Social media watchers have reported it and Facebook is finally talking about it: the average reach of organic posts has declined to about 6 percent; reach is defined as the number of unique Facebook users who see your updates. This means that only 6 out of every 100 fans will ever see your organic (unpaid) posts. According to social marketing experts, Facebook seems to be preparing for the day when organic reach hits zero.

Facebook maintains that increased competition for limited space within the news feed is causing a gradual decline in reach. As a Facebook spokesperson explained it “Content that is eligible to be shown in news feed is increasing at a faster rate than people’s ability to consume it.” At some point in time, there will simply be no space available for organic posts.

Paid Options for Promoting Your Facebook Posts
Facebook currently offers two ways that you can promote your posts: the boost post option and the promoted post option. Just remember that you don’t necessarily want to pay for every post; spend only on those posts that will give you the most bang for your buck.

• Stick to promoting your own content that links to your web site.
• Promote helpful content that appeals to your audience and will hopefully get shared. While there’s nothing wrong with occasionally promoting your sales messages, you should focus on promoting helpful and relevant content.
• Promote content that gets your fans to opt in to your mailing list. Almost any type of freebie offer will work well for this.
• Keep the 20 percent text rule on photos in mind; if your ad has more than 20 percent text within the image area it won’t get approved for publication.

How the Boost Post Option Works
Boosting a post is available for any post on your page’s timeline. Click on the “Boost Post” button in the lower right corner of the post that you want to boost. A window will open up where you can select your audience – either “People who like your Page and their friends” or “People you choose through targeting” – and your budget.

If you want to engage with current fans, you should go the promoted post route, choosing that your ad only goes out to your community. More on promoted posts later.

If you want to drive traffic to your website, select the “People you choose through targeting” option. You’ll be able to define your audience by geographic location, age, gender, and up to 10 areas of interest.

Your boosted post ad results can be accessed through your Facebook Ads Manager tool where you can monitor your campaign performance.

How to Use the Promoted Post Option
Promoting a post offers you more targeting, pricing, and bidding options. To promote a post, go to facebook.com/ads/create/ and choose Page Post Engagement. Select the page and the post that you wish to promote. The Page Post Engagement option provides you with additional targeting options not available with boosted posts. You can also choose to have your ad shown only to people who like your page.

Promoted posts offer you the choice of paying on a cost per click basis or by spending a designated amount each day; you even have the option of switching between payment models if you want.