Facebook Promoted Posts is a relatively new feature introduced by the social media giant, with the intention of helping Facebook page owners reach more of their fans through the regular status update posts. The users of this new feature are required to pay in order to promote their posts, something that has brought about confusion between this new feature and the typical Facebook advertising.
So, does Facebook now require page owners to pay so that their posts are visible to their fans? Well, a straight forward answer to that question is “No”. You can still have a free page and make free posts visible to the people who like your page. However, we need to get a bit more detailed in order to understand what Facebook Promoted Posts are and how they can benefit you.
Let us start by explaining an algorithm that Facebook uses to display posts on people’s newsfeed. If you did not know, what you see in your Facebook’s newsfeed is not absolutely everything that is posted by each of your friends or pages you like. That content is determined by Facebook based on the number of times you interacted with the page or person who posted it, what type of a post it is and how recently it was posted. Facebook calls this algorithm EdgeRank.
So how does EdgeRank link up with Facebook Promoted Posts?
As Facebook increases its users, which has been at terrific speeds, the competition for space on the social media’s newsfeed also increases at the same rate. Currently, it is estimated that an average of only 16% of the fans of any page get to see each of its posts. You can actually see the number of people who were reached by your post, thanks to Facebook’s real time post analytics.
So what Facebook Promoted Posts does is that it gives you the option to pay for a given post so that it is pushed into the newsfeeds of more of your fans. You don’t need to worry about costs because Facebook only charges you based on the number of extra people they were able to display your post to. You are also allowed to set a budget beyond which they won’t charge you.
2 important things to note about Facebook Promoted Posts
- You do not have to use this feature and pay for all the posts you make. However, occasionally promoting your posts would increase the number of people who see your posts and interact with your page. This will in turn improve the EdgeRank score of your page and boost your Facebook advertising efforts.
- The social media rule of posting relevant, interactive and useful content and avoiding messages that sound like a commercial still apply. If you break it, you should not expect that Facebook Promoted Posts will work for you.
