Content creation—let’s face it!—is a major undertaking 😓 The time and effort involved to consistently produce and publish blogs, videos, and social posts takes a toll.

Notwithstanding, if/when a video goes viral, if/when a blog ranks in the search results, and if/when a social post generates a bunch of hearts, likes, comments, and shares—well then it’s all worth it!

On the other hand, if/when the content doesn’t perform as hoped or expected, then it’s easy to get all gloomy and question the point of what you’re doing.

It’s sort of like the old saying:

If a tree 🌳 falls in a forest and no one is around to see it fall, did it make a sound?

The truth is, if nobody was around, then WHO REALLY CARES⁉ 🤷‍♂️

The same principle applies in your content marketing. Videos with hardly any views, posts without hearts, saves, or comments—for all intents and purposes—never actually happened.

We know social networks and search engines alike—algorithmically speaking—simply do not rank or circulate content that doesn’t perform.

And if your content never appears before its intended audience, then, honestly, who really cares!? For all intents and purposes, it’s as if that content never actually happened.

So… 🤔 what to do?

Whatever should you do? Well, one idea, for instance, is to ante up 💰and pay-to-play—Boost your posts on Facebook and Instagram to purchase the desired attention.

Granted, your issue could be—and, to put it bluntly—probably is the content itself. I’m not trying to sound negative or insulting here, but I’d be remiss if I didn’t bring that up. And if your content isn’t performing organically, presumably, it won’t perform as an ad either. A discussion for another time, perhaps.

Additionally, Boosting introduces yet another step in an already laborious content-publishing process. And what’s more, there’s a learning curve to it: declaring ad objectives with every promotion, specifying your target audience(s), setting budgets, and so forth. It’s not as effortless as you’d think.

And to do it with every post!?—that’s just inefficient. Once again, some of your posts will make for effective ads, others won’t. For those that don’t, it’s purely a waste of money. (Ref. my comments above about poorly performing content.)

Still, something has to be done. After all, if your content isn’t reaching its intended audience -- or, better yet, if it is but not the the extent it deserves, considering its quality -- then a paid strategy makes perfect sense. I mean, my goodness, if the content is performing organically (on a small scale), then all the more reason to double-down via paid promotions to expand the size of your audience by an order of magnitude.

How (and Why) to Promote Your Content

For starters, content promotion helps to:

Maximize the usefulness of each and every post!—videos, images, et al. Squeeze every last drop, so to speak. A post shared to social, for example, has a relatively short lifespan—up to a few days at best. Promoting your content is just economical.
Grow your audience. For instance, if, as a byproduct of your content-publishing efforts, you’re already generating inbound, organic leads, then a bigger audience will theoretically multiply those results.
Retarget your existing audience(s). E.g. website traffic via your Facebook Pixel, all your leads and contacts stored in your CRM, and s0 forth. Once again, if your content never appears before its intended audience(s), then it’s as if it never actually happened.

“One campaign to rule them all.”

In the training video above, I explain how to create a SINGLE (Facebook/Instagram) ad campaign to promote ALL your social content -- posts you’ve shared within the past week or even the past month. This method of promoting content, compared to Boosting every post (on Facebook/Instagram), for instance, offers some noteworthy benefits:

One-and-done! You don’t have to create a new campaign (i.e., separate Facebook and/or Instagram ads) for every single post. Instead, you create just one campaign with multiple ads—each ad, just to be clear, represents one of your selected posts.
Algorithmic autonomy. Remember, if your content doesn’t perform organically, it’ll probably flounder as an ad too. That means, if you’re running ads for each post separately, some, inevitably, will be duds. Using this technique, however, Facebook-and-Instagram’s learning algorithms can decide which of your ads (i.e., your posts) will work best depending on the audience it’s targeting. So, bottom line, it’ll get you a better cost-per-result.

Step-by-Step Instructions

From a technical standpoint, in today’s training, we’ll build one Campaign with two Ad Sets and three Ads. (“… Easy as A-B-C 🎶 1-2-3…”) When I tested it for myself, the results were astounding! Hierarchically, it’ll look like this:

Campaign (I)
- Ad Set (A) | Retargeting
  - Ad | Post (i)
  - Ad | Post (ii)
  - Ad | Post (iii)
- Ad Set (B) | Targeting
  - Ad | Post (i)
  - A | Post (ii)
  - Ad | Post (iii)

Structure of a Facebook Ad

Campaign - specifies the primary objective you’re trying to achieve: e.g. video views, engagement, traffic, etc.—it’s the foundation of the advertisement.
- Ad Set - defines who you’re targeting (and/or who aren’t) as well as how much you’re spending and for how long.
  - Ad - all the creative/media elements: e.g. images, videos, text, links, etc.—this is where you’ll select the post you would’ve previously published organically and will now use for a paid promotion.

Log into your Facebook Business Manager.
In the main menu, select “Audiences.” We’ll prepare who you’re targeting/retargeting before building and running the campaign itself because it can take Facebook and Instagram up to 24 hours to aggregate custom audience(s)—just getting a head-start.
Tap the blue button labeled, “Create Custom Audience.” Once the window pops up, make your selection(s). In the training video, we’ll construct several custom audiences—e.g. your Facebook Pixel web traffic, uploading a spreadsheet of your CRM data (i.e., leads, contacts, et al.) as a customer list, Facebook Page and Instagram Business Profile engagement audiences, and more.
Next, access the main menu and select “Ads Manager.” Tap the green button that says, “Create.”
Choose your campaign objective. Note that if, for instance, you select, “Video Views,” then you can only use videos in your ads. Depending on the type of content you’re looking to promote, you may opt to choose a more flexible objective or you’ll need to create more than one Campaign.

Scroll down in the window to name the Campaign and the Ad Set. There’s no reason to name the Ad as of yet. Press to continue.
At the Campaign level, declare any applicable Special Ad Categories, such as Housing for my real estate practitioner friends. Ensure the “Campaign Budget Optimization” setting is toggled OFF. Press to continue to the next section.
In the Ad Set level, scroll down to the “Budget” section and allocate a daily spend. Also, make sure to set an End Date! After that, navigate to the “Audiences” box and add the custom audiences we made back in step #2 inside the “Include” text field.

Next scroll down to the “Locations” heading and make sure that your defined geographic area doesn’t inadvertently exclude any folks in your custom audiences. If you chose a campaign objective like “Video Views,” in the “Optimization and Delivery” box, tap, “Show more options” and opt to only be charged for ThruPlays. In other words, require Facebook/Instagram put its money where its mouth is!—only pay for results, not impressions. At the bottom of the page, click to continue to the next section.
At the Ad level, scroll down to the “Ad Setup” box, tap the dropdown menu and choose, “Use existing post.” Then, tap the “Select” button to peruse your previously published posts on Facebook and/or Instagram. Choose one and edit placements as necessary (e.g. too much caption text for Instagram).

Scroll down and check the box to make sure you’re Pixel is tracking “Website Events.”

Finally, scroll back up to the top and name your Ad whatever you like so that you can easily recognize which Ad it is.
On the lefthand sidebar, look for the “…” to the right of your selected Ad. Tap it and choose to “Duplicate.” It’ll ask you if you want to start a new Campaign or add to an existing one. Obviously, specify the latter. Pick your current Campaign as well as the current Ad Set and then click to continue.

Once that’s done, scroll down to the “Select” button and pick your next post. Same as before, make sure “Website Events” are being tracked, re-name the Ad, and then duplicate it again and as many times as necessary depending on how many posts you plan to include in your Campaign.
Once you’ve added all your Ads (i.e., your posts), on that lefthand sidebar, click the “…” next to the Ad Set and make a duplicate. Be sure to add it to the current Campaign. It’ll automatically make copies of all your Ads too—streamlined and efficient!

Rename the Ad Set as you see fit. For instance, I would call the first Ad Set something to the effect of, “RETARGETING…” since it’s aimed at your custom audiences. For this Ad Set, something along the lines of, “TARGETING…” would make sense—because, this go-around, we’re setting our sights toward new growth!
In the (new) Ad Set level, scroll down to the “Audiences” box and remove (i.e., just “X-off”) those custom audiences. Then, tap the “Exclude” button and re-add your custom audiences in its text field. So, in essence, we’re telling Facebook/Instagram, for this Ad Set, DON’T TARGET the custom audiences—that way you’re not paying to show those folks the same content twice.

Make your way down to the “Locations” heading and set, for instance, a 15-mile radius around the city where you conduct business. In other words, you’re telling FB/IG to show your ad to the residents in your marketplace—as in, prospective home buyers and sellers.

Find the “Publish” button to submit the ad for review and you’re done!

When you’ve got content, you’ve got options. Content is like arrows for a bow 🏹

In other words, the bow is functionally worthless without arrows to shoot. Likewise, it’s hard to target market your message or campaign at an audience without content: videos, blogs, images, and more. Everyone flat-out needs content!

Having said that—while content marketing definitely works—it’s a significant undertaking. What’s more, a failure to maximize the reach and impact of every post is, frankly, a disservice to your efforts.

Use this strategy to:

A. Remarket to your existing audiences, deepening their affinity (and consideration) for your brand.
B. Use your content to attract new followers, subscribers, and future customers.

I want you to hear all-day, everyday:

Oh, you’re that agent! I see you EVERYWHERE!.

Win the mindshare of the marketplace to become the agent-of-choice.