Over the years companies and brands have invested heavily into their Facebook Pages for Business. In the initial years, organic (not paid for) reach- the number of people who saw page posts - was high. Brands built up their fan base believing that reaching their audience on Facebook was free. By 2012, the organic reach had decreased to 12% on an average.
In the early part of this year, companies noticed and voiced concern over organic reach falling to less than 10%. Even as early as February 2014 large brands’ Facebook posts reached just 2% of their fans as reported by Ogilvy. Agencies voiced their anger since Facebook had initially encouraged advertisers to buy ad campaigns that increased their likes and followers. Reacting to criticism June 2014, Facebook admitted that it had changed its algorithm to serve ‘high quality content’ in the News Feed, and advised businesses to post relevant content - content that teaches people something, entertains them, makes them think, or in some other way adds value to their lives for organic reach and suggested use of paid ads.
The final blow was delivered in an announcement by Facebook on 14 November stating that starting January 2015, promotional Page Posts will reduce in News Feed. They have defined ‘promotional’ as posts whose objective is to make people buy a product or download an app, enter promotions and sweepstakes and posts that duplicate content from ads.