BENJAMIN LEROY
Ok, it’s now spring, and we’ve weathered most of the rough stuff.
But, this sure has been an unpredictable and brutal winter, hasn’t it? Yeah, you think you know what to expect when November rolls around. Make plans about how to flourish in all of the cold and snow. You remember what other winters have been like and prepare for more of the same.
And then a winter like this one comes along and you scramble to find your feet (provided they aren’t frostbitten) and come up with a new plan.
That was an awkward metaphor and a bit of a misdirection.
What I really want to talk to you about is how things can change significantly, in an instant, in ways that are out of your control, and it’s important to not be caught off guard and to learn the gentle art of self-reliance.
But I’m not talking about weather.
I read an article yesterday that said Facebook, allegedly having already greatly constricted the “organic reach” of pages, is planning on wringing it a little harder, leaving folks who want to promote products—shoes, lipstick, guitars, and books, etc.—having to come out of the pocket to make sure anybody hears their tree falling in the great digital forest.
Facebook is a business. A business expected to bring in money for investors. Historically, it’s been a pretty cheap (you’re paying in data) opportunity to say one thing or another to anybody who wants to listen. But, that strategy isn’t going to make the bajillion dollars it needs to keep stockholders happy, so what’s a huge social media network to do?
Change up the game plan. Mission statement remix.
In an effort to monetize operations in a significantly bigger way, it sounds like people will have to pay cash money to “reach” their “intended audience.” How does that effect an author relying on Facebook to get word out about new books? Well, all those people who you’ve convinced to “like” your author page? 2% of them are going to get your updates when you generate new content unless you’re willing to partner up cash to open up the floodgate a little more.
Have a hundred likes? Cool, two of them will catch your act. Have a thousand? All twenty of the people who hear about a new book might be interested in buying it. But maybe they won’t. Maybe they aren’t the right twenty. Maybe one of the other 980 people would be psyched, but...we’ll never know.
Of course, paying cash to break down the dam a bit might not help, either. Who knows? Guess you’ll have to dip into the wallet to find out.
Quickly—we run into a problem when we strategize and rely on others (read: huge businesses with bottom lines) because they tempt us with reduced pricing on drugs. We get hooked on the fun. We share. We mistakenly believe that the high will go on forever. We have reached paradise.
But then the dealer (who, it turns out, isn’t really our friend) stops with the goodie bags and leaves people addicted to something they can’t have anymore, strung out, and desperate for even a cheap fix (are we still talking about re-discovering and gentrifying MySpace?).
Anyway, winter’s been rough.
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