Facebook Dark Posts

[Adam Ensmith]

I'm curious if anyones leveraging the use of dark posts on Facebook?

A quick description of dark posts...

"Facebook dark posts are News Feed style ads that don’t publish to your Timeline or in your fans’ feeds organically. A dark post doesn’t have to just be a status update; currently, Facebook supports status updates, photos, videos, links or an Offer."
Source: SproutSocial

There essentially hyper targeted ads, I plan to use them myself in the near future. Theres a lot of people raving about them and the price is much lower than Google ads, I suppose the only reason that people aren't using facebook for ads is because it's such a 'new' development in advertising.

They say that it will be the next Google for ads though so I'd jump on the bandwagon whilst it's cheap!

Thoughts?

Thanks guys,
Adam.

 

[fisicx]

Marketing BS. It's just adverts, and they are used by huge numbers of companies already. They work great if properly targeted and you have a desireable product or service. Explainer videos aren't one of them.

 

[garyk]

Yep as @fisicx says nothing new they have been around for a couple of years.

The targeting in FB is good and what marketers are doing now is drilling down within a niche. If you read the paragraph headed 'But no-one else would' on this page http://www.digitalmarketer.com/facebook-advertising-targeting-options-social/ it gives a great example on how specific you can get to reach your target market.

What is newer are 'lead ads' which is where you don't even need a landing page and the email and name are pre-populated becauase that person is already logged in to fb, so a boon if you are running ads on mobile devices.

 

[Adam Ensmith]

Marketing BS. It's just adverts, and they are used by huge numbers of companies already. They work great if properly targeted and you have a desireable product or service. Explainer videos aren't one of them.

I don' know if I agree that explainer videos can't be targeted properly or desirable, though I agree most couldn't be advertised on facebook this way! I think theres a way to do it that I have to figure out. Custom FB videos are probably the answer, with engaging content, infographics and such.

Yep as @fisicx says nothing new they have been around for a couple of years.

The targeting in FB is good and what marketers are doing now is drilling down within a niche. If you read the paragraph headed 'But no-one else would' on this page # it gives a great example on how specific you can get to reach your target market.

What is newer are 'lead ads' which is where you don't even need a landing page and the email and name are pre-populated becauase that person is already logged in to fb, so a boon if you are running ads on mobile devices.

Though as much Gary, was just curious what this forum thought about them/if they'd used them before

Totally that's exactly what I was reading up on recently! I can see hyper-targetting is a really lucrative technique. Thanks for the link!

I'll have to read up on lead ads sounds very interesting. Thanks!

 

[fisicx]

I don' know if I agree that explainer videos can't be targeted properly or desirable

I want to see stuff on FB that I'm interested in. I'm Googling for a new electric drill so a Facebook advert for a laser guided, multispeed cordless hammer drill with interchangeable heads will get my attention. A video on the drillco story won't.

Facebook adverts work because they promote things people want to buy - that's the targeting bit. I can't see anyone getting excited about your video promoting how you can make explainer videos. In fact I'm not even sure how you would target this.

 

[Adam Ensmith]

You wouldn't be the target demo. That's the point of hypertargetted ads right?

I'm not promoting my ability to make them I'm promoting the story aspect, everyone who buys one of these things want to levrage video to show of their product or service. I'm saying I can do this in a more engaging, creative way akin to TV ads.

How I'd market them? I'd target business owners of a certain demographic, based on income, how often they use social media etc. and I'm tell them the benefits above the video.

Theres so many statistics telling us that video is the future of marketing on social media and about the engagment rate of videos.

 

[fisicx]

Theres so many statistics telling us that video is the future of marketing on social media and about the engagment rate of videos.

People have been saying this for years and it hasn't happened yet. Note that FB will tell you there have been X number of views of a video even if nobody clicks to play. What you want are stats to show people watch the whole video and then go visit the website. But they won't tell you this because the clickthough rate is very low.

 

[bharris]

The targeting in FB is good and what marketers are doing now is drilling down within a niche.

Is there a way t see how FB has actually categorised yourself? When i looked at Google a while ago (not sure how i did it) i was amazed as to how wrong they are.

If you read the paragraph headed 'But no-one else would' on this page http://www.digitalmarketer.com/facebook-advertising-targeting-options-social/ it gives a great example on how specific you can get to reach your target market.

Whilst reading this article i had a problem with a couple of statements that generally seem to be taken for granted.

"I bet you can only list a handful of friends that DON’T have a Facebook profile."
Actually no most of my friends and acquaintances do not have a Facebook profile and the ones who do, i would guess only 20% are active users.

"If your target market is a human, you can reach them on Facebook." This is clearly incorrect.

I wounder how much money is wasted on advertising to the wrong people?

 

[Adam Ensmith]

People have been saying this for years and it hasn't happened yet. Note that FB will tell you there have been X number of views of a video even if nobody clicks to play. What you want are stats to show people watch the whole video and then go visit the website. But they won't tell you this because the clickthough rate is very low.

I'd dissagree there look at video on facebook with the ammount of views it gets.

Your right though Facebooks awful for that - inflating numbers, the views is based on if the user had the video no their screen autoplaying wihout audio for 5 seconds! It's nonsense, that's not a view it's a slow scroll.

Yeah I do need stats like that, I'll add it to the video I mentioned on the other thread!
Thanks.

 

[garyk]

Though as much Gary, was just curious what this forum thought about them/if they'd used them before

Totally that's exactly what I was reading up on recently! I can see hyper-targetting is a really lucrative technique. Thanks for the link!

I'll have to read up on lead ads sounds very interesting. Thanks!

My view is if you are B2C and your product has a very clearly defined demographic then its a great platform. If its B2B then its much harder.

Is there a way t see how FB has actually categorised yourself? When i looked at Google a while ago (not sure how i did it) i was amazed as to how wrong they are.

I think its down to how much info you share and what groups you belong to and pages you like. Don't know for sure but with prolific use of FB conversion pixel code on many many sites now then fb may be able to track which websites you visit.

Whilst reading this article i had a problem with a couple of statements that generally seem to be taken for granted.

"I bet you can only list a handful of friends that DON’T have a Facebook profile."
Actually no most of my friends and acquaintances do not have a Facebook profile and the ones who do, i would guess only 20% are active users.

"If your target market is a human, you can reach them on Facebook." This is clearly incorrect.

I wounder how much money is wasted on advertising to the wrong people?

I think you (may) be the exception virtually everyone I know is on there with varying degrees of activity. With something like 3 billion people worldwide connected to the Internet and fb having total users of 1.13billion (but probably a large number of dead/second accounts) that is still a *massive* reach.

Huge amounts of money gets wasted on advertising everyday, largely by businesses who do not understand the importance of relevance and targeting.

 

[RedundancyClaim]

FB Advantage: You can target your posts to individuals based on their 'likes' and demographic information they have added about themselves.

FB Disadvantage: People don't like 'un-targeted' content in their feeds, it has to be highly targted to work.

Google Advantage: Adverts only appear based on 'keyword(s)' searched on

Google Disadvantage: Higher cost per click versus Facebook adverts