By Amanda Jones

Funeral Innovation’s Growth Engine clients have probably seen us throw around terms such as organic, boosted and ads for Facebook. So what do they all mean? And what is better for your company? In this blog we will demystify the lingo and educate you on what’s what in the world of Facebook.

Organic Posts:

Let’s start with a regular Facebook post (an organic post). These include some words, an image or graphic, and maybe a location. When these are created and posted they will be shown within the newsfeeds of some of the people that follow your company. (Followers are often called Fans).

When you post an organic post to your Facebook page, not everyone will see your posts… only a certain percentage of your followers do. That is the Facebook algorithm at work (read more about that here). The post will be shown a handful of times to a variety of your followers and if it doesn’t drive any likes or shares, it won’t be shown any further.

Boosted Posts:

The next level up in the Facebook world is boosting. Usually this is done for added exposure of an organic post. Beginning with the example from above… Let’s say after you post your organic post you notice that it is getting a fair amount of likes and shares. This indicates the quality of the content and might be a great time for you to pay to boost this post. Why? To reach more of your followers and a larger audience that you define within your community. The audience building tools within Facebook let the page admin decide the location and types of people they would like this post to be show to above and beyond your current followers in a variety of ways.

When building an audience you are given the opportunity to define the type of audience you would like to show this post to. Perhaps you are a funeral home in Des Moines, IA. You can choose people that live in your area, that are male and female, age 35 – 65+. That means your post will now show up not only in the feeds of those that follow you, but additional people that match your description.

What is the ultimate desired outcome of a boosted post? The short answer is exposure. Boosting is a relatively inexpensive way to expose your brand or product to new people. This creates brand recognition for your in your community and it can gain you more followers — so your future organic posts may be shown to them as well. And because boosting is just a small step above and beyond posting an organic post – its fast and easy!

Facebook Ads:

OK great! So boosting sounds easy and effective. So why would we want to create another type of post — a Facebook Ad? The simple answer is with boosting you are only able to drive people to share your post, comment, like or follow your company. Not a ton of options. With Facebook Ads you can choose to drive your reader to take actions as well as test different versions of the ads.

Calls-to-Action: These are called “Calls-to-Action” or CTAs. A CTA is the main benefit of a Facebook Ad. These are buttons and links that may take them from Facebook to your company website (or landing page) where you can drive them to take a specific action! For example to learn more, to sign up for something, to receive your newsletters, to request a call back, or to RSVP for an event.

A/B Testing: When creating Facebook Ads within Ad Manager, you are able to test out different words, images and CTA’s to see what works best. This is called A/B testing and allows you to test different ads within a small group – then see which version out performs and show that to the larger audience. This is a great way to optimize all the components of your Facebook Ads.

WHICH ONE WHEN?

So how do you know if you want to post, boost or advertise? It depends on your goals.

  • Do you just want your Facebook posts out there for your existing followers only to view them?
  • Do you want to show your posts to a larger group of people in your community?
  • Do you want that larger group of people in the community to actually do something… something that may even take them out of Facebook and drive them to interact in a more meaningful way?

Think of it like this… you should pay to boost an organic post if you want more people to see, share and like that post beyond your followers. You should pay for Facebook Ads if you want to drive them to your website to take action via a CTA.

  • Organic Post: Shown to some of your followers (fans)
  • Boost Post: A post that you pay to show to targeted members of your community beyond your followers
  • Ad: A different styled post, that you pay to show to targeted members of your community that contains a compelling call-to action.

At Funeral Innovations we do all the above...organic posts, boosted posts, and Facebook Ads. We do them all based on the goals of our clients and the content and meaning the content. We find the most success using a combination of all types of posts in building community brand recognition, growing an audience and developing lasting loyalty for our clients. All of these combined assure that when the members of our clients’ communities need their services — they are the ones they turn to.

ABOUT FUNERAL INNOVATIONS
Since 2007, Funeral Innovations is proud to work with the best, most progressive firms in the death-care industry; providing affordable, end-to-end digital marketing services. Funeral Innovations creates high-quality content for death-care firms and uses their proprietary, cloud-based software to custom brand and distribute the content via Facebook posts, Facebook ads as well as through email and newsletter marketing and after-care content that continues to serve your community. Additionally, Funeral Innovations specializes in creating death-care related websites that offer services such as online arranging, e-signature technology, online obituaries, tributes and a healing registry.

Funeral Innovations was founded by two award-winning IBM software engineers to help funeral homes and cemeteries create an online community around their brand through the use of their technology platform. Learn more www.funeralinnovations.com.