Facebook capping fan page reach at 16% - Impact analysis

Facebook Fan Pages reach only 16%

Brands, celebrities and businesses rely on Facebook to build social engagement through fan pages but Facebook's Edgerank algorithm gives you much less viewership than you would like.

You will have noticed a new metric on your fan pages that shows you your audience engagement as a percentage. This number will vary depending on the way that you post with your page, but the average we have seen is surprisingly low to the tune of 16%.

With that said, what will the long term impact be on the film industry? Film studios, labels, publicists and so on currently use Facebook to build fan bases for films, actors, events and so on. With this new change put into place earlier this year, you will have to pay to reach the rest of your audience. That's the big message that this update is sending. You can't reach the audience you have built unless you pay a premium.

Now in all fairness, Facebook has to make money somehow, but when you start capping the amount of fans others built for you, is that a good way to reward your 'clients'? It's definitely not going to encourage fan page users to build up their fan base.

To put it in another context. You spend hours building your fan base using Facebook, you build the social part of your brand using the fan page structure, but then you are only allowed to reach a limited amount of the fans that actually like what you have to say. Does that sound like a good deal to you?

What can you do about the Facebook Page cap?

Fan pages have essentially become a product that Facebook want to monetize. They provide insight graphs and a lot of tools for users, but it now has a price. That price may be more than people are prepared to pay. Others may decide to focus on other platforms that don't cap fan reach, or even return to the newsletter format which allows you to keep email addresses and reach 100% of your list.