Facebook Not Working on October 11, 2017 (10/11/17)

Once again the world is standing still as we wait to see what has happened to Facebook. Thousands of users are reporting that nothing happens when they visit the site, both on their computers or on their smart devices.

I tried to use my iphone to post into a group but had no luck.

Many of the outage maps are also reporting that Facebook is down.

There has been no comment so far from Facebook on what is causing this widespread outage but for this Facebook Marketer, I think it means a vacation day.

Facebook not working on September 17, 2015

It's hard to believe it's almost been a whole year since the great Facebook crash of 2014 but yet again, it appears that something on Facebook is majorly broken.

No one seems to be tweeting about it yet on Twitter and for me it seems to be on again, off again. We'll keep you updated.

Facebook now tells admins how many people a page post is being "served" to.

In an apparent move to be more transparent about Facebook's Newsfeed algorithm, it appears that the text that shows to administrators under each Facebook page post has changed.

It used to read, "x number of people saw this post" and now it reads, "This post was served to x number of people".

As a page administrator for many high profile pages (and low profile pages for that matter), I can say that this is somewhat a relief.  I can't tell you how many people would ask me why their entire population wouldn't "see" a post that we put out on the page. Many times we were asked if we could do anything to make it better, as though it was something we were doing wrong, until we explained Facebook's Newsfeed Algorithm.

Now it is more apparent that Facebook is choosing which of our content to "serve" up to the people who have liked the page and which content is doomed to sit stagnant on our timeline.

There is hope however, besides the apparent "Boost Post" option where you pay Facebook to make sure your content gets into everyone's newsfeed, and that is to post smart.

Facebook's newsfeed algorithm is based on people's "likes and interests" which they fill out when they create a profile.  It also looks at what types of content people engage with not just on your page but on other pages as well. If you have a tendency to click on video links, then you are going to get a LOT more video links in your newsfeed.

If you have an important message to get out to your followers, you should create content that is in alignment with the best posting types on your page, as shown by your Facebook Page insights.

Here's how:

In this case, it looks like our links are being served to the widest audience, so we should continue with this trend. That is great news since we will soon be starting a website for this page.

Interesting also is that our regular status updates (without images or links) get served to the second widest audience, and photos are a close 3rd.

You can also click the "Top Posts from Pages You Watch" to see how other pages' content is being "served" to their audiences.  Overall, I like this new language, as it makes a lot more sense to people about where their content ends up (besides making nice decorations for their Facebook pages).

What are your thoughts or questions?

10/21/13 - The Day that Facebook BROKE DOWN - Trouble with Groups, Commenting, and Posting on Facebook.

Today will go down in the history books as the day that Facebook broke down. The problems seemed to be coming from the computer at first, but the more we dig, the more we are discovering that this is a wide-spread Facebook issue.

The problems as we see it:

Facebook Groups - users are unable to upload any media nor can they post messages. Admins are unable to add or remove group members nor can they pin or unpin posts from the top of the group.

Commenting - users are unable to post comments to their friends posts. The error looks something like this: 

"Likes" not working - error messages also occur when you are trying to like another person's comment.

Posting - users are getting error messages when trying to post status updates. This blog reports that several people are experiencing this message when trying to post an update, but this problem seems to be more sporadic.

How wide-spread is it?

We have several friends all over the country and the world as a matter of fact and all of them are reporting some kind of trouble, although not all of their troubles are the same. This site also indicates that users from all over the world are experiencing issues as well.

What is Facebook doing about it?

So far Facebook has not published anything online about this event. We're curious to see what the issue really is because it isn't just in the United States. Users in Hong Kong are even experiencing these issues.

We tried to file an error report on Facebook's support site and received this error message:

Updates will continue as we learn more.

Update#2:  At 9:44am CST, I attempted to comment on a friend's post that she made on my timeline. It seems the issues will continue to be sporadic.

Update: Looks like most major news outlets have picked up on the outage. They are reporting that things are getting back to normal although posting will be sporadic. Comment below and let us know how things are going for you.

Also, you might want to tune into Facebook's News Room for any updates straight from Facebook (although it seems that they have their hands full and can't get to an announcement just yet).