The start of the New year sees many of us motivated to make this our best year yet. Hopefully you have come back from holidays with fresh ideas and a new motivation, particularly when it comes to winning new business.
As you have probably noticed in your Facebook feeds, there are more ads appearing as you scroll through. You might find some of them highly annoying, but chances are you’ve clicked on a few that are relevant to you (that’s the way it’s designed!).
As you’re probably aware, organic reach on Facebook has just about disappeared and it is now really a ‘pay to play’ platform. Which means to be seen you need to pay for exposure.
What is all too common now is organisations randomly boosting posts without any clear goal or reason, apart from the fact it is cheap to do, particularly when Facebook make it so easy just to hit those blue “post” and “boost” buttons. They tease you with it….
Before you go and spend a fortune on Facebook ads or boosted posts, STOP and consider the difference between them.
During my Facebook Ad Workshops, I often talk to people that have no idea about the difference between Facebook ads and boosted posts. Many think they are running ads, when in fact they are only boosting posts. They are different and should be used differently.
So, what is the difference and why is this so important?
Let’s start with Facebook boosted posts:
- Boosted posts are focused on engagement. Facebook tends to automatically optimise to increase engagement. So if you include a link or a sale when you are trying to obtain some quick conversions, you likely aren’t optimising for the right goal. (FYI: engagement includes likes, shares and comments).
- You have no control over where they are placed. g., if you want to run your post on mobile alone, this is not an option for boosted posts.
- They have limited targeting compared to running a campaign. You can target other audiences, like a regular ad, though with fewer options (less behavioural, more demographic).
- They are not created in Ads Manager and don’t give the same amount of customisation that ads have.
Boosting posts is basically paying an algorithm to feed your existing content to your existing users.
If you’re an internal recruiter, boosted posts are a great way to showcase employer brand. They can increase overall brand awareness and keep your organisation front of mind for candidates who might not have thought about working for you in the past.
Recruiters can use boosted posts to share blogs to help educate clients or candidates, promote key employees and share brand culture.
It is a good way to get eyeballs on your content on a regular basis. You get best results when you boost a post that is already getting some sort of engagement and interactivity, as this shows you that people are interested in the content.
In essence, boosted posts are a simple way to get more people to see your content.
Now let’s talk Facebook ads.
Facebook ads are set up step by step using Ads Manager or Business Manager. Set up follows three steps – campaign (objectives), ad sets (placement, audience & budget) and ads (your creative).
- There are thousands of options for targeting (unlike boosted posts) and you can run campaigns from $5 per day.
- If you want to drive traffic and clicks to events, free downloads, jobs, workshops or webinars, a Facebook Ad campaign is the way to go. You can decide where you want them to be shown, and if you’ve assessed your data, you will know where that should be.
- Ads give you advanced targeting and the ability to deep dive into specific niches and interests, that is not available on any other platform; perfect for really niche roles or demographic areas. Quality over quantity can deliver better ROI.
- You can add a call to action button promoting actions, such as ‘shop now’, ‘sign up’, ‘download’ to name a few.
- Ads don’t appear on your Facebook page.
Sure, ads take longer to set up, but if done correctly, the results will be worth your effort.
Tip: Facebook ads take trial and error. Be realistic about the results you expect to see the first few times you run them.
A good way for recruiters to use Facebook ads would be to promote job vacancies to a niche target demographics. Your ROI would not only be increased applications but increased brand exposure to clients and candidates who may not have heard of you before.
Internal recruiters can use ads to promote employer brand, showcase existing employees, share video on brand culture and get people to sign up for graduate programs, and more.
So, before you take any sort of action on Facebook ads or boosted posts, be clear on what your objective is. Look at the best option for your campaign, and decide if boosting a post or running an ad is the better option for you.Have fun!
P.S Before you get started though, make sure you have your Facebook Pixel set up so you can track your results. Facebook Pixel is a piece of code that your developers can put on the backend of your website allowing you to track results and traffic from your campaigns.
Tanya Williams is the pink-loving, sparkly Chief of Everything at Digital Conversations. She wears many hats; entrepreneur, best-selling author, digital trainer, and she is a Social Amplification Specialist with over 20 years’ marketing experience. She works with recruiters to uncover the hidden gold in their existing assets, find ways to leverage every moment of your digital marketing without increasing your marketing budget and amplify your internal champions to increase your visibility. Her goal is to make the hero in your industry sector. She has a simple, no-tech-talk approach and thrives working with established recruitment companies to tap into the opportunities they might miss, using practical & relevant tactics to drive business outcomes.