Yes, people can type a url into a browser. But they don't. they scroll their newsfeed.
They don't ... for your site.
You know how often I see Hacker News on Facebook? Never. Yet I visit here regularly. Same for reddit and many other sources of news.
You know how often Breitbart links appear in Facebook or Google News? Never. Yet it's the 49th biggest site in the USA according to Alexa.
Our choices are: take FB head-on trying to get engagement with our users outside FB, or pay FB to regain our old levels of engagement. Not fun.
Isn't that cookie-jar thinking, just like cocktailpeanuts says? You got large amounts of free advertising and referral traffic for a long time. Very few businesses benefit from that sort of thing. Now you're back to having to get loyal users the old fashioned way, or you can pay for that traffic in the manner of traditional advertisers.
They don't ... for your site.
You know how often I see Hacker News on Facebook? Never. Yet I visit here regularly. Same for reddit and many other sources of news.
You know how often Breitbart links appear in Facebook or Google News? Never. Yet it's the 49th biggest site in the USA according to Alexa.
Our choices are: take FB head-on trying to get engagement with our users outside FB, or pay FB to regain our old levels of engagement. Not fun.
Isn't that cookie-jar thinking, just like cocktailpeanuts says? You got large amounts of free advertising and referral traffic for a long time. Very few businesses benefit from that sort of thing. Now you're back to having to get loyal users the old fashioned way, or you can pay for that traffic in the manner of traditional advertisers.