The following is information I want to share with my clients. Because it’s so in-depth, I felt it better to publish it here on my blog, where perhaps it’s a little simpler to read as opposed to inside an email. And if you’re not a client, you’ll need this information too:
As we bring this week to a close, I want to bring to your attention to recently announced updates on Meta (Facebook and Instagram).
First, the announcement: Meta One is a new subscription plan starting to take effect. We started hearing about it a few months ago but as with so many things on Meta, we waited to jump on it as many times over the past nearly 20 years we’ve been doing this, Meta makes an announcement and then backtracks and changes their mind. Transparently, I was hoping this is what was going to happen. It does not appear to be the case. Meta One began rolling out last week. It is not yet available to all accounts but we are starting to see it when we log in to some of your pages.
What is it?
Officially, Meta’s statement is that it’s a paid subscription service that provides extra features across Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp. And the kicker is you pay BY platform (for many of you, this means Facebook AND Instagram fees).
Do you need it?
Not necessarily. That’s the good news. Not every client we work with needs to pay to play (at least not yet, let’s face it). And there are some arguments that you might want it on one platform but not the other.
The biggest area of concern for us: links.
The good news:
A paid platform can start sharing usable links on Instagram (unfortunately not with the least expensive option). But also, the “links in bio” are not affected, and we can still have 5 links there. So we can still use “link in bio” on posts and have it function as it does now with no fee and no change (for now).
The bad news:
Links will now be limited on Facebook. For accounts that count on social media to send website traffic, this is our major concern. We know that Facebook has limited reach on posts with links for many years now. That said, the functionality still worked. That is changing.
The breakdown:
- Pages that don’t pay get 2 link posts per month.
- It applies per Page, and the count resets on the 1st of each month. Unused links don’t carry over.
- It’s still a test. Some Pages have it and some don’t yet.
- Links in posts AND links in comments count (sometimes we put the link in the comment – that will go toward that two-link-per-month limit.
- Links we have in paid ads will not count toward the two per month.
What does paying for the ability to post more links cost, and what do we get with it?
Well, as expected, there is a low-budget fee of $15/month but it doesn’t give you more links. The least expensive way to get more links on Facebook is to pay $50/month and then you are permitted to post eight links per month. Now, that being said, what you’re buying is permission to post these links, not necessarily more reach, according to Meta.
There are other benefits as well. They include:
- A verified badge to help new audiences feel more confident engaging with you;
- Impersonation protection: Protect your brand with proactive monitoring. If Meta determines someone is pretending to be you, Meta will remove them;
- Shared access: You’ll be able to give us access to your Instagram account without sharing your password
- Enhanced support: Get help from a real person at Meta for specific solutions (each tier has a different number of solutions permitted per month)
You can see the full pricing sheet here, published by Meta.
Some thoughts on what we can be doing whether or not we pay to play – because even if we pay our link publishing will be limited.
These are all being implemented now on some accounts, depending on how much time is available per account and the purpose of social media for that brand. We may need to make some adjustments on the stories we are telling to make sure we are hitting the mark – and that might change our initial strategy somewhat. But as we have always said, if you want to win this game, you have to play by their rules.
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- Driving leads/sales: Instead of links in captions or comments, posts can educate or entertain right in the feed, and for clients utilizing paid campaigns, the best performers get promoted as ads with a CTA button
- Own the audience: Include email capture as much as possible. Email – and all first party data – is STILL the most valuable data a brand can own. We’ve been warned for 10+ years not to build our castles on rented land [organic social] without a sidecar of first party data collection. Let’s continue to build those email lists and use social as a mechanism for this.
- Capturing leads: “Comment a keyword to get the link” by DM, Meta lead forms where they make sense, and Messenger click ads. This is something we currently use already for some clients (with a service called “Many Chat”). I believe Many Chat will be stepping up their game quickly to accommodate. For service businesses, create more campaigns purpose-built to generate calls and form submissions.
- Product / service pages: Story link stickers and profile links are still free, plus a pinned post pointing people to the profile.
- Prioritize paid ads: I know not all of our clients are using paid ads. Paid ads are going to continue to get less expensive reach per click than organic. If we’ve discussed this but not implemented it, it’s time we re-energize that conversation.
So to my clients: we need to think through this – you and me. Each client is going to be different in what its needs are.
We want to be sure we are providing the services you expect and that we are not:
#1 making you pay Meta unnecessarily and
#2 not penalizing your accounts by not paying extra.
It’s going to take some time to test this. I do know a colleague has been paying for a week now and has seen an increase of 50-75% in reach on her Instagram Reels – which leads me to believe you ARE getting penalized for the free version. Not what I want to report, but I want you to have the facts.
Once we’ve decided what needs to be done for your accounts, unfortunately, it involves a verification process we’ll need you to handle (IE it’s not something you can outsource). We will hold your hand through it and do it together.
As we learn more about it (and as soon as it’s available on my account, I will implement it so I can test it) we’ll be able to see what’s working and what’s not.
More to come for sure.
by 
