Boosting a Facebook post is an easy way to promote your business and increase your online reach, especially when only about 2% of your followers regularly see the posts you share to your page.
However easy does not always equate to effective and many business owners boosting their boosts can end up wasting their money.
‘Boosting posts’ and ‘running Facebook Ads’ are often used interchangeably; however, there is a difference.
Boosting a post is generally an afterthought and a short-term approach to promoting a post you’ve already published on your page. It generally involves letting Facebook dictate many of your ad settings, such as your ad goal and target audience.
Running Facebook Ads (properly) is more strategic and involves planning your posts ahead of time, writing them with the intent to boost in mind, or graduating past Boosting and moving to Facebook Ads Manager (a separate ad management site from Facebook) where you have more control over your ads.
Using Facebook Ads Manager you can create ads that don’t appear on your Facebook page timeline at all and only show to your selected targeted audience.
This allows your ads to be more experimental and more sales focused without spamming your existing page followers and customers.
Posting to your page vs advertising your business to attract new people
When business owners want to promote their business online, Boosting is an obvious choice.
You’ve already made a post and if you can spend a fairly conservative amount to get it in front of more people, why not do it?
The trouble is that your post may not provide enough information to new customers or may not give them any reason to stop and pay attention.
If you’re boosting a post, you want to make sure it clearly states what your business does or sells and makes it obvious where people should go if they want to learn more and or what your best contact method is.
While this sounds simple, a quick look at the majority of sponsored posts from small businesses on Facebook shows many are missing these obvious points.
Paying to reach the right people
Another thing you want to check is your target audience. By default, Facebook will show your post to anyone in NZ 18+ (for New Zealand based pages). If you’re a smaller service-based business then boosting with this default audience means that as much as 80% of your boost/ad spend is likely being spent outside of your service area and therefore wasted.
Make sure you specify your targeted location.
You can also narrow your targeting by age, gender and interests as well so you’re reaching those most likely to be interested in what you’re selling.
Once you’ve set your targeting parameters, Facebook will provide an estimated audience size which is helpful for understanding and interpreting your ad reach relative to your ad spend.
Understanding what you’re paying for
Ad performance varies a lot and is largely dictated by the ad objective.
Many people want to get their posts in front of more people however exactly how many people will see your boosted post/ad depends on the ad goal.
Goals like Engagement or Get More Messages means Facebook will show your post to people most likely to like or comment on your post or send your business a message.
This means Facebook may show your post multiple times to the same people in order to meet this objective, this is why you often see the same ad over and over again.
On the other hand, if you select a Reach objective, Facebook will show your post to as many different people as possible, with each person in your target audience generally only seeing your ad once rather than multiple times.
Below are five questions you should ask yourself before boosting a post.
- Does this post give a good first impression of my business?
- Do I know who my ideal customer is and can I use Facebook’s targeting tools to reach them?
- What is my main goal of boosting this post?
- Do I have a clear call-to-action on this post? What action do I want people seeing it to take?
- Is the post visually appealing and engaging or are people likely to scroll right past it?
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Key takeaways
#1 Always double check your location targeting. This is perhaps the biggest mistake people make and an easy fix, when you go to boost your post or run any Facebook ad you’ll have the option to choose your location targeting. Here you can select your key service area otherwise Facebook will show your ads across the country. It can help to add your service area to your ad copy as well.
#2 Have a clear call to action. What should people do after they see your boosted post/ad? Whether it’s simply following your page, visiting your website or physical store or calling your business, make it obvious and give people all the info they need to do so.
#3 Use engaging messaging. Ensure your post/ad clearly communicates the value your business offers rather than just a bare minimum description or simply repeating your business name.
If you’re wanting to be more consistent and strategic with your paid social media efforts, a great starting point is to choose which ad creative is best for your business which may involve working with a photographer or graphic designer to create a high quality visual for your business to use.
Then you can refine your message, target audience and allocate a daily or monthly ad spend and build this into your marketing budget.
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Bio:
Jason Benbow – Small Business Digital Marketing Consultant
Jason has been in the digital marketing space for 7 years and is passionate about helping self-employed individuals and small businesses owners grow their brand awareness and client base using the wide range of digital marketing tools available with a focus on Meta and Google platforms.
He applies his experience from working in agencies to provide flexible and accessible digital marketing advice and services to the small business community.
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Author: Jason Benbow
