I recently spoke at a Jewish Federations of North America (JFNA) training session about social media with a dear friend and SM phenom, Shana Sisk. While we were talking through some tactics, I mentioned that Facebook has a new marketing tactic that I have found very useful. They are calling it "Promoted Posts." I did not realize until then that this hadn't been rolled out system-wide yet. I am very thankful that Facebook choose me and my business page - Allied Jewish Federation of Colorado - to test this new option. It really came in handy with the recent disasters that have struck Colorado (fires and the movie theatre shooting).
When we were faced with these tragedies, the Jewish community mobilized and wanted to give back to our neighbors. The Federation opened funds for donations and we distributed the money to agencies on the ground. I found the promoted post option was incredibly useful to get the word out.How does it work? I wrote a post on the business page and it gave me the option to "promote" it. I decided to check it out so I spent $5 each on two posts. By promoting the post, you show up in more newsfeeds, not just people who have 'liked' your business or are a 'fan' of your page. This broadens your reach and you end up with a higher rate of views. For example, on our two posts that we 'promoted,' we saw this:
- Wildfire post
- Organic: 1,131 views
- Viral: 496 views
- Paid: 989 views
- Total: 2,006
- Movie theatre shooting post
- Organic: 801 views
- Viral: 142 views
- Paid: 2,068 views
- Total: 2,884
Without the promotion, we usually average 1,000 views... clearly, the promotion helped the movie theatre shooting post do very well and it gave a nice boost to the wildfire post. Each of those cost me $5. It is set up just like traditional PPC or PPI advertising but it is in the stream of Facebook consciousness in your newsfeed. I highly recommend trying it out when it is rolled out to you.One of my favorite sites for social media information, HubSpot, posted this great blog about the new promoted posts. I found it very helpful and hope you do as well. Click here to read: Facebook Tests Promoted Posts in News Feeds of Non-Fans.Has this been rolled out to you yet? Have you tried it? Let me know!