Jun 25, 2013
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Facebook Ads and Promoted Posts
There are two basics ways to advertise on Facebook, first, through the traditional side-column advertisements and second, through the recently added “promoted posts.” Although at first glance the difference might not seem marginal, with a simple comparison the two forms of advertising via Facebook appear to retrieve very different results.
Facebook Ads
Facebook ads allow you to create a simple advertisement to be displayed on the side column of their site and even help you define the audience you’re targeting. You can specify your target audience by age, interests, location and more. From the very start of creating your ad, you can define your budget so that you don’t rapidly overspend. Facebook will keep it simple and offer a fast way to get more likes, but they can’t guarantee clicks. Although many users find the ads on Facebook annoying, the budget friendly and cost subjective pros of Facebook advertising far outweigh the cons.
Promoted Posts
Promoted posts do not simply show up as static adds on the side of the website, but rather they appear in the news feed of any given person’s Facebook as they scroll through their newsfeed. The idea is that by promoting your posts you can guarantee that a certain number of people will see your post, whereas if you don’t promote your post you have no guarantee that many people, even those who follow your page, will see your post.
Budgeting with promoted posts is different from the more typical pay-per click approach of the Facebook ads. With promoted posts there is a lifetime budget paid at the origin of the post’s creation that is paid upfront for a certain, and specified, number of results. With the budget friendly and simple launching design of promoting posts on Facebook creating an increased awareness about your page, again the pros to advertising here far outweigh the cons.
Which is better for you?
Now that you have a bit of an understanding of what these two advertising options have to offer, you can decide which idea is better for your needs. If you are newer to Facebook and you are in search of creating a better following, you might consider ads over posts. With ads you can send your news out to anyone in your market, meanwhile posts are better to reach people and friends of people who have already liked your page.
If your business is launching a new project, product, or position, you might consider a post promotion over an ad so that your followers hear it from you first in a more personal venue. With the new designing attempts of Facebook on their page, it appears that they are giving more visibility to promoted posts and trying to make them more popular with advertisers. New designs on Facebook focus on the newsfeeds people read through to get updates from family, friends, and pages they follow. Because this is the focus of the user, it is a great place for the advertiser to be, too.
As is a standard in marketing and advertising, your approach depends on your desired outcome. Once you create a fan base of followers on Facebook, your attempts at reaching them will improve. From there defining the purpose of your posts will become naturally attached to which type of ad will be best. Now get out there and advertise more efficiently.
What is your favorite technique to advertising on Facebook?