3 Myths About Facebook Promoted Posts

by on June 26, 2012 at 11:07 am in Advertising, Blog, Facebook, small business

By Frank Emanuele

Ever since Facebook introduced their Promoted Posts feature, all sorts of fear, uncertainty, and doubt have spread among small business owners, independent artists, and others who rely on their Facebook pages for effective marketing on a budget. Well, I’m here to tell you that much of what you’ve heard simply isn’t true! Let’s take a look at these misconceptions and separate fact from fiction.


Rumor #1: “If you don’t pay extra, nobody sees your posts!”

Fact: Posts from Facebook Pages were not being seen by 100% of their audiences before Promoted Posts were being offered. Take a second and digest that one. A typical brand status update reaches 16% of that page’s fans. Why, you ask? It’s all about relevance. Facebook’s EdgeRank algorithm sorts posts in a user’s News Feed based on what will be most relevant to them. If they haven’t interacted with your page since they liked it a year ago, odds are your posts won’t show up in their News Feed right now. It’s also important to consider that not ALL of your fans are on Facebook at all times. Even if your posts were making it to all of their News Feeds, you still couldn’t possibly reach everyone unless they were online at the exact same moment! That’s the way it’s been for quite some now. This hasn’t changed at all.

 

Rumor #2: “Facebook is punishing pages that don’t advertise!”

Fact: I wouldn’t say that! Facebook best practices still apply. The same way EdgeRank filters posts out of certain users’ News Feeds, you can also use it to make sure your best posts ARE being seen by the right people. Create engaging content. In a recent Facebook webinar, it was revealed that short posts (under 250 characters) enjoy 60% more engagement than longer posts. Images and videos also drive huge levels of engagement. If your business adheres to Facebook best practices and makes a real effort to engage your audience, it’s entirely possible to achieve success without ever promoting a single post.

 

Rumor #3: “Only big brands will be able to afford Facebook!”

Fact: Some would argue they’ve actually made it easier and more affordable for small businesses to promote their pages! A page with as few as 400 fans can promote its posts to its fans and the friends of its fans. Even if you have a small community, they have friends who may see your Promoted Posts as well. Pricing starts at $5 and increases as you try to increase your reach. The exact reach will vary from page to page depending on a number of factors, but I’ve heard cases where a pages with only 700 fans got a reach of 900 for their $5 investment. Not bad!
The sky is not falling! Promoted Posts actually present an added opportunity to widen your brand’s reach and make your best posts work even harder for you. They’re not right for everyone, but they won’t put you at a disadvantage if you think they don’t fit into your strategy. If you think they could work for you, give them a try! You might be surprised by the results.
What else have you heard about Facebook Promoted Posts? Do you have any other concerns? Tell me more!

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  • http://jonloomer.com/blog Jon Loomer

    Thanks for sharing this, Frank! I’m always looking to calm nerves as well. There is an awful lot of fear and misinformation spreading. People don’t freak about a 20% email open rate, but for some reason we expect to reach 100% of our fans (and they’re a moving target).

    I will say that I think we’re putting too much emphasis on the negative impact of EdgeRank when it comes to how many fans see our posts. If you consider that the average user is on Facebook for 30 minutes per day and the average lifespan of a post is 2 1/2 hours, that leaves three hours to hit the average fan. If my math is correct, that gives you a 12.5% chance of hitting any particular fan (though that depends somewhat on picking the right time of day).

    Does EdgeRank prevent people from seeing my content? Sure. But what we don’t talk about is how EdgeRank may also HELP fans see my content. If someone regularly interacts with my page (or if my post gets good engagement), Top News will help surface my post to them to make sure they see it even if they weren’t online when I posted it. 

    I just think that in the end the “EdgeRank Effect” is a wash. People aren’t seeing our posts because they aren’t online, and a great way to counteract that is with Promoted Posts.

  • http://www.facebook.com/joesena Joe Sena

    With almost 12,000 FB fans on one of my pages, I knew that the possibility of “falling off” most of peoples’ news feeds was inevitable.  Frankly, I like the fact that FB gives us the opportunity to virtually guarantee that our entire constituency will see a post that we consider important enough to pay for.  Thanx for sharing this, Frank

  • bberg1010

    This is something that a lot of people need to see. I am still seeing posts from individuals running small Facebook pages who post links to petitions, saying we will not see their updates unless they pay. I wish people who managed Facebook pages actually did the research before damaging their credibility.

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  • lahge_regulah

    When this was implemented, I was a little wary, but by looking through  my facebook stats, I can see that our traffic is about the same with our impact reaching ~30% consistently with just a few minor bumps here and there.  I have noticed a major problem with the page I manage since the last round of publicized ‘updates’, and can not figure out what exactly went wrong. 

    Around mid May, I noticed that occasionally a page that I tagged in a post (i.e. @somepagename) would not show my post in their ‘Recent Posts by Others’ block or in their timeline. First it was occasionally, with certain pages that I interact with frequently, but now it has gotten progressively worse to the point that it does not show on any page I may tag.

    I have contacted the social media people that run some of the other pages I tag   and they have flat out told me that they have changed nothingthat would block our tagging. They are actually kind of dismayed because our relationship was truly symbiotic and we were saving them work with our posts. One of the other page managers has had this issue raised by a number of other posters to their page.

    This is bad for us, and I have tried to figure out what’s going on here, to no avail. I have looked through many threads in the help pages regarding pages and tagging ans can find no answers.  I have also tried in vain to contact Facebook through feedback, but there is no response as you can imagine.  

    Has anyone heard of this problem, or caught wind of any FB changes that would make this happen?  It’s very frustrating, and I continue to tag – but there is absolutely no reciprocity…

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