Your key to understanding promoted posts on Facebook and 4 great ideas for your next campaign

You may have seen Facebook offering your business page the opportunity to promote, boost or sponsor posts. Confused? Don't worry, in this article I will tell you exactly what promoted posts are, how they can help your business and how you can create adverts that will help you attract new fans, increase engagement and ultimately your conversions.

A promoted post, also known as sponsored or boosted posts, are Facebook posts that benefit from amplified reach and targeting options in exchange for a fee. Promoting a posts allows more people to see your content, importantly those outside of your current network. Facebook gives you the option to promote almost any content, including plain text, photos, videos, links and offers from your business Facebook page. All of this means that your post will appear higher in people news feeds as well as appearing in the news feeds of people who do not currently follow your business.

So why should you be using Facebook promotions? Well as mentioned they give your business the ability to create super targeted advertising campaigns and reach out to new customers. You may think that this high quality advertising will break the bank, however you will be pleasantly surprised to know that Facebook promotion campaigns can be run for as little as £1 per day.

Now you know what promoted posts are and how they can help your business, here are 4 great ideas for your upcoming adverts that will help your business stand out and generate more engagement on your posts.

1. Use visuals

Facebook posts with visual content generate 2.3 times more engagement than those without. Therefore it is important that you are using visual content in your Facebook promotions and absolutely imperative if your business sells physical products. 

If you incorporate an image into your advert, make sure you use a high quality image! There is no excuse for not using high quality images when we have smart phones that take HD photographs. On the other hand, if you opt for a video based advert be sure to spend the extra money on high quality production and editing services. Using a poor quality image or video will not only hinder the results your get from your advert, but it will also negatively effect how people view your brand.

As far as what image/s or video to use, if you sell a physical product it is a good idea to use an image or video that displays your product in use so you can show the benefits that it provides to the customer. If you are stuck for ideas, take a look at what your competitors are posting and having success with, this will give you an idea of what content will get a good reaction from your own target audience.

2. Encourage reactions

Another tool in your advert arsenal is the six reaction emojis that users can use to show how they feel about your content. This feature has been very popular since it's introduction last year and is still driving high levels of engagement. A good use for this feature is to create an advert with various images that correspond to specific reactions and encourage users to choose the emoji that is linked to their favorite image. This is a great option for helping you find out more about your audience and can be used as part of your wider campaign strategy to help you decide what products/services to focus your future marketing efforts on.

3. Encourage tagging

Another great way to generate high levels of engagement and interest is to ask people to tag their friends in the comments of your promoted post. To be successful you must create an image, video or post which your audience thinks is good, funny or relevant enough to tag their friends.

Some of the best examples of this strategy we have seen at Socail 365 is the use of a humorous meme or video combined with the request to "tag someone who this reminds you of". Another option is to use a picture of your product or service combined with a caption similar to: "tag a friend who would love our (product name)". This strategy can be applied to almost anything and is only limited by your imagination, so get creative.

4. Promote an offer

Another great option is to promote an offer your business is currently running. This can be a fantastic way to get new customers through the door quickly. With a well timed and well designed advert you could soon have more orders than you can cope with. We often find that the best time to promote an offer is in the run-up to a specific day for example, Christmas, bank holidays, mother's day ect. If you have a time of year in which your products/services are particularly popular, this is the perfect time to run this sort of promotion as your customers are already looking to make a purchase.

If you opt for this type of promotion, remember: you need to leave enough time for the offer to reach people before it expires, in addition, make sure that you have the ability to meet the increase in demand that will hopefully result. There is little point generating orders you cannot for-fill.

Things to bare in mind

The work does not stop once your promotion is up and running. It is important to stay up to date with the progress of your advert. A good indicator of how your promotion is being received is to keep an eye on the comments for any positive or negative remarks, this also allows you to answer and questions your customers ask. Once your promotion has been running for a few hours take a look at the analytics, you should be aiming for an engagement rate of 1% or higher. Finally, be sure to keep a record of your campaigns performance stats so that you can measure performance against future promotions, this will allow you to see what advert features produce the best results with your audience.

So now you have a few more ideas of what your next promoted post could be. The key to using Facebook's advertising service is to find what resonates best with your audience, don't be afraid to try new ideas and experiment until you find the combination that your customers love.

George Rudge - Social 365