Facebook Question: What’s the difference between a promoted post, a dark post and an ad?

This question, and its answer, will make talking with your agency about Facebook Advertising a bit easier.

Step 1: what is a page post?
A normal post on Facebook, for a brand, is a page post. This means the owner or admin of a page places content on that page. The content can include text, visuals, video and links.

Who sees a page post?
A part of the people who like the page (fans) will see the post in their news feeds. If fans like, share or comment on the post, it can also become visible to friends of those fans.

Step 2: What is a promoted post?
When you want to give a page post some extra reach, you can ‘boost’ or ‘promote’ it. This will make the page post show up in the news feeds of people more likely to interact with it.

Who sees a promoted post?
A promoted post will be seen by the target group selected within the campaign. You can try to increase reach with fans, friends of fans or any other Facebook target group you select.

What is dark post?
A dark post is an ad that looks like a page post. It is not visible on the page of the brand.

Who sees a dark post?
A dark post will be seen by the target group selected within the campaign.

What’s an ad?
Facebook offers many kind of ads. They often look a lot like a page post, but are not visible on the page. Ads can also have call to action buttons you don’t get on page posts.

Who sees an ad?
A Facebook ad will be seen by the target group selected within the campaign.

Post by CheesecakeMedia.be (Sigrid Dufraimont)