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UK Tory MP says he was deported from Djibouti due to criticisms of China
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The east African country has close ties to China and Tim Loughton had
sanctions imposed on him by Beijing in 2021
A former government minister who has ha...
1 hour ago
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ReplyDeleteFiguring out the value of a Facebook (FB) fan has become more complex for many small-business owners, ever since the social-media giant began asking businesses to pay to "promote" their posts.
Under a program rolled out in May, businesses pay Facebook Inc. anywhere from $5 to hundreds of dollars to promote a post to the news feeds of users who have "liked" their page, plus Facebook friends of those users. The price depends on how many users a business wants to reach.
The giant social network, which has to balance users' desire to broadcast messages against the need to keep the ecosystem tidy, has always limited the number of posts users receives via their news feeds. According to the company, the average business post reaches 16% of its fans. The Promoted Post program is supposed to make it possible to increase that reach.
Richard Bishop (Todd Meier for The Wall Street Journal)Richard Bishop, of Mountain Home, Idaho, is among the many entrepreneurs who are irked about being asked to pay to reach a larger percentage of their Facebook fan base, which they have spent time and money building.
Mr. Bishop says he puts out an average of 35 posts a week, and estimates that he would need to spend a minimum of $9,100 a year if he opted to pay fees to promote each one of them to his more than 1,500 followers.
Facebook "lured us in with free Facebook pages," says the 35-year-old caterer, referring to small-business owners like himself who have built marketing programs around Facebook. "Now all of a sudden they're saying a minimal percentage of your fans will see your posts unless you pay. They devalued the value of a fan."