Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’ve probably heard how organic reach on Facebook has been on the decline over the last few years, driving the need for brands to focus more on Facebook sponsored posts.
But what are Facebook sponsored posts? How do they work? And how are they different from Facebook ads? We’ve got the answers for you here.
A Facebook sponsored post is a post that businesses pay for, in order to reach a larger audience than they otherwise would be able to organically.
A Facebook sponsored post is almost entirely like an ordinary post in appearance, as it looks just the same as all other posts inside a user’s feed (formerly known as “newsfeed”), the only difference is that a sponsored post is labelled as such.
Sponsoring a post on Facebook is an easy and quick process and a great way to get more - and more relevant - eyes on a post. It’s important, though, that when you sponsor a post, you have a clear audience in mind and your messaging is appropriately targeted toward that audience, but we’ll talk more about this later.
First, let’s take a look at how Facebook Sponsored Posts work.
A Facebook sponsored post is essentially a normal organic post that you pay to ‘boost’ in order to reach an audience outside of the people already following your business on Facebook.
Why sponsor a Facebook post instead of just posting it and hoping for the best?
The answer is simple. Organic reach on Facebook, was estimated to be somewhere around 2.2% as of 2021 (depending on different variables – such as the size of your following – some brands can experience as low as 1% organic reach). This means that when you simply post on your Facebook business site, people most likely won’t see it or interact with it despite how engaging or relevant the post might be.
We saw dwindling Facebook organic reach as early as 2014, and by 2017, it had dropped from 26% in 2011 to 0.5%. This was largely attributed to an increase in competition, as more and more businesses were taking to Facebook, crowding out feeds.
The dramatic drop-off we've seen over recent years, though, has been largely attributed to continuous changes in the Facebook algorithm. These changes are aimed at making users’ feeds more relevant to them.
As Facebook’s organic reach continues to decline for businesses, it becomes increasingly more important for brands and marketers to leverage paid content to boost the visibility of their Facebook business pages.
In other words, if you want to make sure that a greater number of your followers are able to see your content, you often have to pay to get a better reach.
A shift away from users being inundated with low-quality news stories or content is perhaps a welcomed change. But it does make it harder for brands to get their content seen. This is why it’s so critical for businesses and brands to sponsor their posts.
What’s more, a recent update to sponsored post content allows you to encourage users to visit your site or landing page instead of just engaging with your post.
The good news is, sponsoring - also called boosting - a post on Facebook is extremely simple. We’ll help you do it in 9 simple steps:
Once on Facebook, you can access your Facebook business page by clicking on it in the left-hand toolbar.
One method is not necessarily better than the other. A good approach, though, might be to post organically. You can then see which posts are naturally gaining traction with your intended audience and then boost the posts performing well to get more eyes on it. You can analyse how your organic posts are performing in the “Insights” – keep an eye on important metrics such as Reach and Engagement.
Regardless of the option you choose, your next step is to select boost.
The option you choose will likely hold relevance to the kind of content you’re offering as well as the products or services you sell. Keep in mind, though, certain CTAs tend to work better than others.
Choose between:
You can do this by selecting the number of days you want it to be sponsored, or by selecting an end date for sponsorship.
The amount of money you allocate will be split between the amount of time you specify for your post to be sponsored.
Once you’ve finished inputting your budget, be sure to turn on conversion tracking, which you can do with the slider icon at the bottom of this section. This will allow you to better understand the engagements you get from your sponsored efforts, in order to get a better indication of your return on ad spend.
Once you save your credit card info, you won’t need to complete this step again to sponsor a post.
You’ll want to compare the results you’re seeing to the initial goals you set for the post. You can optimise your post copy, pictures, targeting, etc in line with what you learn. It good approach is to keep some sort of log with your learnings.
Sponsoring a Facebook post can be rather affordable. In fact, you can set as little as a $1 minimum. The amount you pay depends entirely on the size of the audience that you want to see your post. Facebook will provide you estimates of the number of people you can reach with the budget you specify.
A good approach is to first determine who exactly you want to reach, what you want those people to do and how much that action is worth to you.
While they’re essentially the same - paid ads on Facebook - there is a difference between Facebook sponsored posts (boosted posts) and Facebook ads, which you should know about.
Facebook ads are created in Meta Ads Manager (now simply called the “Ads Manager”). So rather than simply creating them through your business profile, you would need to set them up through Ads Manager, which may require a bit of time to get to know.
Once you do, though, Ads Manager will allow you more specification options when it comes to creating your audience and allocating your budget. Here are the main advantages:
Facebook Automated ads are those that Facebook helps you to create and disseminate on an ongoing basis with minimal maintenance needed.
Facebook will ask you a series of questions about your business and your goals. They’ll then give you suggestions about how to set up your ad, including inputs on images, budget and audience, based on these objectives.
Your ad will then run continuously and Facebook will instruct you as to how you can optimise it for the best results.
Now that you’ve nailed down the basics, it may be time to consider the content you are posting to Facebook and how it fits into your overall strategy. We’ve got some resources that can definitely help you on this journey.
Now that you’ve mastered paid distribution on Facebook, perhaps you’re wondering about the other social media channels. Luckily, we’ve got you covered. Be sure to visit our article dedicated entirely to advertising on social media.
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