Using Hootsuite to Update Facebook? Think Again.

I’ve been a loyal Hootsuite supporter. I’ve been using this publishing platform for a couple years now to great success and pleasure. I’ve used it for business purposes as well as personal. It’s been used to publish to Twitter and Facebook (including personal and business/organization profiles).

Over the last few weeks I’ve observed what typically would have been well received posts garner an ill reception. Posts that would typically rack up over 100 likes and dozens of comments now see a meager 20 or 30 comments and likes combined. Has my quality of post material gone down considerably? Perhaps. Has my timing and people’s willingness to comment on shared content worsened? Perhaps, but not likely.

What has actually happened is that Facebook has changed their rubric. They’ve made it so your post shows up less when you use 3rd party applications like Hootsuite. They want you to use their platform to post and not through someone else’s platform.

What is one to do with this obviously inconvenient piece of news? Bow to the Facebook overlords and begin using their platform more and more.

I’ve made these changes and have already seen significant improvements in interaction numbers.