Can Facebook Promoted Posts Help Local Business’s Social Media Marketing?

Kennebunk, Maine (PRWEB) August 03, 2013

A few months back, there was a lot of complaints from Facebook users regarding the practice of promoted posts. People were enraged that they had to start paying to reach fans of their pages—fans they had put time into targeting, getting to join, and cultivating. One of the key things of social media marketing is that things are always changing. This is true for the layout and options as well as what shows in peoples’ feeds. With all the posts from other pages, games, friends, etc., many users were not seeing posts from pages they subscribed to in their feeds before. The promoted posts gave businesses an option to more prominently display their posts on the fans’ feeds. My Local Leads is a Maine based marketing firm specializing in online lead generation for local businesses. The promoted posts can be useful, especially when launching a product, having a sale, or making some other big push forward. However, there is a lot to know about Facebook promoted posts and these bits of information should help local businesses that are considering investing in this new marketing tactic.

There is a definitive shelf life on promoted posts. Posts that a company would like to spend the money to promote must be less than 3 days old. After that, the option to promote the post will be removed.

There used to be a button on the lower right corner that said “Promote Post.” Now, users should look for a button that says “Boost Post.” It also used to be possible for individuals to promote their posts, but that seems to have been removed.

Facebook page admins can stop the promotions on a post by clicking on the promote or boost button again and then selecting the gear icon in the lower left hand corner to “stop promotion.” So, once it is set, it does not mean you cannot change your mind.

Promoted posts come with their own analytics. This will include the number of Facebook users that have been reached as well as the budget spent. The analytics will also provide you with information as to when the promotion ended. One cool thing it will show you is the activity, which includes the number of post likes, offers claimed, comments, link clicks, and videos played. This automates a piece of the analytics that should be done on all marketing. The post analytics will also show the total reach in terms of organic, viral, and paid as to how people were reached.

Promoted posts on Facebook can be used to boost engagement. They can also help to announce special offers, especially those exclusive to Facebook. There is certainly some trial and error with the new options for many local businesses using the internet for local search marketing, but established marketing teams like My Local Leads have been working diligently to provide the most cost efficient and effective results through Facebook and other online marketing tools.

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