people without spending a nickel.”

“Organic reach on Facebook has been in decline for a few years now and has almost hit zero. If you want to break through now, Facebook is all but a pay-to-play network.” —The Complete Guide to Facebook Advertising

In the olden days, people would “like” your group/page and then see anything you posted there. Today, not so. Facebook has algorithms that “decide” what shows up in people’s feeds. Sponsored postings can interrupt a newly minted post on your page that a friend liked, causing them to miss content.

Yup. Someone that you catered to, who decided they liked your content, isn’t guaranteed to see everything posted on that page. Suffice it so say, many are up in arms over this. It backs up a rule I teach at any of my Blogging & Marketing sessions – build your own platform.

Yes. Build your own platform. Craft a site. Curate a mailing list. It will take awhile, but in the long run, you will be running things your way. Sure, you will continue posting things to Facebook, Twitter, and what not.

But don’t presume that the rules of yesterday and today won’t be different tomorrow. Such are the woes of using other people’s platforms.