Let me start by saying that I’m a fan of Facebook’s Promoted Posts feature in general. If your goal is to increase your Page exposure and reach not only more of your fans but penetrate their networks as well, I’ve found that they accomplish that goal. They are especially useful for smaller pages with a fan count under 1500 where the typical cost to promote a post will be in the $5-$10 range.

In the past, on a particular Page which has 164 fans, the options available for promoting a post were $5 and $10 with an “estimated” reach of usually in the 2,000 range for the $10 option. Considering that a typical Page post will reach an estimated 16% of the Page’s fans (in this case approximately 27 people), this is a considerable difference. This Page typically gets good engagement and has a slightly large reach per post – typically between 40-100 with some posts even reaching into the 700 range without promotion (although this is rare).

Recently, Facebook decided to increase the available options to Pages with a smaller number of fans. I noticed this and decided to try testing it out to see what the results were.

Here were my options:

As you can see, the potential reach increased from a maximum of 2,000 I was offered previously to 17,000. I decided to take the plunge and test out the $50 option and let the ad run its course over the 3 days (which, in case you didn’t know, is how long promoted posts will run in a promotion) so that I could see what the results were.

Here were the results:

As you can see, this is considerably less than the estimated exposure Facebook promised me in their “estimate” of between 9,100-17,000 for $50. In fact, this should have been the results if I had chosen the $20 option.

I find it completely unacceptable (and false advertising) that Facebook would deliver the post to about 33%-50% of the estimate I was promised for my $50. I have noticed this disparity in the past but since I’m working with some Pages that have a smaller audience and the reach promised was much less, the disparity between the “estimated” reach and the final number has never been that large.

Bottom line is that, while I still think Facebook’s Promoted Posts (or Boost Post as they’re now calling it) option is a good value for exposure, I will no longer have any confidence in the “estimated reach” promised.

Yo, Facebook. You owe me $30.