To Boost or Not to Boost

To Boost or Not to Boost

If you have a Facebook page for your business, and are posting regularly, you will certainly have seen a message like this: ‘Your page’s post is performing better than 95% of recent posts – promote it to reach a wider audience’.

When this happens, Facebook is trying to persuade you to spend money on advertising, and this is not necessarily a bad thing – but there might be better ways to achieve results.

Promoting a post in this way is ‘boosting’, which is not as effective as creating an advert.

Let’s explore the difference between boosting a post and creating an advert.

Boosting a post is quick and easy – select Boost Post and you will be taken to page where you will be able to determine your goal, audience and budget:

Goal

· Automatic (let Facebook decide based on your settings)

· Get more messages

· Get more engagement

· Get more website visitors

· Get more leads

· Get more calls

Button – this is your ‘call to action’ – what you would like your audience to do next:

Book Now – Shop Now – Learn More – Sign Up – Get Directions – Send Message – WhatsApp – Call Now

Audience – here you will be able to choose or create your desired audience by gender, age, location, demographics, interests and behaviours

Duration and total budget

Placements – Facebook, Instagram, Messenger

That’s it! Your post should now reach more people than an organic one

If boosting a post is so easy, why would you want to create an advert instead?

Creating an advert will give you the chance to customise your post with many more detailed targeting options for the same cost!

Ads Manager will guide you through the process of creating and publishing an advert:

Create A New Campaign

· Choose A Campaign Objective

· Awareness – Brand Awareness - Reach

· Consideration – Traffic – Engagement – APP Installs – Video Views – Lead Generation – Messages

· Conversion – Conversions – Catalogue Sales – Store Traffic

The next page will enable you to name your campaign, choose the buying type (auction or reach & frequency), opt for A/B testing, and select a budget

Ad Set

· Schedule – set your start and end date, minimum and maximum spend limits

· Audience – use a saved audience or create a new one – custom (reach people who have already interacted with your business) or lookalike (reach new people similar to your most valuable audiences)

· Select gender, age, location, demographics, interest and behaviours – note that you can also include existing connections, and exclude certain categories – keep an eye on the ‘Audience Definition’ tool on the right-hand side, which will help you optimise your reach

· Placements – Automatic or Manual – this gives you the option for Facebook to decide the best platforms, or select your own: Facebook feed, marketplace, video, right column, groups, stories, search, instant articles, Instagram feed, explore, stories, reels, IGTV, Messenger inbox, stories, sponsored messages

New Ad

This is the fun bit where you can get creative with a completely new advert, use an existing post or Creative Hub mockup to get your message across. Choose a single image or video, carousel or collection, and add your primary text – this should be punchy and to the point, using 125 characters or less for best results. You can also add a headline, up to 5 link descriptions, website or landing page, plus a call to action

Publish!

Whether you decide to boost a post or create an advert, there are a few points to remember.

1. Objective – what do you want to achieve from your advert

2. Audience – select your audience carefully to get maximum exposure to the right people

3. Call to action – make it clear what you would like your audience to do next

4. Have fun – play about with a few different ideas to see what works best

5. Use the analytics available to you