Facebook – To Boost or Not To Boost A Post

If you own a business page on Facebook, you have more than likely had Facebook urge you to ‘Boost Your Post To Reach More People.’

In layman’s terms, boosting a post is much like making an ad of pre-existing content on your Facebook newsfeed in other to reach people in and beyond your current following. The main difference between running a traditional Facebook ad and this is  Facebook ads have to be created from scratch  through Facebook’s ad manager and those are typically ad campaigns, pre-planned with longer running schedules and with set goals in mind.

As business owners, it is always exciting when we come across opportunities that require little to no effort to attract more clients. Boosting a post on Facebook is one of the best tools to use in order to reach an audience of actual substance, sometimes even people who already exist within your network. 

I discovered recently that Facebook (the company) has been focusing less on helping people with organically discovering businesses that cater to their needs and more on prioritizing the content on people’s newsfeed with posts from people they know and care about (for a fact) aka friends & family. 

For this blog, I will be going through some of the things on my own “Should I boost this post’ checklist. I hope you find them helpful 🙂 

〰️Post Content 

This is probably the most important factor when it comes to whether or not to boost a post on Facebook. If you are going to spend some advertising dollars on boosting a post, it might as well be a post that would capture the attend of your target audience. While Facebook may tell you the post is doing a certain % better than your other posts, this may not be the case when the post is boosted to a much larger audience. 

There are a few questions you could ask yourself in this case 

• What type of post is it? – i.e. is it a text post and if so, do text posts usually do better with your audience? 

• Is it a post with an image unrelated to its caption? If the user only reads the caption or just sees the image, will it get the message across? 

• How long will it take for a user to formulate their opinion on the post? It is often said that it takes 3-5 seconds to make a great first impression. The same thing applies on Facebook, when you’re trying to capture the attention of a potential client. Every second counts, therefore if the original post will take longer than 3-5 seconds (maybe slightly a bit more) to get and keep a user interested, it may just be better to create a separate ad via Facebook’s ad manager with a better plan and better logistics. 

• Is it a post that benefits me and my brand? Facebook is going to give you the option of boosting every post on your page. If a particular post does not benefit you and your brand (aka link to someone else’s site), don’t spend your advertising dollars pushing that post unless you REALLY want to do so and/or have a reason to do so (e.g. getting paid for it). 

〰️Longevity 

Tying back to the post content, if you were to boost a post, what would be the return for you in the long haul? Prior to deciding to boost a post, determine what it is you hope to accomplish by boosting the post. Whether it is to drive more traffic to your store or to garner more page likes, setting a goal prior to boosting means formulating a sensible call-to-action, as well as creating proper graphics and/or image to anchor the post, all of which would effectively help you with accomplishing your goals for the boosted post. 

〰️Immediate Response Needed

Let’s say you were running a special that you shared with your current page following. If said post isn’t garnering enough attention, boosting the post could come in extremely handy. First thing to remember though, is to boost the post only while the special last, so as not to pushing ‘expired content’ to your potential audience. For these kinds of posts, using an image to capture their attention is imperative. Not just any image – an image that *screams* special. If it’s 40% off, make sure the user doesn’t have to hit zoom on their device to tell it’s 40% off. Think of how many times you’ve scrolled past an ad, just for your subconscious to remind you of the big, bold letters that  read ‘% off.’ The exact same thing would happen to your potential clients so take advantage! 

〰️Budget 

Prior to boosting a post, I try to set a strict budget and stick to it. I say this because it can be tempting knowing you could reach way more people spending more money. The minimum budget for a boost is $1 per day and Facebook lets you boost for 1 day, 7 days (1 week), or 14 days (two weeks).

To further allocate your advertising dollars where it really matters, look into properly targeting your ads.If you run a business, that only caters to an African audience for example, you really do not want to be targeting people in Canada. In other words, there is no point in pushing content to an audience unlikely to engage. Be sure to fine-tune your audience prior to boosting, so your budget is only spent on people that actually matter. When it comes to targeting, being as specific as possible is highly recommended because relevant content meets relevant people.

〰️Reaching People Organically

Before boosting a post, it’s important to evaluate whether the post could organically flourish on its own. Give the post a few hours or even a day to see whether people are liking, commenting, and sharing it without being prompted to do so. If the post’s engagement is organically growing, you may just not need to boost that post. 

〰️User Data Is Always Helpful

Facebook gives you quite a bit of insight on people current following your page – what they do, when they do it. This information is readily available under the “Insights” tab of your Facebook business’ page. Facebook makes a clear distinction within the “Insights” tab which activities on your page were acquired organically or through paid ads / boosted posts.

If you are interested in discovering the variations of people, outside of your regular circle of followers, who engage with and/or are interested in the content you are sharing, your content, boosting a post is one way to go to uncover that data. 

〰️Do you boost often?

You know the saying, “Too Much of Anything is Bad”? It couldn’t be anymore accurate when it comes to boosting a post on Facebook. It’s very important to keep track of how often you boost posts so as to avoid ‘over-boosting’, aka appearing too frequently on your followers’ newsfeed, thus being easy to skip past, and even worse, unfollow. Ideally, you should only be boosting posts once a week, or even less. To better keep track of the number of times people have been shown a post you have boosted, visit Facebook’s Ad manager.

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Here’s something to remember: After a couple of days, you may notice a decline in reach – don’t be alarmed. This generally means the most has run its course, which also means you should probably stop boosting it. 

To wrap things up – You know what’s best for you and your business. If boosting a post will likely get you the results you need, go ahead and do so but be smart when it comes your budget and the audience you’re targeting. As a wise man once said, “anything worth doing is worth doing well.”