Promoted postings on Facebook, while initially controversial, have proven to be remarkably popular with companies looking to widen the impact of their social media activities. It's also extremely easy for anyone to get into, with semi-competitive rates when compared against other per-eyeball Cost-Per-Click (CPC) online advertising avenues.
Now, before you get your engines too revved up, let's go ahead and get a couple pieces of bad news out of the way that you should probably factor into your decision.
Potential Downsides To Promoted Facebook Postings
Number one: Viewers can, at any time, choose to opt-out of anything they get from you, potentially blocking you off entirely. So, consider this more of a warning. Be very, very careful in how you use promoted pages. If you annoy people, you can get blocked. This is a time where those strategies for targeting your message will come in especially handy!
Secondly, and to some more relevantly, the research on the effectiveness of these paid Facebook posts is mixed at best.
Ignite Social Media did a self-described “quick and dirty case study” in which they tested several of the major online “push” advertising mediums against each other: FaceBook, StumbleUpon, Google, and LinkedIn.
The good news is, Facebook posts got by far the most screen time – 5x that of competitors. The bad news is, that didn't translate to most clicks. That honor went to StumbleUpon, which dominates in generating clicks. Still, lengthy sessions of brand impressions help as well.
Unfortunately for Facebook, they also turned out to be on the high end of the CPC scale, while delivering results on the lowish end, (Speaking of low end, check out LinkedIn's performance. 100% bounce rate. Yeouch.)
HasOffers was even more blunt, flatly stating that Facebook paid posts are inferior to Facebook ads by a wide margin in terms of their CPC, claiming posts cost nearly 5x more.
So, with that in mind...
Why Facebook Paid Postings Might Be Right For Your Business...
There are lights at the end of these particular tunnels.
Number one, and perhaps most importantly: These are very early tests. With every new venue that appears in the world of inbound marketing, it takes time for people to develop efficient strategies for deployment. That it spends so long on the screen is something that could be utilized with a keen knowledge of your audience.
Number two, don't forget that Facebook still has the most users, by a long shot. They continue to have “nearly” a billion users, twice that of Twitter. So there is, in a sense, a very real opportunity cost in moving towards Twitter, much less any other social media venue better suited for advertisements. You're slicing your potential reach with wide strokes, unless you know for a fact you have a large following on something other than Facebook.
Finally, it's worth noting that Hubspot, currently the top dogs in mid-range inbound marketing, remain pro-Facebook with numbers to back that up.
Are Facebook Paid Posts Right For Me?
At the end of the day, it's all about lead generation. If you know you have a large fan following on Facebook already, and don't mind paying what is undoubtedly a “biggest private database in the world” price hike, you will have the potential for huge reach... but only with a message your market truly wants to see.
With the right partner helping you find that right kind of sympatico, in terms of message and audience, there is a lot of potential in Facebook Promoted Posts. DeepSky Marketing will be happy to help you translate that potential for connections into actual clicks, actual leads, and actual sales that justify Facebook's high prices. Give us a call to schedule a no-obligation conversation about your Social Media and other marketing today.
