Facebook Ads, Organic Posting, and Boosted Ads: What’s the Difference, and What it Means for a Local Business
As a small business there are 3 primary ways you can get your message in front of potential customers:
Organic Posts: Anything you post on Facebook without paying for, that is seen only by your followers.
Boosted Posts: Organic posts on your Facebook page’s timeline that you apply ad budget to, so the post is more visible to users outside of those who like and follow your page.
Facebook Ads: These are direct-response ads you create through the ads manager. They are highly targeted and have designated conversion goals with clear calls to action.
Simple enough! Now let’s talk about what their differences are.
Organic Posts: Long gone are the days when 100% of your page followers saw your Organic Posts in their feeds! Current research finds that on average ONLY 2% of your page followers will see any given Organic Post on your Business Page. That means that if you have 2,000 followers only 40 people might see your posts. Yikes!
Boosted Posts: Boosted posts are Facebook’s easy solution to the problem of evaporating organic reach (which also conveniently puts money in Facebook’s pocket - strange how that works!) Boosted posts allow you to boost your posts to more of your page followers as well as audiences who don’t already follow your page.
Facebook Ads: Facebook ads offer more advanced customization solutions and are set up exclusively using Facebook ads manager. Where a boosted post may initially optimize for page likes, comments, or overall brand awareness, Facebook ads can optimize towards website conversions, video views, increased audience reach, frequency, and more. Facebook Ads is the Enterprise level solution when it comes to running the most impactful ads for your business.
But what does this all mean?!
Organic posting is a great way to keep your followers engaged with your day-to-day content but it’s not enough to drive measurable results since there is a very small percentage seeing it due to a massive shift in Facebook’s algorithm. Putting dollars behind your organic post (AKA boosted post) is a great first & simple step, but simplicity doesn’t always equate to good results.
Boosted posts primarily optimize for engagement (AKA vanity metrics) such as clicks, likes, and comments… all metrics that make us feel good, but are they good for your business? Not really. How do you correctly analyze the value of an ad? Look at:
How many people were served our ad?
How many times did those people see our ad for a higher ad recall (known as frequency)?
Are we targeting the right people?
Are we reaching people at a low cost per thousand (CPM)?
When you look solely at vanity metrics you aren’t answering any of these.
Boosted posts also are limited to where your ads will run. Looking for exposure on Reels or within a user’s story? Forget about it. Boosted posts will strictly show up in a user’s newsfeed and that’s it.
Lastly, boosted posts do not support first-party audiences. This is, single-handedly, one of the most important things you can have when running ads on Facebook. First-party data is collected directly from your customers from places like websites, surveys, in-person, loyalty lists, etc. This information will help you gain audience insights, create personal experiences for users, improve retargeting strategy, identify patterns and predict future trends. Not utilizing this 100% free data is only hurting your business.
Within Facebook Ads is a range of advanced analytics options allowing you to track a variety of metrics that do measure success. In addition, Facebook Ads offer:
A much larger selection of ad placements (hello reels and stories!)
The ability to target your customers directly via 1st party data
The creation of 1st party data Lookalike audiences allowing you to find more customers who look exactly like your existing customers
Facebook ads can be intimidating, and that’s why it’s best to always hire an expert in the space who know how to setup it up, monitor performance, and maximize your results. Contact us if we can help!
