With over 65 million active small business pages on Facebook, it’s becoming increasingly difficult to generate organic reach on social media due to the high number of posts and users.
Do you find yourself hitting the Facebook “Boost Post” button and hoping for results? Many novices are turning to the boost post button to get their content out there because it’s quick and easy. However, while it’s tempting to click away, boosting, in most cases, is not the best option to drive true business value for your brand. When you hit “boost”, you’re paying for likes, shares and comments. More often than not, this isn’t typically the goal of most businesses. If it is, boost away! But first, check out this story of an Instagram “influencer” with over 2.6 million followers who couldn’t sell 36 T-shirts.
In today’s day and age of fluff tactics, fake followers, and empty popularity contests, it is increasingly important to keep your eye on your goals and the best way to get there, whatever platform you’re on. With the Facebook boost post option so easy to use, especially for those with little to no advertising skills, you could be throwing your money out the window, literally!
What is a Boost Post?
A “Boost Post” is the upgraded version of a “Promote Post”, which was launched in 2012. It’s an easy way to “sponsor” your content and reach a wider audience without leaving your Facebook page. According to Facebook, a boosted post is a “post to your page’s timeline that you can apply money to in order to boost it to an audience of your choosing.” You go to your Facebook page and find a post you want to promote and click the blue box in the bottom right of the post. You then choose your audience, budget and campaign duration. The options are very limited to optimize the results you need, which is generally a complete waste of money since you don’t have full targeting functionality.
Three Reasons Why You Should Not Boost Your Posts
1. Limited Audience Targeting
With a Facebook boost post, the only options you’re targeting are:
- People who like your Page
- People who like your Page and their friends
- People you choose through targeting
Audience targeting is one of the most crucial elements when it comes to advertising. For the people who like your page, you’re massively limiting your potential reach. While boosted posts allow you to do some demographic and interest-based targeting, there is little room to incorporate custom audience targeting.
The fastest way to waste your money is by showing your ad to the wrong people. By continuing to show ads to the wrong audience, it can be annoying and put people off your brand. It’s important to target the right people for your audience and to exclude certain groups of people when applicable as well.
2. No Way to Split Test
A split test, also known as A/B testing, is a marketing strategy where two elements of a marketing campaign are tested against each other to analyze which one will deliver the best results. A/B testing lets you change variables, such as your ad creative, audience or placement to determine which strategy performs best and improve future campaigns. Testing is key to understanding what is working and what is not. One of the biggest reasons that brands fail in their Facebook advertising efforts is that they do not split test. However, when you boost a post, there’s no way to split test your campaign. This means you won’t be able to improve your campaign over time.
3. You Can’t Choose Ad Placement
When you’re boosting posts, Facebook doesn’t allow you to choose where you want to place your ads. The default option is Desktop News Feed and Mobile News Feed. Facebook will choose the cheapest way to achieve an objective, even if it will destroy your overall campaign results. Facebook will put your ad in front of the cheapest audience, so it’s highly unlikely your ad will be seen by people who may be interested. Also, when you boost a post, there are only three platform options for your ads to appear on: Facebook, Messenger and Instagram. The more placement options means more opportunities for your ads to be seen beyond these three platforms, so consider using Facebook Ad Manager and a full campaign for long-term ROI.
Facebook Ad Manager
Through Facebook Ads Manager, your campaign includes advanced customization solutions. Facebook Ads can be optimized for website conversions, video views, app installs, shop orders and more. Capabilities are through the roof and provide much more bang for your buck.
Right Strategy. Right Time.
At Elev8 Consulting Group, we provide you with the right strategy to achieve your goals. With over 15 years of experience, we help you connect the dots and get from A to Z, faster and more efficiently. We specialize in business strategy, online marketing, branding, and everything in between.
