habbywall wrote:
I recently noticed you started doing promoted posts on Facebook. As someone that does this sort of stuff for my day job, just curious what your general strategy for that is and what sort of benefits, if any, you've noticed from it. Also are doing doing paid promotion on any other social platforms?
I like the setup Facebook has right now a lot better than when I first set up an ad account a few years ago. Now you can choose, "people who like your page," "people who like your page and their friends," or "people you choose through targeting." Initially, you could choose: "people who like your page AND their friends" or "people you choose through targeting." The targeting stuff is all demographics. So I never had any interest in that. But I really didn't like the "people who like your page and their friends." Because, by my logic, the fact that someone might like my page doesn't mean their friends do triathlon. Almost always, when I'd get an asshole comment, it would be as a result of a promoted post where someone's friend posted.
I initially started doing promotions for my World Bicycle Relief fundraiser posts. That was the sole reason I set up an ad account. I wanted to be able to promote those posts to get more eyeballs on my fundraiser. I had - and have - no way to track if it helped donations, but I figure it's a small price to pay. I typically spend less than $200 on WBR advertising on FB, and I would guess that at least one or two people donate who might not otherwise. But once i had the ad account set up, I started doing small promotions - typically $25 - for stuff that I simply thought, "I'd like some more people to see this." Sometimes it was to promote a sponsor - though none have ever requested it; I just mean that sometimes I want to highlight a sponsor. The post I wrote about being involved with First Endurance a while back was an example. But now, with the recent change, where you can only target people who like your page, I use it more frequently. I typically do a promotion on anything that I think people who cared enough to like my page might want to read. The interview with Timothy Carlson being a recent example.
Facebook is very judicious with what appears in people's newsfeeds. But if you do a small promotion - and it's well received - then that can perpetuate itself. Like you pay to show it to someone, but then they share it with someone who shares it with someone who shares it with someone.
I rarely spend much. $25 is the normal amount I will spend, and I maybe do one post every other month or so. So basically, I do it because I figure that people who like my page might have some interest in what's going on with me, and - as with most things - keeping people up to date requires time and money. I figure I'm a business. And you have to invest in yourself. I don't expect any demonstrable return on any of this. I know that many celebrities - even some triathlon pros - charge per post or per tweet. But I've never done that, and I can't imagine ever doing it. I very much try to avoid any contract that has a dedicated social media clause - though that's becoming harder to do. So I guess now I just try to maintain as much flexibility as possible.
It's perhaps not surprising that many - even most - companies are now trying to request "X tweets per week/month" and "Y facebook posts per week/month." But so far I've been able to avoid that in my own contracts. We'll see if that can continue.
I've never done any paid promotions on twitter. It just seems too "noisy" to me, but maybe that's a reason to do it. Instagram doesn't seem practical, because people seem to be less overwhelmed on it for now.
But really, the best part about the FB option is that you can target it towards people that you are relatively sure might actually want to see it. That's a big plus for me. And I don't see that any other platform offers that same sort of "guarantee."
"Non est ad astra mollis e terris via." - Seneca | rappstar.com | FB - Rappstar Racing | IG - @jordanrapp