Promoted Posts on Facebook

With Facebook’s Edgerank, it has been common knowledge for approximately 12 months that on average only 18% of your likers will see any particular Facebook post.  This % will increase and be shown more often by Facebook if it is deemed to be popular.  The way to do this is to construct posts that are going to encourage interaction – either by likes, comments or sharing.  The more interaction you get, then facebook will show that more often in other liker’s newsfeeds.

Introducing Promoted Posts.  You can now pay to have your posts seen by more than the average %.  You can pay an amount from $5 and over 3 days Facebook will show that post to more of your likers.  You can also only use the promote option up to 3 days after the original post was made.  I tested this on one of my posts last Friday and obtained the following results.

The Facebook post was made and before promoting it 20% of likers had viewed the post.  On completion of the promotion 41% of likers had viewed the post and a lot of others had seen it virally ie. had seen it in the ticker of their friends who are likers of the page.  I didn’t get much interaction on the post by promoting it, it was just seen by a larger percentage of likers.  I also didn’t receive anywhere near the reach that Facebook suggested I would when setting up the promotion.

My final thoughts – the promoted post only cost $5 and it was seen by a larger audience, however, it didn’t achieve more interaction on the post which is ideally what I like.  I like to be able to “talk” to my audience.

So just keep posting engaging content that is of interest to your likers. If you choose to have your post seen by a higher % of your likers then you can pay as little as $5 if you decide to. It is just another option. Nothing else has changed!!

If you want to test it out for yourself simply click on the “promote” text in the bottom right of your status box.  Set your budget and payment details and it is right to go – it will be promoted over a period of 3 days.

Have you tried promoted posts?  Would love to hear what results you achieved.  Let me know below.