Spicy Nugget: Boosting Facebook Posts?
“Boosting posts on Facebook? Don’t do it.”
-Adam A. Sene, CEO
Is it worth anything boosting your Facebook posts? If you’re a scanner and you just want to get the gist and get on with your day, here’s what you need to know:
The Good: Boosting is convenient and easy especially for those who aren’t particularly Facebook marketing savvy. It’s a pretty affordable self-service option to get more eyeballs and some more engagement on something you’ve posted from your page.
(If you’re reading this and are thinking, “Yeah! That sounds like me!” please just stop reading here and contact us immediately.)
The Bad: You get what you pay for in marketing, and boosting posts on Facebook doesn’t result in any real, measurable business objectives (like sales, conversions or clicks to your website).
The Ugly: Boosting posts is not an advertising strategy. If you really want your advertising dollars to go far, Facebook post boosting will be a total waste.
In a Nutshell: If Likes and Comments are valuable to you, go for it. Wait—no, don’t go for it! Call us instead! We’ll get you those things and MORE with the budget you have. Expert use of Facebook’s Ads Manager tool offers way more customization than boosting posts, so you get the engagement and visibility you crave while ALSO getting sales, conversion, and traffic to your site by people who have a strong intent to purchase or, at the very least, a likelihood of being interested in your product.
If you’re a reader and you want to know more, let’s dig deeper into questions surrounding whether boosting posts on Facebook is worth it—starting with what it actually does.
So, What Does “Boosting Posts” on Facebook Actually Do?
If you have a Facebook page for your business, you’ll see the “Boost Post” button available to you as the page’s manager on every single post you do. At the time of this writing, when you click that button you are met with 3 options for choosing a “Goal” in setting up your boosted post:
- To allow Facebook to choose the goal for you based on your page activity and settings,
- Get more engagement (reactions, comments and shares), or
- Get more messages.
You set the budget and how many days you’d like to boost that post for. You can even choose a few basic targeting parameters and voila! Hit publish, and you’re done.
After doing this, you’re likely to see more:
- Comments
- Post reactions
- Post shares
- Page follows
And you’re likely to see fewer:
- Website visits
- Product sales
- Signups, downloads or conversions
While you might get increased site traffic or a couple extra sales or sign-ups as a byproduct of boosting, it’s important to note that this is not really the primary goal of Facebook post boosting.
Boosting Posts vs Running Ads on Facebook
The purpose of boosting posts is to increase a few vanity metrics for your brand—i.e. the ones that make you look good (like impressions, likes, comments, etc.) but which do not really allow you to make future decisions about your business or help your business to grow in any real, measurable way.
Further, it’s vital to note that the way Facebook will successfully execute a boosted post is to optimize itself by showing it to people who have a higher likelihood to like/comment/react over their likelihood to click a link. And remember, just because someone is commenting doesn’t mean they’re likely to be a good fit for your business. It could be a troll, your mom or just someone who is super active on Facebook.
Using the Ads Manager, your content can be targeted in a 1,000 different ways that actually spark brand growth (and, thus, your vanity metrics), sales, conversions and subscribers, AND give you measurable insights you can act on as a business owner.
Should I Boost Posts AND Advertise with Facebook Business?
If you’re still here, the last section may have led you to this question—would it make sense to do both, Facebook ads and post boosting? It’s a fair question. Short answer: Maybe!
As a strategy, doing both may make sense if you…
- Have it in your budget to focus on boosting posts while you run ads
- Boost a post that really aligns with your overall business and marketing strategy
- Share some content that is super valuable for your community to specifically see and engagement (such as news or an important update)
- Just want to get more out of the organic content you’re sharing, and already get a ton of sales through other marketing strategy on and offline.
- Don’t care about sales, conversions, website traffic or any other measurable business and marketing objectives.
But EVEN IF those things are true, save yourself some money! Optimize your marketing strategy by chatting with a Marketing Consultant, outlining your goals and discussing what the best options would be to get you where you want to be.
You Guys Just Want Me to Run Ads ‘Cause You’re an Advertising Agency, Right?
Nah, not our style. Of course we’d love for you to become our client, but the potential within Facebook advertising is just too great for you not to at least become aware of it before making the decision to boost posts. The Ads Manager tool within the Facebook Business platform is a beast in the hands of an expert.
Facebook Advertising is an unprecedented opportunity for business owners. With a community just shy of 2 million users that you can target content, sales and ads to based on age, gender, location, relationship status, past purchase behavior, past web searches, engagement with other similar brands, and so on, and so on, and so on…
That’s something you just can’t do with post boosting.
Is There Ever a Case Where Boosting Would Make Sense?
Well, no, but sure! It’s:
- Good for testing
- Perhaps a good option for lower budget situations
- Good for those who “just don’t have time” to work out a deeper marketing strategy but want to keep wheels turning a little bit
Boosting Posts on Facebook: The Short Story
It’s easy to boost posts on Facebook. It’s right there! It’s built to be a convenient self-service promotion opportunity, and it really is so easy your 12-year-old could do it for you. But you’ll always get what you pay for in marketing, and this is no exception.
There are far, far more in-depth advertising options available in the Business.Facebook.com platform that actually enable real business objectives to be achieved (i.e.: views, conversions, sales, newsletter signups, site traffic, etc.) that Facebook Post Boosting gives you none of.
Feel like talking with a real human about your marketing goals? We’re here! Let’s do this.
