{"id":4957,"date":"2017-06-22T13:23:21","date_gmt":"2017-06-22T03:23:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.staging.tired-sense.flywheelsites.com\/?p=4957"},"modified":"2023-07-19T15:24:41","modified_gmt":"2023-07-19T05:24:41","slug":"cracking-code-boost-facebook-post","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/undullify.com\/cracking-code-boost-facebook-post\/","title":{"rendered":"Cracking the Code: When & Why to Boost a Facebook Post"},"content":{"rendered":"
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You see it there, tempting you every time you publish an update on your Facebook page: the navy blue \u201cBoost Post\u201d button.<\/p>\n
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As the name implies, this button helps your updates reach a broader audience than they otherwise would.<\/p>\n
But when should you boost your posts? And how do you get the best deal out of boosts?<\/p>\n
Sometimes, Facebook will even send you a notification suggesting you boost your posts. Is Facebook trying to tell you something?<\/p>\n
This article will give an insider view on when it is most appropriate to take advantage of those boosts, and how to get the most bang for your buck.<\/p>\n
It is easy to confuse boosted posts with regular Facebook ads.<\/p>\n
In the newsfeed, at least, they look extremely similar: like your average Facebook update tagged with the word \u201csponsored.\u201d<\/p>\n
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The main difference between a boosted post and an in-feed Facebook ad is that boosted posts exist first on your page<\/strong>.<\/p>\n You publish a post to your page, and then you can opt to boost it.<\/p>\n On the other hand, Facebook ads are created in the Ads Manager, and do not have to be something organically available on your page.<\/p>\n Some Facebook experts claim that you should never use boosted posts, because they can decrease your organic reach.<\/p>\n This is true to an extent: if you instantly boost a post the moment you publish it, you can hurt your organic reach by not giving your post a chance to flourish on its own.<\/p>\n But the claim that you should never<\/em> use them is categorically false; in some cases, they can even reach more people for the same amount of money<\/a> as a regular ad.<\/p>\n With organic reach on Facebook plummeting to a staggering 6%<\/a>, most people who are already fans of your Facebook page will never see your update unless you Boost them.<\/p>\n There are three ways to target a boosted post:<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n The type of boost that you choose depends on your goals and how universally engaging your posts are.<\/p>\n I\u2019ll explain that more in a minute, I promise!<\/p>\n First of all, I’m making the assumption that you have worked hard to do everything right and avoid the mistakes that cause your Facebook engagement to plummet<\/a>.<\/p>\n Basically, you are building an audience that is actually legitimately interested in your products or services.<\/p>\n Boosting your posts to your current fans will be much, much less effective if you\u2019ve been growing a disinterested audience, so this is actually really important.<\/p>\n Also, you should be following good posting practices for the types of updates people like to share<\/a>: the images in your updates should be colorful, especially warm colors (these stand out from the Facebook interface) and a decent amount of contrast.<\/p>\n While there may be exceptions, you are most likely going to want to boost updates that are links (vs. other types of updates, like images and videos), and you\u2019ll probably only want to boost links to your own website.<\/p>\n Give your updates the best shot at success by crafting a short and sweet bit of text to accompany them.<\/p>\n If you do everything right, you\u2019ll get a decent engagement rate. Facebook may even notify you, letting you know that your update is performing better than 80%, 90%, or even 95% of the posts on your page.<\/p>\n This type of notification will urge you to do a boost to reach an even broader audience.<\/p>\n Facebook isn\u2019t barking up the wrong tree here: often, when you get this kind of notification, boosting is a great idea!<\/p>\n Even if you aren\u2019t getting a notification about your update, wait a day or so after posting it and see what your engagement is like.<\/p>\n Is it higher than usual? Are you getting a bunch of shares? These are all indicators that it may be the right time to boost a post.<\/p>\n When you decide you want to boost a post, you\u2019ll need to decide how you want to target it: to reach your existing audience, or to expand your audience.<\/p>\n The audience that you have built may be small, but it is made up of some of your biggest fans \u2013 after all, they are interested enough in your products or services that they have sought you out and become fans.<\/p>\n Boosting to your existing audience is especially useful for sales-oriented updates or service announcements.<\/p>\n Maybe you\u2019ve got a really exciting product update, or you\u2019re launching a new service. Help a greater percentage of your fanbase know about it by boosting your announcement to them!<\/p>\n Consider whether boosting to your fans and their friends is appropriate.<\/p>\n If you are a small business that serves a particular area, boosting to friends of fans isn\u2019t a bad idea; most of your fans\u2019 friends are likely in a similar geographic area, and this kind of sponsored post has added social proof in it.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n However, sometimes the friends of your fans will probably not be interested in your products or services, so you can increase your engagement rate (and get more bang for your buck) by targeting fans only.<\/p>\n An example would be if you have an online service that targets a pretty specific niche. This targeting method seems simple, but it can really pack a punch.<\/p>\n Scott Ayres shared an example where he used a boosted post to promote his bouncy castle business; he spent $20 on the boosted post and generated $2,400 in sales<\/a>.<\/p>\n Whoa.<\/p>\n Expanding Your Audience with a Boosted Post<\/strong><\/p>\n If your post is highly engaging, especially to an audience broader than your own audience (here\u2019s one way to tell: it\u2019s getting a lot of shares!), choose the custom targeting option to reach a broader audience than is currently following your page.<\/p>\n Under the right conditions, you can really get a lot of traffic and new page likes for not a lot of money this way!<\/p>\n Targeting on boosted posts is pretty much a simplified version of regular Facebook ad targeting<\/a>. If you need more specific options than location, interests, age, and gender. I suggest you opt for a regular ad.<\/p>\n For my blog\u2019s Facebook page, I regularly target an audience of female colorists in the United States with my boosted posts.<\/p>\n I\u2019ve saved this audience so I can use it over and over. In one particularly successful boost for this blog post<\/a>, I targeted this audience and reached over 3,400 people.<\/p>\n I got 70 click-throughs, two new page likes (though I expect in reality this was higher), 6 likes, and 6 shares.<\/p>\n That\u2019s just from the reach I paid for; organically, the same update reached over 2,200 people. All for only $9!<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Obviously, if you\u2019ve got a business and you\u2019re not just promoting a hobby blog like me, you probably have a little bit more to spend on Facebook ads.<\/p>\n Just imagine the kind of results you can get on a higher budget!<\/p>\n There are a few limitations to the types of things you can boost on Facebook, which are worth a mention.<\/p>\nWhy You Should Boost A Post<\/strong><\/h3>\n
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The Basics of Boosting on Facebook<\/strong><\/h3>\n
Boosting to Your Existing Audience<\/strong><\/h3>\n
Some Considerations<\/strong><\/h3>\n