When I first saw “two links a month”, I thought it was some sort of typo.
I couldn’t understand how a platform that built so much of its success on people growing their businesses organically, by sharing links to promote what they do, would do this. People share links for all sorts of reasons, whether that’s petitions or projects they’ve worked on. Two a month felt invasive and very limiting.
What’s actually changed
If you missed the news: Facebook Pages in Meta’s test can include links in only two organic posts or comments a month. Past that, people in the test report the link turns into plain text. Meta’s way around it is a paid plan called Meta One. Since Meta One for Business launched in September, more Pages have started seeing the limit.
We’ve covered the detail, including how to check your own Page, in our full breakdown of the Facebook link limit. This one’s my opinion.
It’s definitely Meta being greedy
I could maybe understand some sort of limit if Meta wanted to add value to its subscriber tier. But setting it at such a low amount is just ridiculous to me. It undermines everything that made Facebook such a phenomenon in the first place.
Fundamentally, the link is such an important part of internet culture, and they’re removing it from the ecosystem.
I think they’ll 100% see some businesses just pay the fee and make do. But it will severely limit way too many people for way too much money, particularly because each account is charged separately.
I’d expect we’ll eventually see some sort of adjustment. Or we could really see people turn away from Facebook towards Instagram, TikTok, or a new social media platform that can seize the moment.
There are no winners here
I don’t really see any winners out of this. It’s almost hostile.
Anyone who relies on sharing links to products, to tickets, or even just general communications and updates is going to feel it. For a football club, that’s registrations, fixtures and sponsor offers. For a small business, it’s bookings, the new blog post and the shop.
If you can’t send people to your website, and you can’t rely on the algorithm to reliably serve your updates to everyone who chose of their own free will to click that follow button, there’s a big issue there.
Everyone’s losing in this one. But if I had to pick, businesses will be hit hardest.
Should you sign up for Meta One?
Honestly, I wouldn’t recommend anyone signs up tomorrow.
Unless you’re a multi-million dollar business that can afford the most expensive tier with unlimited links, I don’t think it’s worth paying. And even then, I struggle to understand why you’d spend that sort of money on a service like that.
This is Meta today, but it could be any other platform tomorrow
The mistake I can already see clubs and businesses making is not preparing for it, or ignoring it completely.
We saw the potential for TikTok to lose all of its US users if it was banned there. This is a more acute reminder of that.
If your audience lives on these platforms, you don’t truly own your audience. It can disappear in an instant. If your business relies heavily on reaching those people, you need to be thinking creatively about how you get them off these platforms and into spaces you actually control.
What I’d do instead
As of late October, this hasn’t hit any of the Pages we manage, but we’re preparing for it. We’ve done a heap of research since the news broke into what these changes could mean, and we’re planning for a number of different scenarios.
The obvious recommendation is that anyone who relies on social media for links needs to get their audience off these platforms as quickly as possible. Prepared, not panicked. Here’s where I’d start.
Build your email list. Use whatever organic reach you have left to encourage sign-ups to your email list. Every post that still reaches people is a chance to move them somewhere you control.
Get people into your app. If you’ve got an app, get people into it so you can serve them notifications there. That message goes straight to their phone, without a third party deciding who sees it. For football clubs, that’s what our Home Ground app is for.
Make your reach work for the list. Work hard on your list building. Make sure you’ve got a way of reaching the people who need your links, information or updates that doesn’t rely on algorithms from third-party companies.
None of this means walking away from social. It’s still where people find you, and it’s the work we do every day through our social media marketing. It just shouldn’t be the only way you can reach the people who chose to follow you.
Wondering how you’ll get your links out?
If you’re a small or medium-sized business, or a committee member at a football club wondering how you’ll get your links out there, get in touch.