Getting Personal With My (Promoted) Posts
April 3rd, 2013 by
The Promoted Post
Writing this blog post: $8.09
Medium-size bag of Lay’s Chicken & Waffles chips: $1.09
Sponsoring this post on Facebook: $7.00
Being funny and popular on Facebook: Priceless
Why Should You Care?
Well besides the fact that Lay’s is pushing three atrocious new flavors on consumers, this was an exercise in “eating your own dog food.”
As the Paid Search Manager, I often recommend posting exciting content to increase engagement on Facebook fan pages. However due to algorithmic changes (which always reminds me of Pool’s Closed), just posting to Facebook will not reach all your audience. In fact, it has recently been shown that organic posts only reach about 16% of your audience! Facebook “solution” for this problem is sponsoring your posts. Sure, this isn’t new, but sponsoring your personal posts is (kind of…not really). So after I made the above post, I decided to open the can of Alpo and dig in.
Getting Started
It is a pretty painless process. You just click the Promote link at the bottom of your post, FB determines how much you can spend based on your total reach, and then you choose an payment option (either credit card or PayPal).
Due to my limited number of friends (I’m pretty exclusive), I was only able to buy 70 Facebook Credits.
Results
So what do I get from my $7.00 USD investment?
- 21 comments (6 unique commenters)
- 14 Likes
- 1 Share
That’s 19¢ cost per action*
*<filler text>There was once three exclamations after the word “action” but then I realized it read like I was more excited than I really was </filler text>
To give you some reference on cost per action, it can range from $1.59 – $3.00 for some advertisers.
How do you know you wouldn’t have had the same reaction from just posting organically?
I don’t. BUT, I do know my previous ten posts averaged 2.7 actions per post. Which would make this a +1233.3% increase interaction total and +307.40% if we just look at uniques.
“That’s that $#!+ I don’t like” – Pusha T
One major thing I didn’t like about promoted profile post was the lack of reporting. Having the total impressions, reach, and frequency would give users the action rate which can be used to gauge what content should be promoted in the future. Instead Facebook thought a notification was enough reporting.
Hey FACEBOOK, I need more than this. Notification ≠ Results.
Why Does This Matter?
A wise man once said, “Just because you paid for it doesn’t make it less satisfying”. This perfectly explains the Facebook landscape. It is no longer just about good content; it is also about how much you are willing to invest in that content. This also shows that people with major followings, like gay Star Trekker George Takei, can stop being so frustrated with their lack of reach. If you are so invested in your audience you should be willing to shill out a few coins to stay top of feed. I mean Facebook has to pay their code monkeys and keep the lights on somehow…right?
Editorial Note: Mr. Coleman’s official title at Search Influence is Online Advertising Supervisor. However he will answer to Paid Search Manager and money.
