I was genuinely proud of the latest review on my book:
I shared it to my book’s Facebook page earlier in the week. Then, curiosity overtook me… What would happen if I actually “BOOSTED” the post? Could it translate into action and get people downloading the book and/or liking the page?
Now, as you know, I left Facebook about 6 months ago. I started a new account last month to administrate the pages for my blog and for my book, and aside from making sure stuff gets posted there, I don’t hang out there. the only things I find Facebook useful for are cigar groups, seeing pictures of my friends’ kids, and promoting my book. The first two are free, but the third has been a challenge. I’ve done the reading and see it firsthand: Facebook Pages are a trap. Unless you’re a celebrity, or one of these content-thieving jerks like FuckJerry or Fat Jew or whoever, who blatantly steal and then paste your URL on content that’s very “share worthy” by the most basic life forms that barely qualify as human life, you’re kinda screwed on Facebook when you create a Page.
Page posts get PURPOSELY buried on peoples’ newsfeeds unless one of two things happen: 1) the person selects “always show first” on your page and forces it to show up in their feed, or 2) you pay money. Period. It’s right there on every single post you make:
And if you “boost” the post (AKA, pay the protection money), this is what you see:
Final results from spending $50 on a “boost post” ad on Facebook:
Nearly 5,000 impressions:
2 new followers in Instagram, despite over 600 likes on a single Instagram post (that didn’t result in followers or conversions to the Amazon page):
1 new page like:
15 kindle books downloaded (but 14 were downloaded on Wednesday without the spend… so, net result: 1 ebook download):
(In hindsight, checking the “Run promotion on Instagram” checkbox was a huge mistake, considering 90% of my impressions ended up there — something Facebook does NOT tell you at any point until the campaign is over, they just do it:
Net result: I spent $50 to have 2 new people follow my moodboard on Instagram, one new person to like my page, and POSSIBLY one new person to download my eBook. In other words, I wasted $50.
Your results may vary.
I ran two back to back campaigns myself. I ran the first as I had a credit. It was somewhat successful in that I had a handful of new followers and made a couple bucks.
Based off of that, I decided to run another campaign when it was over. That time I paid attention to the metrics in a way that I hadn’t on the first go ’round (since it was free, I didn’t really care to ‘waste my time’) and realized, belatedly, that it wasn’t worth it.
This is my first time on your site. Great content. I actually found you when trying to Google someone else for a work-related thing but couldn’t stop myself from reading your blog even after I figured out I had the wrong person. I’m going to check out your book as well.
Thank you!!! Let me know what you think when you do!