[adventured]

I'm curious, what kind of ad rates are you seeing from Facebook to appeal to people locally in that small town? Do you consider it expensive? Does it seem artificially high (ie way out of line with what other local ad platforms might have been in the past such as a small town newspaper or radio station), or does Facebook seem to properly proportion the rates down based on the value of a small local economy etc etc?

I guess what I'm asking, is, does Facebook consider the value of you trying to reach those users, on a globally competitive basis (so you're competing with Nike for their attention), or is it cost effective on a more localized basis (you're competing with Sam's Plumbing on third street in the small town)? I haven't tried to reach users on Facebook in the style you're describing, so I'm not familiar with how costly it is comparatively.

[freehunter]

Facebook gives you the option of how much to pay and says how many people you may reach with that money. I currently pay $1 per day, which lets me reach about 800 out of my 2000 followers every week. Each post ends up being seen by 50-100 people unless someone interacts with it (such as a like, share, etc), then it can get up around 200-500 depending on the interaction.

I have no idea what a newspaper would charge for similar exposure, but I can tell you that at $1 per day, I'm often paying more money than I'm making from my site.

For comparison, six months ago I was reaching nearly 100% of my followers each week and each post would easily be seen by 500 people no matter what. It's been an absolutely catastrophic drop-off.