Creating content to share on Facebook takes a lot of time, energy, and resources. Many clients often question if it’s worth posting at all with the decline of organic reach businesses are seeing.
Organic reach is the exposure your posts get without having to spend money to boost them.
On average, business pages are seeing somewhere between 1-6% organic reach. That means if you have 1000 fans, somewhere between 10 – 60 might see your post.
On Facebook, organic reach has been on the decline for some time now…and understandably so.
Hear me out.
Think about it. Facebook was created for users to socially connect with one another. Facebook doesn’t make money from its users per se, but they do their advertisers (aka businesses). The contradiction is that without users businesses have no one to advertise to, and without businesses, Facebook doesn’t make money. So, there needs to be a healthy balance.
Once businesses accept that they need to “pay to play” to get seen by their target audience (after all, advertising has a price regardless of the platform) – then the debate begins whether you should boost your posts or run ads through ads manager.
Let’s start this debate off with a brief history…
What is a “Boosted Post”?
In 2012, Facebook introduced a super-easy way for businesses to promote their social media posts without having to leave your Facebook page just by clicking the (then called) “Promote Post” button that was located under every social post on your page.
In the beginning, the “Promote Post” option was super simple with limited options for targeting and customizing the post visually.
In 2014, the “Promote Post” became “Boost Post” and received some updates that allowed better targeting.
Here’s what you need to know about Boosting your Social Media Posts on Facebook
When you go to your Facebook page and you find a post, you want to promote all you need to do is click “Boost Post”.
Then you choose your audience, budget, and campaign duration.
Click “Boost” and your post is now being served up to your target audience.
Simple right!?! That’s the primary attraction to the Boost Post feature.
But, here’s what’s happening when you Boost a Post that you need to know.
When you select “Boost Post” Facebook will create a new ad campaign in your ad account with the “Page Post Engagement” objective.
Facebook optimizes your campaign depending on the objective you choose when setting up your ads through ads manager.
If you choose, “Website Clicks”, Facebook will optimize for link clicks to your website.
If you choose, “Website Conversions”, Facebook will analyze everyone who converted already and try to reach similar people first.
When you Boost a Post, Facebook will always optimize for more post engagement (which are likes, comments, and shares).
When posts are optimized for engagement, you’ll notice that your Boosted Post will receive a ton of engagement (likes, comments, and shares) but even if you include a link in your post, you most likely won’t receive many clicks.
So the question remains, “should you Boost your social media posts on Facebook?”.
Ask yourself these questions.
- Do you want to reach a larger audience that isn’t currently following your business?
- Do you know how to run ads through your ads manager or would you need to pay someone to set up and manage your ads, where you would spend more money on paying someone to run your ads than you are spending on your ad spend?
- Are your social media marketing goals focused on immediate conversions or do you need to develop brand awareness first?
- Do you have a small budget ($500 or less) that you can dedicate to your Facebook advertising?
If any of these statements describe you, then you should boost your posts.
Now, you might wonder – which Facebook posts should you boost?
If you keep in mind that when you Boost your posts you are doing it because you need to build brand awareness then it helps you identify the posts that you should be boosting.
When you are deciding which posts to boost, you want to choose content that will help you build brand awareness.
Content that is helpful, fun, entertaining, inspirational, and informative will help you build your brand awareness, encourages engagement, and expands your reach.
Here’s (6) Pro Tips for boosting your social posts.
Pro Tip #1
Just because boosted posts don’t get a lot of clicks (because they aren’t optimized for clicks) doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t include links. Not all posts need to have links included, but when it makes sense include links to your website, blog, landing pages, free resources, and even sales pages.
Pro Tip #2
Did you know that you can capture leads by sharing other people’s content on social media? What!?! Yep, it’s true! Check out this article to give you all the details.
Pro Tip #3
Take the time to define the audience you want to get in front of. You do have the option to create a custom audience for your boosted posts, take advantage of that.
Pro Tip #4
Keep your posts relevant and don’t run a boosted post for too long. Even posts that do well have a lifespan. You will often see posts decline in performance when you run them longer than a week.
I recommend that you boost your posts for (1) week, review your analytics, note which posts performed well, and create new content that’s similar. If you find specific content does well (e.g. Quote Images) then you should focus on creating more of that content.
Pro Tip #5
Use a social media marketing tool to schedule your posts, boost your posts, manage engagement, and provide detailed analytics all in one place.
Check out this article on how you can manage your social media marketing in just 2-hours a month. In that article, I also share with you the tool I recommend that you use.
Pro Tip #6
Facebook now offers the ability to automatically boost your posts, which is a monthly advertising plan that they charge for boosting posts. Don’t use this feature.
Automatically boosting all your posts might lead to boosting posts that will help you achieve your overall goals.
In Conclusion
Boosting your social media posts on Facebook is super-simple to do. When used correctly, with the right content you can increase your engagement, improve your brand awareness, send visitors to your website and blog, and further your reach.
If you want to capture leads and build your email marketing list, check out this blog on how you can turn your blog into a lead generating machine.
