Lately, I’ve been feeling like this guy.  (Go to 2:20 of the video and you’ll see what I mean… sorry, you have to sit through a quick commercial first)

So… what is it that I wanted fixed? 

Barely 2 weeks ago, I wrote a blog post talking about the wonders of Hootsuite, a 3rd party publishing application.  I also mentioned that while it had the ability to be the best friend of social media professionals, Edgerank (the algorithm used by Facebook to determine what would be seen in a user’s newsfeed) was punishing the posts published by Hootsuite and other 3rd party apps.  I could rehash the explanation, but you can read it yourself here.

It killed me to say it (and even more so to do it), but I stopped using Hootsuite to schedule my clients’ Facebook posts.

HALLELUJAH!

Blink and you could have missed it.  I know I did.  It was just a small post on the Facebook Developers forum.

“We’re always making changes to our News Feed algorithm. Most recently, we made some changes to our Page posts ranking system, which added more signals to determine Page post quality. However, we realized that some of the new signals were using aggregate data across many Pages rather than individual Pages. In looking at aggregate data, the distribution of high quality Page posts was at times, negatively impacted. We are addressing this issue and have implemented a resolution. We will continue to add in more Page post quality signals over time to ensure that people are always receiving engaging and relevant content in their News Feed. Please continue to post engaging and relevant content to fans. You may view your Page Insights to learn more about what people are responding to.”

I must confess, even if I came across this on my own and read it 3-4 times, I wouldn’t necessarily catch the momentous importance of this post.  I’d have to drink a lot of coffee before I got it (and I don’t drink coffee).

Then, yesterday morning, I opened up my MediaBistro email (a newsletter I receive daily, highlighting the best articles on AllFacebook.com).  And lo and behold…

What?  How did this happen?  To say this is nothing short of a miracle might be overstating the situation, but WOWOWOWOW!!!!

Initially, I believed Facebook was punishing 3rd party app posting intentionally, to ensure people were posting live on their site and therefore eyeballing ads.  From the post above, it sounds like the Facebook developers were unaware of the issue until the consumers started complaining.  Conspiracy theories, anybody?

What I find most astonishing about this situation is this appears to be one of those rare moments that Facebook recognized a problem with its system, realized it was making the customers unhappy and FIXED it!

They FIXED IT!!!!!!

Inconceivable!

I mean, think about it… when was the last time you remember people complaining to Facebook about a problem and they fixed it. After all, complaining about Facebook is a part-time job for some. If Facebook were truly concerned with customer service, there would be an easier way to reach their customer service department, instead of the labyrinthian maze through hell that currently exists.  Want to speak to a live person at Facebook?  Inconceivable!  (Always love an opportunity to quote “The Princess Bride”!)

In any event, I’m extremely happy with the outcome.  Those of us who want to use 3rd party publishing applications can do so once again without fear of having our posts disappear to wherever Osama bin Laden currently is right now.

But to Facebook I say, in the words of Oscar Rogers, this would be a better way to handle customer service issues:

“Identify a problem, FIX IT!  Identify another problem, FIX IT!  Repeat as necessary until it’s all fixed!”  In this case, thanks to Facebook for getting it right and fixing it.