facebook is a manipulative. . .

I know tons of people love social media and trust and believe in facebook and other sites.  BUT facebook is a manipulative bag of dicks, like a control-freak-abusive boyfriend. 😕

I hate to tell y'all that facebook is entirely about the $$$$ and what you are shown has little to do with what you want to see and more to do with what will fill zuckerberg's pockets.  😒 

Aside from allowing horrible and illegal things to be posted and not responding when certain things are reported, in spite of the written community rules, they do not always remove reported/inappropriate content.  There is a rule about not promoting illegal activities well poaching is illegal and yet there are entire groups dedicated to the celebration of/and poaching of deer.   😣  I found such a group and after recovering from the horrible photographic evidence of the illegal use of automatic weapons at night on an entire herd I reported it and after multiple reports and arguing with a rep nothing was done and the group remains, continuing the posting and promoting of illegal activities.  This is just 1 example of my bad facebook experiences.

The number of ridiculous and entirely false political memes is just insane. Zuckerberg has admitted he basically doesn't care if anything is true or not, he claims it's about freedom but it's not it's all about $$$$$.  Because for those that missed it he was talking about ads and sponsored content, which mean as long as you pay they will show your stuff to anyone and everyone regardless of actual content, truth, or basic decency. 

You may be wondering why I'm bad-mouthing facebook on my business blog, well because as a "business" page I have been exposed to the truth of facebook operations management and manipulations.   

I have been trying for 4 years to use facebook and other social media to promote my small business, because the whole world says that's the thing to do.  However, I have been thoroughly frustrated and disappointed by what a battle it has been to make any progress without paying $$$.  😟  The only way to be seen is to pay and the more you pay the better the results, so next time you see some business page with thousands and thousands of likes/followers you can bet that they paid $$$$ to have that appearance of success.  

I have "boosted" posts, promoted my page, done all the things they suggest but my budgets have been small $20-30 most of the time because I'm not made of $$$ like zuckerberg and cannot spend hundreds of dollars per campaign.  😐  So I get minimal results from ads and very slow growth organically.  

The most annoying part to me personally is that in spite of all the work I have done over the last 4 years to build my page audience, facebook does not show my posts to hardly anyone.  Seriously, I have accrued over 180 likes and followers for the RainbowMaille page but my posts are only shown to a handful of people regularly, if I'm lucky and the first few people "engage" and like or comment then it gets shown to a few more people but never to the full audience, I know this for a Fact because as a business page I have stats and numbers to prove it.

My most recent post 2 days ago, I included a plea for all who saw it to please engage to ensure seeing future posts, and in likes, comments, shares, clicks through to the blog most 23/28 did something.  First, Thanks to all those that participated.  Second, check out the screen shot which clearly shows only 28 people "reached".  That means they only showed the post to 28 of the 188 people who have clicked voluntarily to "follow" the page.  People click follow showing interest and desire to see the page's content but facebook doesn't actually show them when I post. Oh no, instead they show it to only a few people and then nag at me to pay for promotions 😒  controlling, manipulative, and greedy.  

So as you scroll through your feed, try to notice the "suggested for you" and "sponsored" crap that they shove down your throat and contemplate what things you have liked and/or followed and wanted to see that never appear, like RainbowMaille.  😞