Facebook helps small and local businesses to gain visibility in their local communities, get found by more potential customers, and build their audience. Facebook is free, but it also offers some paid options that make it easy and affordable for small business owners to advertise themselves effectively. One Facebook advertising option is Facebook Boost Posts. Read on to learn about what Boosted Posts are, when and how to boost posts, and their advantages and disadvantages for business.
What is a Boosted Post on Facebook?
Boosted Posts are the most basic advertising option Facebook has to offer. Organic reach on Facebook is low across the board to begin with, which means that a post on its own is likely to reach a very small portion of your target audience. With Boosted Posts, Facebook takes a previously shared post from your Facebook business page and makes it more prominent across the platform.
Boosted Posts vs News Feed Ads
Boosted Posts are similar to News Feed Ads because they are both paid Facebook advertisements that appear on users’ News Feeds. However, as you can see by the name, Boosted Posts can only be created out of previous Facebook posts. News Feed Ads, on the other hand, can be created out of a wider range of content. Boosted Ads have fewer options than News Feed Ads in terms of goals, objectives, and targeting, which make them a great option for someone just starting out with Facebook advertising.
Related: How to Make Facebook Work for Your Business
Advantages of Boosting Posts on Facebook
In addition to being a great first step for Facebook advertising, Boosting Posts offers a few other advantages.
Increased Visibility
With the amount of content constantly being publishing on Facebook, organic posts can easily get lost in the shuffle. Facebook Boosted Posts appear higher in users’ News Feeds, giving them a greater chance of being noticed. Posts appearing higher in Facebook News Feeds is akin to website pages appearing higher in search engine results. They get more exposure.
Greater Reach
Compared to a free post, Boosted Posts are likely to reach a larger and more relevant audience. In addition to appearing in front of your fans and followers, Boosted Posts can also target users based on location, interest, age, and gender. This gets your business on the News Feeds of users who may be interested in your business, but whom you have not yet reached.
Ease of Use
Facebook makes the Boosted Post process very easy. You can boost any kind of post, be it status updates, photos, videos, or offers from your business page. Facebook automatically formats them for News Feed specifications, saving you time and work.
When to Boost a Facebook Post
As mentioned above, just because you can turn anything into a Boosted Post doesn’t mean you should. Read on to better understand the best time to boost a post.
Proper Engagement
A post should not be boosted solely for the sake of obtaining a bunch of likes. Likes are a type of engagement, and engagement is good! However, proper engagement with your posts is the result you should aim for.
What is proper engagement? Proper engagement is when people in your target audience are liking the post, asking questions about it, tagging friends in the comments, or sharing the post. It’s when they are taking action that helps to grow your business, such as filling out lead forms, visiting landing pages, visiting your website, or even converting into customers.
For example, let’s say you own a trendy clothing boutique, and you post a link to Urban Outfitters’ new spring line. Since the post is thoughtful, relevant to your industry, and interesting to your audience, the post gets more engagement than usual. However, that does not mean you should boost it. Boosting that post will lead to increased traffic and engagement to Urban Outfitters, not your business.
Boost for Relevancy
You should only boost high-performing posts if they are relevant to your business specifically, and facilitate important behaviors such as website visits, conversions, and even sales.
Why Should I Pay to Post Something on Facebook?
If it’s free to post on Facebook, then why pay to play? One of the reasons social media marketing has such a huge upside is because it’s free. However, if you really want to make a name for yourself online, paid advertising is the way to go as it can significantly boost your visibility, brand awareness, and more.
Unless you have tens of thousands of followers, your organic Facebook posts probably won’t reach as many News Feeds as you’d like, so you’re essentially relying on your fans and followers to see them by going directly to your business page. When you pay Facebook to promote your posts, you increase your visibility on newsfeeds and across Facebook—to those most likely to be interested in your business.
Even Facebook business pages with 100k followers pay to play. Facebook targeting is so effective that it can help even large businesses to reach new audiences.
If you’re unsure about Facebook advertising, give it a go with a Boosted Post! Use the information above to guide you, and use the results to improve your strategy over time.
Related: Facebook Marketing for Business Owners
