Did you know that you can create an ad out of a post that was never published to your Facebook Page? You can! And it’s actually extremely useful and effective.
Ready? Let’s go!
What You Are Going to Learn Today
Today’s lesson is Unpublished Posts. We’re going to focus on the following:
- What Unpublished Posts Are
- Why You Should Create Unpublished Posts
- How to Create Unpublished Posts
The Lesson
What Unpublished Posts Are
Unpublished Posts (also known as Dark Posts) are more or less what they sound like: They are posts that are never published to your Timeline or organically shown to your Fans in the News Feed.
As a result, Unpublished Posts will never be seen unless an ad promotes it.
Why You Should Create Unpublished Posts
There are two main reasons why you should consider creating Unpublished Posts.
First, you’ve undoubtedly run into Facebook’s 20% text rule. You’ve created a great post that got lots of organic engagement. You then decide to promote it to reach a broader audience, only to be shot down by Facebook’s 20% text police.
Your options at that point are to either grin and bear it, create a new post or create an Unpublished Post.
You don’t want to create a completely new post that goes on your Timeline. While you could hide it, it otherwise looks sloppy to have two otherwise identical posts.
So what you can do is create an Unpublished Post that is the same as the original post, but satisfies the 20% rule. Then you promote it.
Another reason you’d use Unpublished Posts is for split testing purposes.
Let’s say that you share a link to your new product. You then promote it.
But you also want to see how different copy would have done. Or an image instead of a link share. Or a video.
Instead of creating a bunch of similar posts in your Timeline, you create Unpublished Posts and promote them, split testing which post leads to the most conversions.
How to Create Unpublished Posts
Before you create an Unpublished Post, I recommend first creating a campaign where that ad will exist. If you’re okay having that ad in a current campaign, just know what it is ahead of time.
There are then two different ways you can create an Unpublished Post.
The first way is while creating an ad. Make sure that you are in the campaign where you want the ad to live. Then, make sure that you’ve selected:
- Type: Ad
- For a Facebook Page using a Page post
Instead of selecting a post at that point, click on the “Create New Unpublished Post” button.
The following will then appear:
You’ll have the ability to create a link, photo, video or text status Unpublished Post.
For a link share, you only need to complete the URL (the link you’re sharing) and post (description that goes with your post). Name, Caption, Description and Photo are all automatically pulled in, but you could manually change any of them. I nice option is changing the photo (thumbnail).
Leave language and location alone since you can adjust those in your ad if necessary.
For a photo post, you just need to upload the image and provide a description…
For a video post, upload the video file, update the title (linked headline) and description…
And for a status (text update), just provide your update…
When you’re done, click “Create Post” and your Unpublished Post will automatically be added to your ad (this is why you should be starting with a new ad, otherwise Facebook will replace the post you are working in).
Here’s one other option. First, create that campaign. Then go to Manage Pages at the top left…
Select your Page and click “Create Post.”
Creating your post will be just like before. After creating it, your Unpublished Post will then appear in the list of posts. You’ll know it’s unpublished because it will have a moon icon to the left of it.
Highlight that post and click “Create Ad.” Then select the account you want to work with.
You will then be asked to choose the campaign it should go into. This is why you should either create a campaign first or know what campaign it should go into ahead of time.
You then manage targeting, placement and bidding the way you normally would.
Your Assignment
Action Items:
- Create an Unpublished Post
- Promote your Unpublished Post
