I’ve been pretty upset lately with how slow my Facebook business page has been. Over the past year, my posts seem to reach less and less viewers. I have over 7,000 likes, but every post only reaches 100 people, which is only 1.5% of my viewers. That is absolutely ridiculous, so I tried to improve things and get seen more by placing a few Facebook ads. Here are my results…

I tried an advertisement for one of my text posts. I simply asked people to like the post and informed my fans about my latest giveaway. I targeted the ad to reach my fans and their friends, who are fans of small business-related pages. Here are the results from just before the ad ended:

As you can see, only 82 people would’ve seen my post if I did not bother to advertise. 428 additional people seen it with advertising, which is over 5x as many people without. I also happened to get more comments, likes and shares than if I did not purchase advertising.  The total price was $5.55, and the ad ran for only a few days.

I then tried to boost one of my posts. This option comes up every time you post something on your page, and can be quite annoying if you happen to accidentally hover over it often. The ad did get taken down due to too much text, but it was up for a few hours. Here is a screenshot of the post I “boosted”:

As you can see I had the same turnout as the last ad, reaching over 400 people. My actually reach was only 4%, which means 96% of it’s views were due to advertising. I didn’t get any actually likes on this, but it definitely helped since I want to reach more fans. Here is a screenshot from what it looks like after you “boost” a post, compared to your other posts. As you can see, boosting a post really helped me reach more people.

My favorite part of Facebook’s advertising is their customization and their admin panel. You can literally target exactly who sees your ad, by location, language, gender, age, and even what other pages they like. This way, you’re guaranteed to reach your target audience. You can customize how long your ad runs for, how much you pay, and even set a limit for how much Facebook spends on your ad each day. If you’re boosting a post, you’ll have the option of anywhere from $5 to $400 to spend for the total ad. Of course more money means more people you will reach. I don’t think it takes that much money to get through to the people you need to.

Their admin panel is another plus, since it gives you every single detail of your ad. You see how many people have clicked through to your post, how much it’s cost you so far, how many people have seen your post, and even a little graph comparing your results.  It gives you great statistics on how your ad is doing.

Below is a screenshot of a timeline when someone sees your ad. It comes up as “Sponsored” and pops up in between your average news feed listings. You can also choose to get it in the right-hand advertisement panel, or get it shown in both places.

Conclusion: If your page is in need of a boost, throw a couple of bucks to Facebook to help get your reach up. The interaction with your fans will help in the short-term when it comes to getting seen. You don’t need to spend much to get a couple more views and interactions.

Have you tried Facebook’s advertisement program? What were your results? Leave a comment and let me know!