We Tested It: $5 Separates You From Success on Facebook

Has the organic reach from your Facebook page dropped off a cliff?

This article is direct from the Digital Marketer blog where they share the data and how to execute this drop dead simple tactic.  Prepared brilliantly by Molly Pittman, the Digital Marketer’s social media manager, who uses her wide range of business and communication skills to enhance their presence on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and more. She graduated with a degree in Business Administration & Marketing from Transylvania University in Lexington, KY.

The folks at Digital Marketer started noticing the problem across a number of our Facebook pages in late August and early September.

With a Facebook Page of nearly 20,000 people we were seeing pathetic numbers on our status updates.

Posts like this just weren’t cutting it anymore,

We knew Facebook had made an algorithm update.  We tested a number of different types of content, times of day, etc. but it became clear that Facebook was going to force us to advertise.

Then, a statement from Facebook leaked that confirmed what we had been seeing for months.  Here is that statement,

“We expect organic distribution of an individual page’s posts to gradually decline over time as we continually work to make sure people have a meaningful experience on the site.”

In other words, if you want to keep your engagement levels up — reach for your wallet.

While most marketers were crying “extortion” and fleeing Facebook for cheaper clicks on Pinterest or elsewhere, we dug in and started testing.

Here’s what we found…

We saw a dramatic difference between posts we “boosted” (spent money on) and posts we didn’t.

We didn’t break the bank either — we’ll show you 3 cases where we spent a measly $5 to “boost” the post.

Plus, you’ll see a BONUS case at the end of this post that explains how we got a ton of email opt-ins from a single Facebook post (but if you can’t wait, you can see this bonus trick here.)

Case 1 – Increase engagement and reach on a Facebook post

Here is a post we DID NOT “boost.”  This is terrible performance — well below what we had come to expect from our organic posts.

Compare that to this post which we “boosted” for $5.

From 332 people seeing our post to 19,008 for $5.  That’s a 5,625% increase.

This is a no brainer.  Not just because of the big increase but because our competitors refuse to do it.  That presents an opportunity for us.

Case 2 – Increase clicks to our website from a Facebook post

We wondered if this would translate into clicks to our website as well.  We tested what impact $5 would have on traffic from Facebook to our website.

As Ryan Deiss often says,

“He who is willing to pay the most to acquire a customer wins.”

Again, here is a post with a link that we DID NOT boost,

And here are the clicks to the website on that post,

Not good.  But when “boosted” by just $5 our posts performed,

From 653 people seeing the post to 11,172 for $5.  That’s a 1,610% increase.

And clicks to the website increased from 73 to 451, a 517% increase.

Case 3 – Increase YouTube video views from a Facebook post

The last thing we looked at was applying a $5 investment to a video we uploaded to our YouTube channel.

First, let’s have a look at the performance of a video we DID NOT boost,

The reach and engagement on this post was poor compared to the “boosted” post and we got virtually no views on the video from this Facebook post.

Here is the Facebook Post promoting the YouTube video which we gave a $5 boost,

These are the clicks on the bit.ly link,

And this is the video views,

Not too shabby for $5.

Bonus Case – Increasing Email Opt-Ins From a Facebook Post

In this video, Ryan Deiss goes over a strategy we used on Facebook to get 250 email opt-ins in 18 hours by spending $25.

That’s 10 cents per email opt-in.  We’re rolling this simple trick out to Facebook pages in all of our niches because it can work for any business.

Get the bonus trick by clicking here

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