Digital marketing is a great way to get leads, traffic to your website, and ultimately customers. With more than 2 billion users worldwide, Facebook is an excellent place to get connected with a broad audience. If you’re thinking about advertising on Facebook, but are unsure where to start, getting Facebook certified is a great first step.

What is a Facebook Blueprint Certified Professional?

There are several types of certifications you can earn from Facebook. One is “Planning Professional” which focuses on planning advertising campaigns on the platform. You’ll learn how to manage pages, target audiences, use tools like Insights, and implement a planning strategy to maximize your results.

Another certification, Buying Professional, focuses on creating and buying ads on Facebook. You’ll learn how to select ad objectives, target audiences, improve ad performance, and troubleshoot advertising issues.

Each certification comes with a set of courses to learn the key objectives. Then, once you’re comfortable with the material, an exam is provided to test your knowledge. Those who score high enough on the set of exams for each section are rewarded with a certification badge.

How Certification Can Help

Facebook’s algorithm–or how the platform decides which posts to show to which users–has changed a lot over the years and continues to change almost weekly. When Facebook was created, users saw everything from the people and brands they were following. As the user base grew, so did the number of posts in the average News Feed. To help users see what was most important to them, Facebook began pushing some posts to the forefront, and others to the wayside.

Currently, updates from friends and family come first. Then, the remaining posts are prioritized according to what a user wants to see for information and entertainment. Facebook hasn’t completely revealed the methodology behind that, but we do know that some of the factors include:

Posts with Interaction: If many people–or a friend–likes, comments, or shares a post, it will be more likely to show up in a News Feed.

Post Type: Some users show a preference for videos and photos while others show a preference for a status update or link share.

Trends: If a topic is trending on Facebook, other social media platforms, or news sites, it’s more likely to be included in more News Feeds.

Pages: If a user interacts with a company page often, their posts will be prioritized. Facebook also prioritizes pages with complete information and lots of activity.

All that said, becoming Facebook certified can help you differentiate between all these factors and give you a better chance of success when posting content and running ads.

Digital Marketing Done Right

Getting your Facebook ads in front of the right audience at the right time can be tricky. However, with such a large audience on the platform, it’s a process worth learning. Becoming Facebook certified will help you to understand how to best leverage your marketing budget and get your ads in front of the right customers to help you grow your business.