Facebook ads are a great way to increase your reach and expose your brand or products to new audiences. And creating them right from your Page is one of the fastest and most convenient ways to reach the people who matter the most to your business on Facebook and Instagram.
Depending on the action you want your audience to take, you can choose from the different types of ads Facebook offers – promoting your page, promoting your website or boosting a post.
If your goal is to have people like or react, comment or share on the posts you create on your Page, then the best way to do this is to boost posts. Boosting a post is very easy by locating the blue Boost Post option in the bottom-right corner of your post. Boosted posts are an excellent way of increasing the engagement with your audience, existing and new. When you boost a post, you turn it into an ad, which is then optimized to reach people who are most likely to take action and like or share the post.
An Image is Worth a Thousand Words, Right?
We have all heard the phrase, yet we continue to add text to our images. Sometimes, it’s to enhance the depicted action or describe the objects shown. Other times to simply share a message or announce a special offer. The use of text on images for advertising purposes is a common practice, but unfortunately frowned upon by Facebook. Up until mid-2016, their advertising policy didn’t allow advertisers to use images, which covered more than 20% with text in ads. Facebook had enforced a rule that limited the amount of text in images, and by using a 5×5 grid, advertisers could see if there’s text in more than five of the squares, which meant the image would be rejected. Of course, there are ways to go around this. For example, you could use the same grid while creating the ad image to simply move the text around or make it smaller so the image would be in compliance with the rule.
This rule was recently changed though. Now, advertisers can use more than 20% text on images for their boosted posts. But, Facebook still prefers images that have less text. And actually, the more text you use in your advertised content, the less exposure Facebook might give to your paid content in the News Feed.
Boosted Post Image Categories
Yes, Facebook acknowledges the importance of images in your ads: “Adding a relevant image of your product or service can be one of the most powerful factors in determining the success of your Facebook ads.” Yet, there are still some rules and guidelines when it comes to using text on images in your Facebook ads.
Now that more than 20% text in images is allowed, Facebook makes a distinction in the amount of text in images, and categorizes boosted posts and other ads with images in four categories, or as Facebook calls them, ratings:
– Image text: OK – this is the preferred image style and it means your ad’s image contains little or no text, and your ad will run normally
– Image text: Low – this means you have a bit more text, and your ad’s reach may be slightly lower
– Image text: Medium – this means you have a lot of text, and your ad’s reach may be much lower
– Image text: High – this means your ad’s image has too much text, and your ad may not run
But, as with every rule, there are exceptions, and these image text-categories don’t apply to:
– movie posters
– book covers
– album covers
– product images: when the entire product is visible, and just a zoomed in part of it
– posters for concerts, music festivals, comedy shows or sporting events
– text-based businesses: calligraphy, cartoons and comics, etc.
– app and game screenshots
– legal text
– infographics
In order to help advertisers overcome the problem of determining whether the image would be categorized as “OK” or “Medium”, Facebook has created the “Image Test Check” tool (“Text Overlay Tool”) to help find out in which category your image belongs. Also, whenever you create an ad in the Create an Ad tool or in Power Editor, you will get a warning if the amount of text you intend to use may limit your ad’s distribution.
Make Sure Your Content Appears in the News Feed
For several years now, Facebook has been decreasing the free reach of Pages. Starting as early as 2012, they’ve been limiting the amount of Page content that appears in the fans’ News Feeds. And at the end of June 2016, Facebook announced they will make more changes to the News Feed, making it even more difficult for Pages to have their content seen by those who liked the Page. And in spite of the decrease in organic reach, out of 60 million active Facebook Pages, only around 10% of Pages choose to pay and boost content and advertise on Facebook.
Very few pages do well on Facebook without paying, and this is because they have built a very engaged audience that visits their Facebook Page frequently. But for the majority of Pages it’s hard to get their content in their fans’ News Feed. And if your fans don’t see you on Facebook, they may not remember to come to you when they need what you offer. That is why boosting your posts is an excellent way to get in front of your audience and ahead of the competition.
But keep in mind that in order to ensure that your current and potential fans see your content in their Facebook News Feed, you need to pay, at least for boosted posts. If you don’t, a tiny portion of your fan-base will get to see what you’re posting. Whether you’re maintaining less than 20% text and spend as little as possible, or decide to test the limits and add more text to images and pay more for distribution, it’s up to you. But don’t underestimate the power of boosted posts.
Recently, the internationally recognized Facebook expert, Mari Smith stated that: “Facebook organic (free) reach is down to a mere 1-6% of your fans. That is, for every 100 people on Facebook who liked your business page, only 1-6 of them actually see your posts in their News Feed.”
We are pretty convinced that businesses paying for Facebook ads and boosting posts enjoy greater success on Facebook. And with the latest organic reach decreases, as well as the new image text rules in mind, we are ready to help you advance in your Facebook posting and advertising strategies.
