Good News - The US State Department is no longer spending money on social media advertising
Bad News - The US State Department spent $630,000 on two advertising campaigns to expand the number of fans on its four Facebook pages.
Now, the State Department is a part of the federal government that is responsible for international relations with other countries. Specifically, it takes ownership of our embassies around the world and is run by the Secretary of State.
While this spending did increase the number of "fans" of the State Department's Facebook pages by ~2.3M from under 0.2M, it did not have the impact that the State Department was looking for. Specifically, "the number of those actually engaging with each page was just over two percent. By "engaging," the IG refers to "liking," "sharing," or "commenting on any item within the previous week."
Of course, just because someone "likes" your page, doesn't mean it will show up in their news feed. Facebook now has a DUAL "expense" process. For an advertiser/brand/government entity, they first must spend $$ to advertise and gain followers. Then, they must spend $$ to make sure their followers see the things they post. Unlike with your friends, Facebook only shows your "page" posts to your "fans" if you pay for them to see it. This can be quite expensive, as the State Department has just learned.
In defending its advertising spending, The State Department noted, "a posting on cyber censorship in March 2013 reached 234,000 Facebook users on its first day; only about 20,000 would have received the item on their news feed without advertising,"
Clearly this type of spending will be attacked politically.
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