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Facebook has announced that they’re removing the ability to promote certain Page posts as they shift their ad products towards more specific business objectives, as opposed to social stats.
As explained by Marketing Land, up till now, Pages have been able to boost any post on their Page, including change of profile picture updates, watching TV show status, location check-ins, etc. Facebook says these types of promotions are ‘lesser used’, and importantly, ‘not tied to advertiser objectives’, so they’re removing the ability to use them in promotions in order to put more focus on their other ad types, which do drive direct response.
Facebook’s working to refine its ad products and better align them with actual business objectives, something Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg noted in their most recent earnings call:
“Marketers of all sizes are increasingly following our best practices – like optimizing their ads to drive real-world outcomes rather than focusing on proxy metrics, such as Page likes and video views.”
It’s an interesting shift from Facebook, acknowledging that some of their objectives are only geared towards social stats, and that that may be a strategic error.
This is particularly evident in the case of Page likes – as we’ve written previously, with the implementation of Facebook’s News Feed algorithm, which has severely reduced the reach of Page posts, and the expansion of the trade in fake fans and artificial endorsements, the amount of Likes a Page has is no longer indicative of its popularity, or reach – which is why Facebook’s de-emphasized it as an ad objective, and put more focus on stats like Page follows and engagement.
The social media marketing industry is evolving, becoming more refined in this respect, and as such, we’re going to see more and more companies moving away from vanity metrics and towards stats that actually reflect business goals, that can be traced back to the bottom line.
This is a smaller move in this direction, but a relevant one to note either way.
The full list of post types that will no longer be eligible for boosting, as of September 15th, is:
- Share of products from shops
- The share of a story about a for-sale post
- A check-in on a map, at a restaurant, or in a city
- The share of a note
- The share of a poll
- Place recommendations
- The share of cultural moments
- The share of comments
- Change of a Profile picture
- A file upload or share
- A sports event
- Video or image uploaded through the Facebook camera
- Attendance for an event
- The share of a video playlist
- Status of watching a television show, movie, or other types of programming
- A post from an app posted to a Page’s timeline
- A political endorsement
As noted, the changes will come into effect on September 15th. Any campaigns purchased before September 15th that boost these types of posts will stop running after September 29th.