Have you ever heard of Facebook Dark Posts? Sounds ominous, but these posts are nothing to fear. In Facebook-speak, a Dark Post is a targeted Facebook Newsfeed Ad, or more simply put, an “unpublished page post.”
These posts look like any other post you publish to your page, except they don’t go live on your entire feed and instead can be targeted to a specific audience of ideal users. Only you, the author, knows the post was delivered to a hand-picked audience, minimizing the hides, un-follows and spam reports from users who aren’t part of your target audience. While you may have a few super-fans that love everything you post on Facebook, you will see more results by tailoring your offer or content to a unique audience rather than trying to appeal to them all at once. You can do this with Dark Posts set up through your advertising dashboard.
With nearly 1 billion active users on Facebook, Facebook for businesses is largely pay-to-play. You might have a really great offer or content piece to promote on Facebook, and you’ll be willing to spend a little money to make sure users see your post. Dark Posts are very effective for reaching new audiences and increasing awareness for your brand. Resist the urge to publish this offer or content to your entire fan base via your page as a Boosted Post. Boosted Posts have fewer targeting options, and likely, you may not be using any of the few targeting options available at all for these posts. Instead, determine the different audiences that will value this content, what problem you’re solving for them and make it a Dark Post instead.
Dark Posts provide a more strategic approach to your advertising budget than Boosted Posts. Everything about your post, from drafting to publishing occurs on the back-end. First, you can choose and objective for your Ad. Depending on how you want the user to engage with the post, Facebook uses the objective to optimize the delivery of your post to meet your goals. Next, you’ll determine who will be interested in your post. Do you have a great new piece of DIY content? Target it directly towards “trendy homemakers” using Facebook’s categories. With over 500 categories to choose from, you can create the ideal custom audience for your content using select criteria based on user demographics, interests and behaviors.
Dark posts also provide you the opportunity to A/B test your ads with different audiences or test different copy and images in your ads with the same audience. You can chose to pay per impression or pay per click as with other forms of Facebook advertising. We recommend that you pay per click, so that you can gauge your ad’s effectiveness based on actual results, i.e. clicks, comments, shares, etc. If your spend isn’t growing, you should consider changing your objective or ad content.
Brands CAN achieve positive results with Facebook ads, when used properly. Before you try to “shout at” everyone at once, try testing a few Dark Posts tailored to a niche audience and see what results it provides your brand.
