Top 3 Ways to Boost a Post (Strategically)

Top 3 Ways to Boost a Post (Strategically)

Boosting a post is super easy. Facebook wants it to be that way. But, you can also easily waste money, and I don’t want that to happen to you!

When you boost a post, you’re telling Facebook to show it to as many people as possible (and that’s it). Yes, you are TELLING Facebook what to do. Each ad objective inside of Facebook (including the little boost button) tells Facebook what outcome you want for that ad. So, when you select ‘boost’, it knows to show it to as many people as possible because that’s the goal of the ‘boost’ feature.

Sounds great, right?

Well, not really if you want sales, likes, shares, comments, or opt ins from it. That’s not what you’re telling Facebook to do. Here are a few ways you CAN boost a post AND get more than just eyes looking at it.

1) Use It to Warm up a Cold Audience

A recent strategy that I’ve been using with clients is to boost a post to get more engagement. I determine what posts on my client’s wall were highly engaging (meaning they had a lot of likes, clicks, shares, comments). This means my clients’ fans LOVED that post, and I want to increase that engagement because inside of Power Editor, I’ve created a “custom audience” of people who are engaging with posts on their wall.

And why is this so great?

Well, let me give you a scenario. Let’s say a client’s ultimate goal is to get more opt ins to her free crossfit training guide. What I do is encourage my client to post things on her Facebook page that are aligned with this free guide (videos of exercises, a tip a day, specific weights to use, etc.). These posts will attract the fans who are very interested in crossfit and are likely to “like,” “comment,” or “share” the post. When they do this, they are ‘engaging with the posts’ and remember….in the background I’ve created a custom audience to collect all these people. So, when I’m ready to run that conversion ad to get the opt in, I’m going to show the ad to the people in that custom audience because they have been engaging all along with the posts on her Facebook page and are more likely to opt in.

Brilliant.

2) Have a Goal in Mind:

Boosting is great because it is shown to a larger number of people, but have a goal in mind when you decide to boost. Maybe you have a great freebie inside a new blog post on your website. You could boost your post and include a strong call to action so that people know to click to the website to read the blog. Be specific and people will follow instructions. For example: “Click to read whether or not you should boost a post on your Facebook page” would be a call to action I’d use. Boosting doesn’t show it to people who are likely to click over, but it will be shown to more people than it would organically, so you have better odds to reach the goal you want.

3) Boost the Engaging Posts:

Organic reach is low which means not all your fans are seeing your posts and hence, they’re not engaging with your page. Facebook wants you to have more engagement on your page. By engagement, I mean more likes, clicks, shares, and comments. The more engaged people are, the more likely Facebook’s algorithm will push those engaging posts into your fan's news feeds.

Engagement = More Reach (FREE reach). We want more free!

One way to do that is to spend a bit of money on boosting posts that you know are engaging. The ones that you know your fans enjoyed. You can easily find these stats in the Insights tab on your Facebook page.

When you get to the Insights page, scroll to “Posts” on the left side of the screen. This will show you all your posts and how engaging each one was to your fans. From here, you can quickly boost your post for $1-$2 and get more eyes on it to get MORE engagement.  This will tell Facebook that your page is valuable to your fans and will push those regular posts out into your fan’s news feed (for free).

Bottom line: There are some beneficial reasons to boost a post, but don’t use it as the ONLY method of advertising. Boosting should be used sparingly. If you truly want to advertise, use Power Editor. It is more robust, allows you more targeting options, provides call to action buttons, and offers specific ad objectives that will get you the goal you want.

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