On the surface, it sounds like a great deal. Set up a business Facebook page for free, sign up friends and create posts to promote your organization. There’s no limit to the number of followers you can have, and you can stream an unending quantity of posts to them. Almost instantly you can market to thousands of people with almost no investment.

Unfortunately, the reality of this model is very different. Back in January 2012, AllFacebook, the unofficial FaceBook Blog carried a revealing article about the frequency of user posts reaching their audience. In a survey of 4,000 Facebook Pages, they found that as few as 17% of fans actually saw individual posts. This display rate correlates with what Facebook has long acknowledged. (You can find out your page’s performance by opening the Page Insights tool: calculate the average reach of your last ten posts and divide by your total fan count.) The study also noted that there was a 58% decrease in impressions per fans, further diluting the impact of posts.

A supposed remedy to the situation is to utilize one of Facebook’s newer offerings of Promoted Posts. Here, organizations have the capability of paying to have their posts noticed. According to Facebook’s Help Center, “Promoted posts appear higher in news feed, so there’s a better chance your audience will see them.” What’s not clear, however, is how much this increased visibility does to improve a company’s standing with their target market. A digital marketing company did an admittedly simple case study to measure the impact of promoting individual posts. While they did see an increase in traffic, most of the added activity was from Indonesia, not necessarily their desired audience.

For those that do decide to make the plunge and invest in Promoted Posts, it would be helpful to review this article from INC. Magazine, which talks about the realities of Facebook exposure, and points out the benefits of using the Page Insights tool to learn what posts are working and gaining traction.

If nothing else, organizations need to be realistic about their expectations from Facebook and any other social media platform, and determine what other online venues will provide them the exposure they need. There will certainly continue to be more competition for attention, and as pointed out in a previous blog, it still comes down to offering compelling content and giving followers a reason to follow…

 

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