Russell Johnston Adam Padgett ENGL 1102 March 9, 2014

Annotated Bibliography Inquiry: How does the Facebook post promotion system work? What effects does the Post Promotion system have on businesses, if any? Proposed Thesis: The current Facebook filtering process and the post boosting system affects the user experience and hurts businesses who elect to boost their user base through Facebook. NOTE: This thesis is changed from my last thesis, due to the fact that I could not find sufficient scientific sources for the Facebook filtering system on social development.

"Generating Results on Facebook." Facebook Public Relations. Facebook, 01 11 2013. Web. 9 Mar 2014. <https://fbcdn-dragon-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-akprn1/851574_130014300502442_54802750_n.pdf>. This source is the very core of my research paper. Here Facebooks public relations team lays out all of the specifics that are associated with ad placement in the Facebook platform, specifically the News Feed. They have described how simply having fans like your page is not enough to effectively advertise your product, group, or service. Instead, Facebook claims that, People are connecting to more Pages and individuals every day. And each day, more brands and organizations are posting on Facebook. As a result, we

expect organic distribution of an individual Pages posts to gradually decline over time as we continually work to make sure people have a meaningful experience on the site. This is a big claim because it marks the new direction that Facebook has moved in regards to their filtering process for ads and businesses. I expect this source to be the one I pull from the most simply because it is a primary source and it has perfect credibility. There is a lot more information in this source than just the narrow scope that I am concerned with. I believe that the other information regarding the successfulness of ad campaigns under the new filtering process can be used to draw conclusions on how people respond to the organic distribution that Facebook is describing. However, I cant begin to speculate on what these conclusions are.

Metzger, Richard. "Facebook, I want my Friends back!."Dangerous Minds. (2009): n. page. Web. 11 Mar. 2014. <http://dangerousminds.net/comments/facebook_i_want_my_friends _back>. A wonderful article depicting the negative effects of Facebooks filtering service and the financial challenges of ad campaigns on social networks. Metzgers talks about several important points, most importantly the fact that Facebook has been gaming their own users wallets as it pertains to the reach of their Facebook posts. At the time this article was written, when a person who runs a fan page (such as a band or company) writes, then posts a message to their fan page, only 15% of their fans actually receive the post. A very small fraction of users for a certain page will receive information about a group to which they are subscribed. As noted before, a certain amount of filtering is necessary. Metzger

addresses Facebooks solution to this problem. Facebook has allowed businesses to pay a free for larger reach, giving large corporations the advantage.

The author describes it best. At Dangerous Minds, we post anywhere from 10 to 16 items per day, fewer on the weekends. To reach 100% of of our 50k+ Facebook fans theyd charge us $200 per post. That would cost us between $2000 and $3200 per day but lets go with the lower, easier to multiply number. We post seven days a week, which would be about $14,000 per week, $56,000 per month a grand total of $672,000. This is a massive cost, especially considering this is for a fan base that is small compared to that of a large company.

Szoldra, Paul. "Why Facebook's New Feed changes are bad for users." Slate. (2013): n. page. Web. 11 Mar. 2014. <http://www.slate.com/blogs/business_insider/2014/01/20/veritasium_why_faceb ook_s_news_feed_changes_are_bad_for_users.html>.

Another important source, Paul Szoldra addresses a recent video posted on the popular YouTube channel Veritasium. Derek Muller, the host of the periodical YouTube series addresses the Facebook filtering process and talks about some of the negative side effects of the system. What is interesting about this Slate article however, is that Szoldra has managed to get a Facebook representative to respond and provide a secondary perspective on the situation. This is very important not only for the credibility of this source, but also the credibility of my own writing because I am offering multiple perspectives.

Despite the fact that McCormick (the Facebook representative) has given very fair reasons for the way the current filtering system is set up, he fails to effectively address the fact that Facebook has allowed wealthier users the advantage of paying for larger user base volume. Pegoraro, Rob. "Facebook News Feed Can Make Friends Dissapear." Washington Post. (2011): n. page. Web. 12 Mar. 2014. <http://voices.washingtonpost.com/fasterforward/2011/02/facebook_news_feed_f ilters_can.html>.

This article gives the reader and I a very basic understanding of the news feed filtering process. This source is important because it gives a step by step process of how information on the news feed filter is accessed, and where to find its information on the Facebook website. Pegoraro also raises his own concerns that some of his friends will become invisible to him. Pegoraro is different from my other sources in the sense that he is more forgiving of Facebook because he understands the large problem that Facebook is trying to solve; finding what posts are relevant to a user and hiding ones that the user doesnt want to see without their input. Rob Pegoraro has since moved from The Washington Post and is currently employed by USA Today tech. Facebook, . "Boosted Posts."Facebook. Facebook. Web. 12 Mar 2014. < https://www.facebook.com/business/promoted-posts/>. Facebook, . "Promoted Post Success Stories."Facebook. Facebook. Web. 12 Mar 2014. < https://fbcdn-dragon-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-akprn1/t39.2365/851565_325469517585050_1513534755_n.pdf />.

These two sources are very closely related so they have been group into a single summary. Here we have a positive perspective on the role of promoted posts and their affects on small businesses across America. Julie Shenkman of Sams Clown Chowder

writes, I love how measurable the promote process is, I can see exactly how many people are participating with my page. It should be noted that some of my other sources directly refuted this notion by claiming that these participating individuals are bots and not people. They have also claimed that these so called participating followers are not contributing to any sort of business revenue. This sources credibility is obviously in question since they have a clear bias to selfpromote. Also, Facebooks business practices have been called into question by the public eye. However, they have the same right to their side of the story in my research paper. Having both sides of the argument helps establish credibility for my own writing.