Hmmm

For the first time ever, I created a Facebook Business page. I thought it would be interesting to see what happens if I boosted my page, especially since it seemed so cheap ($18/day).

I posted information/data about the local real estate market in Seattle and Bellevue. Then I chose the option that targeted more Facebook visitors and followers, chose for the ad to expire in two days ($36 total), put my credit information in, and — presto — my post was boosted, whatever that means.

One of the problems is that apparently when I put an expiration date of two days, this didn’t register with Facebook. So although my ad was supposed to expire on Thursday, I noticed that today I was still getting some clicks, so I checked my account. Indeed, I’ve been charged $56 and counting and it won’t let me turn off the ad for another two days.

The next problem is that apparently when I click that I want my audience to be within 15 miles of Seattle since that’s where I’m a licensed agent, “within 15 miles of Seattle” is translated to “anywhere in the states of Washington and California.” Of the four people who reached out to me, one was about 30 miles away, another was 80 miles away, and a third was 1,000 miles away in Southern California. The fourth? I don’t know because they said they’d messaged me by mistake and blocked me before I could learn more about who they were and where they were from.

Also, there is an auto response feature I didn’t know about, wherein if someone clicks on my post, the receive an automated message from “me” (not really from me) asking how I can help them. This was a little unnerving because it means I was spamming people who just wanted to click on my ad, which wasn’t my point.

Finally, for $56 I received a grand total of four messages (described above) that have no chance of becoming clients and who it turns out weren’t even really interested in the local real estate market (also, one used my ad to solicit me), and one follower. Which means statistically if I want 100 followers I’ll have to spend $5,600. Wooooooooo!

Anyway. I was curious to know what happened if I boosted a post. And I got an answer. Which, for me, was “more trouble than it was worth.”