Facebook’s algorithm has made it difficult for some brands to get their content onto their followers’ feeds. In order to help drive engagement, many marketers choose to use Facebook boosted posts in order to get more likes, comments, and shares from their audience.

But is marketing on Facebook really as easy as pushing a button?

While Facebook boosted posts can look like it’s helping your campaign, the truth is that boosts greatly limit how much control you have over the ad.

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What is a Facebook Boosted Post?

When you share a post on Facebook, you will see an option to boost the post via paid ads. This button makes Facebook boosted posts an easy way to sponsor your content without having to search through settings and options.

Facebook boosted posts can help you reach new audiences who are likely to comment, share, and like your content. Marketers like the boost feature because it’s simple and they can avoid the frustration of low engagement.

Facebook Boosted Posts

Although it can be tempting to press the boost button, boosting often does not drive real results. Its lack of options makes it nearly impossible to create an optimised ad campaign.

Do Facebook Boosted Posts Work?

After you decide to boost a post on Facebook, the system will allow you to pick your audience, budget, and ad duration. What you don’t get to choose is the goal of your campaign. Instead, Facebook automatically decides what the goal is, and it can work against you.

If you select to manually change your campaign’s goal, you are given three options:

  • Get more messages,
  • Get more engagement, and
  • Get more leads.

These options are significantly more limited than if you were to use Facebook Ad Manager.

In addition to the limited goal options for boosting posts, users also cannot target different devices or reduce the cost of the ad. And, if you want to make an edit to the ad you’re boosting you need to delete it entirely and start the process over again.

If these limitations aren’t enough to convince you to avoid the boost button, keep reading for 6 more reasons why Facebook boosted posts just don’t work.
Facebook boosted posts

When to Boost Posts: Maximizing Your Reach and Engagement

Facebook can feel like a crowded party sometimes, with organic reach dwindling for everyone except those with massive followings. That’s where boosting posts comes in, but knowing when to hit that boost button is key to optimizing your budget and achieving your goals. Let’s explore the scenarios where boosted posts can shine, along with alternative strategies when boosting might not be the best solution.

Boosting for Maximum Impact:

** Promote a new product launch:** Generate buzz and immediate visibility for your latest offering. Boosting a post with eye-catching visuals and a compelling launch offer can drive early adopters and sales.

** Drive traffic to a landing page:** Need conversions for a special offer or webinar registration? Boosted posts with targeted CTAs can send interested users directly to your landing page, boosting conversion rates.

** Amplify event registrations:** Spread the word about your upcoming event and attract attendees. Target audience interests and locations to reach qualified participants and maximize registrations.

** Increase engagement for high-performing content:** A piece of organic content resonating with your audience? Give it a boost to reach a wider relevant audience and spark further conversations and shares.

** Reach new audiences for evergreen content:** Valuable tips or resources never go out of style. Boosting evergreen content can attract fresh audience segments interested in your expertise and build long-term brand awareness.

Alternative Strategies to Consider:

** Organic content optimization:** While boosting offers a quick reach boost, consider investing in long-term organic growth strategies like consistent posting, valuable content creation, and community engagement.

** Targeted outreach and collaborations:** Partner with similar accounts or influencers in your niche. Cross-promotion and targeted outreach can organically expand your reach to relevant audiences.

** Content experiment and refinement:** Analyze what resonates with your audience through post insights and experiment with different content formats, visuals, and posting times to increase organic reach.

** Paid advertising campaigns:** For a more granular and customizable approach, consider creating dedicated Facebook ad campaigns with precise targeting, budget allocation, and conversion tracking capabilities.

Remember: Boosting works best as a tactical tool within a broader social media strategy. Evaluate your goals, content type, and audience before hitting the boost button. Don’t neglect organic optimization and alternative strategies for building sustainable growth.

Final Tip: A/B test different boosting budgets, targeting parameters, and ad creative variations to refine your approach and maximize your return on investment.

By understanding when to boost and when to employ alternative strategies, you can make your Facebook presence truly shine and achieve your specific social media objectives. Remember, it’s not just about boosting posts, it’s about boosting your business with a well-rounded and data-driven social media strategy.

Boosting Your Way to Success: A Step-by-Step Visual Guide

Ready to give your Facebook posts a power boost? Follow this visual guide and watch your content reach new heights!

Step 1: Choose Your Champion:

1. Navigate to the post you want to elevate. Click the “Boost Post” button beneath it.

2. Select your desired objective: Reach more people, get more engagement, drive website traffic, or promote an event. Choose wisely, as it determines your targeting and optimization options.

Step 3: Target the Right Crowd:

1. Enter your target audience based on demographics (location, age, gender, etc.) and interests.

2. Go beyond the basics! Utilize “Detailed Targeting” for niche options like behaviors (recent purchasers, travelers), life events (new job, newlyweds), and even interests by category (sports, music, gaming).

3. Pro Tip: Combine broad and narrow targeting to reach a relevant but expansive audience.

Step 4: Budgeting for Success:

1. Choose your budget: Daily or lifetime for the duration of your boost.

2. Set a maximum bid, the highest amount you’re willing to pay for each impression or action (depending on your objective).

3. Experiment with different budgets and bidding strategies based on your goals and campaign performance.

Step 5: Craft your Creative Arsenal:

1. Optimize your post visuals for Facebook’s recommended ad sizes and aspect ratios.

2. Write compelling ad copy that resonates with your target audience and aligns with your objective.

3. Don’t forget a clear call to action! Tell users what you want them to do, like visit your website, sign up for an event, or engage with your post.

Step 6: Boost On!:

1. Review your targeting, budget, and creative elements one last time.

2. Hit the “Boost Post” button and watch your content take flight!

Bonus Tips for Optimal Spend:

  • Monitor your campaign performance: Analyze reach, engagement, and conversion metrics in real-time.
  • Optimize your budget and bids: Adjust based on results, allocating more resources to high-performing elements.
  • A/B test different creatives and targeting options: Discover what resonates best with your audience.
  • Don’t overspend: Set spending limits and track your return on investment (ROI) to ensure effectiveness.

By following these steps and utilizing advanced targeting and optimization strategies, you can make your Facebook post boosts truly worthwhile. Remember, it’s not just about spending money, but about spending it strategically to reach the right audience and achieve your social media goals.

Why Don’t Boosts Drive Results?

Facebook boosted posts can cost a lot of money for little results, because they have very limited options and only drive engagement.

Boosting posts is a waste of time and money, and is simply just a source of revenue for Facebook. Because boosted posts seem successful but secretly aren’t helping you, boosted posts take advantage of people who don’t know how they work.

Some people even believe that once you’ve boosted a post for the first time, your organic reach for new posts begins to decline. This leads to businesses feeling forced to continue boosting posts in order to reach an audience.

Instead of spending money just to line Facebook’s pockets, try Facebook Ad Manager and take control of your campaign.

1. Limited Demographic Options

The more you understand your target audience, the more effective your marketing strategy will be.

When you use a Facebook boosted post, you are given three demographic options:

  1.  People who like your page,
  2.  People who like your page and their friends, and
  3.  People you choose through targeting.

A majority of marketers will leave the target audience as “People who like your page” while significantly less than half will select “People you choose through targeting”. The truth is, this last option is the most likely to deliver ROI out of the three.

Instead of using one of these three options, by manually editing your audience you are given much more power to optimise your ad. In the editing menu, you can choose age ranges, gender preferences, and narrow down the area you want to promote the ad in.

2. One Campaign Objective

Facebook boosted posts only provide you with one campaign objective: to generate more engagement.

While there’s nothing wrong with running an engagement campaign and getting more likes, shares, and comments, there are many other campaigns that you could be running instead.

Engagement posts only help you to grow your Facebook audience. This means that these posts don’t directly translate into sales. Posting only for engagement makes it very difficult to generate ROI from Facebook boosted posts, compared to other options which are more CRO and revenue focused.

When creating a campaign through Facebook Ad Manager, there are ten campaign objectives that you can choose from – meaning that nine of these aren’t available to you when boosting a campaign.

An image showing all of the campaign objectives you have access to if you don't use Facebook boosted posts

3. Uncustomisable delivery schedule

When you boost a post on Facebook, you aren’t able to change the ad’s delivery schedule.

The only option you are given is when you want your ad to end. This is a good option to have, since it keeps you from indefinitely boosting your post and continuously charging it to your credit card.

Unfortunately, the end date is the only option you have when using a Facebook boosted post. This means that you miss out on some very valuable features that Facebook offers.

If you use the Facebook Scheduling tool instead, you have the power to choose the exact days of the week and hours that you want your ad to appear, which gives you more targeting power.

For example, if you run a restaurant and want to promote your dinner specials on Wednesday nights, boosting your post will not allow you to specify the day and time people see your campaign.

This can be confusing or unhelpful to potential customers, since they will most likely won’t be deciding what’s for dinner Wednesday on a Sunday morning. The other option here would be to manually boost a post every Wednesday, which would take up way too much of your time, so that isn’t ideal either.

4. No behaviour options

Many Facebook users check-in at restaurants, post while on vacation, and share purchases that they’ve made recently. When they do, Facebook tracks all of this information to build profiles of its users.

In fact, studies show that Facebook’s AI can more accurately predict someone’s likes and personality than their friends, co-workers, and even family.

This may seem crazy, but it’s incredibly helpful for marketers. This data allows you to target your perfect audience based on their purchase behaviour, where they check in, and more.

Unfortunately, this impeccable targeting data isn’t available when you boost a post on Facebook.

5. You can’t add a headline

Some ads in your feed may have a bolded headline just under the image, while others do not. By boosting a post on Facebook, you miss out on this helpful feature.

While a headline may not seem like a game changer, it certainly is. If the goal of your ad is to drive revenue and traffic to your site, a headline will help your campaign stand out in your audience’s feed.

This is a basic lever that brands can use to influence more people to click through to their site, so without a headline you have less control and your CTR will be worse.

On Facebook, headlines are bolded and have a larger font size than the other text within the ad. This draws people’s eyes to the headline and captures their attention, giving your ad a leg up on the competition.

A carousel ad for makeup by Boots

Carousel image ads are very common across Facebook. They contain up to five photos for users to scroll through and each photo is given its own headline and description.

Ads that feature carousel images are more engaging than ads that contain one image or only text. They give marketers the opportunity to promote more than one product or service per ad, and they are interactive for the consumer.

Since these ads outperform other campaigns, many brands choose to use carousel images in their strategy. However, carousel ads aren’t available for brands who choose to use Facebook boosted posts.

Supercharge Your Boosted Posts: Tips for Winning Engagement

Facebook isn’t just a social platform anymore; it’s a bustling marketplace for attention. To stand out with boosted posts, you need to create content that compels, entices, and converts. Here are some detailed tips to optimize your creatives, A/B test like a pro, and witness the magic of effective boosted post campaigns:

Visual Storytelling:

  • High-quality visuals are non-negotiable: Utilize professional-looking images, infographics, or video snippets that grab attention instantly.
  • Go beyond generic stock photos: Choose visuals that directly relate to your post content and resonate with your target audience’s interests.
  • Utilize video power: Short, engaging videos are dynamite for boosted posts. Showcase product demos, behind-the-scenes glimpses, or user testimonials to spark curiosity.
  • Color psychology matters: Opt for vibrant colors that evoke the emotions you want to elicit (e.g., blue for trust, green for growth).

Copywriting Craftsmanship:

  • Headline magic: Craft compelling headlines that pique curiosity and urge users to click. Use strong verbs, ask questions, or highlight benefits.
  • Concise clarity: Keep your copy to the point. Use simple language, avoid jargon, and focus on the core message.
  • Emotional connection: Tap into your audience’s desires, fears, or aspirations. Make your copy relatable and speak directly to their needs.
  • Call to action, loud and clear: Tell users what you want them to do! Use strong verbs like “Shop Now,” “Sign Up,” or “Learn More.”

A/B Testing for Optimization:

  • Don’t settle for guesswork: Test different elements of your boosted posts to see what works best.
  • Headline variations: Try different headlines to see which generates the most clicks.
  • Visual experimentation: Compare images, videos, and even different color palettes to identify the most engaging visuals.
  • CTA optimization: Test different calls to action to see which prompts the most desired action.
  • Use Facebook’s built-in tools: Leverage Facebook’s A/B testing features to analyze which variations perform better.

Success Stories and Inspiration:

  • Case Study: Local Bakery Boosts Sales: A bakery owner boosted a post featuring a new cupcake flavor, targeting local food enthusiasts. This resulted in a 200% increase in online orders and in-store visits.
  • Campaign Highlight: Clothing Brand Builds Buzz: A clothing brand launched a new collection with boosted posts featuring user-generated content. This not only increased brand awareness but also triggered organic user engagement and sales.
  • Viral Success: Nonprofit Spreads Awareness: A volunteer organization boosted a video highlighting their community work, targeting potential donors. The video reached over 1 million people and secured new funding for their initiatives.

Remember: The best boosted posts are a strategic blend of eye-catching visuals, compelling copy, and clear calls to action. A/B testing helps you find the winning formula, while success stories provide inspiration and insights into what resonates with audiences.

Bonus Tip: Utilize Facebook’s “Insights” to analyze your boosted post performance. Track metrics like reach, engagement, and conversions to refine your strategy and maximize your return on investment.

Think Before You Boost a Post

Even though boosting a post can seem like a great way to gain more likes, comments, and shares on your ads, it comes with many deficits.

The goal of a good marketing campaign is to get the highest ROI possible from your ads. In order to do that, you need to use the key features and options that just aren’t available from the boost button.

In order to get more out of your Facebook ads, use Facebook Ad Manager instead to see greater results and improve your targeting.

FAQ

Q: How much should I boost a post for?

A: There’s no one-size-fits-all answer, as it depends on your budget, goals, and audience size. Start with a small budget and experiment to see what works best. Track your results and adjust your spend based on performance.

Q: What are some creative formats I can use for boosted posts?

A: Go beyond static images! Try video ads, slideshows, carousel ads, or even Facebook Live sessions to capture attention and tell your story in a dynamic way.

Q: How often should I run boosted post campaigns?

A: It depends on your ongoing content strategy and goals. Consider short bursts for promoting specific events or launches, or ongoing campaigns for evergreen content or brand awareness. Analyze results and adjust frequency based on performance.

Q: What if my boosted posts aren’t performing well?

A: Analyze the data! Check your targeting, creatives, and budget allocation. Try A/B testing different elements to find what resonates with your audience. Sometimes, it’s about refining your approach, not giving up.

Q: Can I boost someone else’s post?

A: Only if you’re listed as a contributor to the post or if the original poster grants you permission. Respect others’ content and don’t boost without authorization.

Conclusion

The Facebook universe is vast and filled with competition, but boosted posts can be your rocket ship to a wider audience and greater engagement. By using eye-catching visuals, compelling copywriting, and clear calls to action, you can craft boosted posts that cut through the noise and achieve your social media goals. Remember, A/B testing is your friend, and success stories offer inspiration and valuable insights. So, unleash your creativity, embrace experimentation, and watch your boosted posts become powerful tools for achieving social media success!

Embrace the world of boosted posts with confidence, track your performance, refine your strategy, and witness your Facebook presence soar to new heights. Remember, it’s not just about boosting posts, it’s about boosting your brand and captivating your audience in this dynamic digital landscape. So, buckle up, let your creativity take the wheel, and embark on a journey of impactful boosted post campaigns!

To improve your Facebook marketing strategy, contact ProfileTree today.

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