Boardroom Definition

Dark Posts (formally known as "Unpublished Page Posts") are social media advertisements that do not exist on a brand’s organic feed or timeline. Unlike "Boosted Posts" which take an existing organic post and pay to show it to more people, Dark Posts are created directly in the ad manager. They exist solely as ad units, allowing advertisers to serve targeted messages to distinct audience segments without cluttering the public profile or alienating organic followers with repetitive sales messaging.

The strategic value of Dark Posts is calculated through Split Testing Efficiency (or A/B Testing). Because they do not appear on the timeline, advertisers can run unlimited variations simultaneously.

If you have 5 images, 4 headlines, and 3 audience groups, you are running 60 unique ads simultaneously.

If these were organic posts, your timeline would be flooded with 60 near-identical updates, causing massive "Unfollow" rates. Dark Posts mathematically decouple Ad Volume from Organic Frequency.

The Real Scoop

In 2026, the term "Dark Post" is somewhat of a misnomer—it implies secrecy, but it is actually the standard operating procedure for performance marketing.

In today's world the vast majority of a brand's paid social media is considered "Dark." Sophisticated brands treat their organic feed as a "Brand Magazine" (high-quality, low-frequency content) and use Dark Posts as the "Sales Floor" (high-frequency, direct-response offers).

Furthermore, this technology has evolved into "Whitelisting" (or Allow-listing). This is where a brand runs a Dark Post through an influencer’s handle. To the user, it looks like a creator posted about the brand, but it is actually a paid ad controlled and paid for by the brand, invisible on the creator's actual grid.

Watch Outs

  • The "Ghost Comment" Graveyard: Comments on Dark Posts do not appear on your Page's notifications tab in the same way organic comments do. They live deep inside the Ad Manager. Community managers often neglect these, leading to unanswered customer complaints or unmoderated hate speech accumulating on active ads.
  • Link Rot: Dark Posts exist in perpetuity until turned off. If you change your website URL structure, old Dark Posts that are still active (or duplicated) will point to 404 errors, burning budget on dead links.
  • Social Proof Dilution: Because you are splitting your budget across 50 different Dark Post variations, the "Likes" and "Comments" are diluted across 50 ads. A single Boosted Post might show "10k Likes" (high social proof), while 50 Dark Posts might show "200 Likes" each.
  • Boosted Post: An organic post that is paid to reach a wider audience; the opposite of a Dark Post.
  • Whitelisting (Allow-listing): The practice of running Dark Posts through a third-party creator or influencer's handle.
  • Split Testing (A/B Testing): The process of comparing two versions of an ad against each other to determine which performs better.