The evolution of Facebook continues to be driven toward profit, now that Facebook is responsible to stock holders. The effects on businesses engaging in social media have moved from a fun and a useful tool to marketing to sluggish.

Large companies like Coca-Cola garnered over 80 million “Likes” to find Facebook didn’t result in a change in sales; it’s just a place for people who already like their product to let them know. But the value has been a way to reach your client base and reach out to them – engage, engage, engage.

But now Facebook has taken aim at organic page reach–resulting in a mere to 1 or 2 percent reach. Page Reach means the percentage of your fans seeing your posts. Nike with 16 million fans will now only reach 160,000. After aggressively marketing to the Facebook crowd, this is a huge hit for Nike. You can read the stats in your Admin panel to find out how many are seeing your posts.

Finding you are no longer reaching the very people who like you brand and want to hear from you is discouraging, but it’s the decision Facebook has made. Facebook has been changing the news feed for some time since it began adding content to your feed you never have “liked”. Now, you will hear more from those you haven’t liked and not all the posts from those you have liked.

For small businesses the value of Facebook – is for appearances and those posts which do get into feeds. Don’t give up. Adjust with the new change. You want to maintain your Facebook page for the future, as it continues to change, but it’s safe, for now, to give it a lower priority.