If you're new to Meta's advertising ecosystem, or to social advertising in general, it may feel like a steep learning curve. In this article, we'll All advertising on Meta Platforms (Facebook, Instagram, Messenger, etc.) runs through Facebook. For example, in order to run ads on Instagram, you must first link your Instagram account to a both a Facebook Page and Facebook ad account.
This unique relationship between Facebook and Instagram affects how both networks' promoted posts behave. In this article, we will review how your own paid Facebook and Instagram content may be indexed in Social Media Management.
Getting started with Meta ads
If you're new to Meta's advertising ecosystem, or to social advertising in general, it can sometimes feel like a steep learning curve. Let's take a moment to break down some key concepts and how they relate to Meta ads specifically.
Ads vs. promoted posts
Although people often use “ad” and “promoted post” interchangeably, these are actually two different objects:
An ad is the object that tells a network when, where, and how to promote a post.
A promoted post is the object that end users see.
In other words, you might think of the ad as a cannon, while the promoted post is the cannonball. What makes Meta ads unique is that they can "fire" multiple promoted posts at a time—one per Meta Platform.
For example, the Meta ad below is associated with both a Facebook post and an Instagram post. The ad itself can be viewed and managed in Advertise:
While the promoted posts can be viewed and managed in Publish:
In Social Media Management, your ads can be found in the Advertise module, while your promoted posts can be found in Publish, Measure, and Engage.
Platforms vs. placements
When you create a new ad set for Facebook or Instagram, you'll be asked to select which platforms and placements you'd like its ads to run on:
Platforms is short for Meta Platforms, which includes the following networks: Facebook, Instagram, Audience Network, Messenger.
Placements are
In Social Media Management, we use the word network to describe social media ecosystems like Facebook or Instagram. However, Meta uses the word platform. This is important because you'll be asked to select which platforms
Boosted posts vs. ad creatives
There are two ways to promote content on Facebook and Instagram:
You can promote an existing, organic post by boosting it with an ad.
You can build a promoted post using an ad creative.
An ad creative is simply the collection of design elements used in a promoted post, such as its text, images, videos, links, and call-to-action (CTA) buttons. When you create a new ad "from scratch," rather than from an existing post, you'll be prompted to set up the ad creative as one of the final steps:
There are advantages and disadvantages to each approach. Boosting an existing post is a much simpler, more streamlined process, but building an ad creative offers more advanced formatting and targeting options.
People also often use "promoting" and "boosting" interchangeably, but there are key differences here as well:
A boosted post is an organic (non-promoted) post that you promote with an ad.
A promoted post is any post that you promote with an ad.
In other words, all boosted posts are promoted, but not all promoted posts are promoted via boosting. Some promoted posts are instead built "from scratch" by the ad itself.
This distinction matters with Facebook ads because the methodology affects how the promoted posts are delivered to Social Media Management.