Facebook Boost: Best Practices for Boosting Posts
“Facebook makes it really easy to boost your posts,” says Andrea Vahl, co-author of Facebook Marketing All-in-One for Dummies. “They’re always telling you, ‘Hey, this is doing pretty well, why don’t you boost it?'” But wait! Before you boost, you’ll want to have a strategy to help you get the most out of your ad spend.
At our recent live event, Social Media for Women in Business, Andrea shared some tips for getting smart about how you’re boosting content using the Facebook Boost feature.
Boost Button vs. Ads Manager
Before we dive in to Andrea’s tips, a quick note from Andrea on using the Facebook Boost button vs. Facebook’s Ads Manager: “Boosted posts aren’t always the best R.O.I.—return on investment. And the reason is, they may not be optimized for what you truly want. You can dive into the Ads Manager and get a little bit more advanced.”
You can think of boosted posts as “Facebook Advertising ‘Lite.'” However, the boost button can come in handy if you’re smart in the way you use it—boost content that’s performing well, content that serves a purpose for your business, and target warm audiences. Read on to learn more.
Tip #1: Boost posts that are performing well
Andrea says, “You wanna boost your best content, because that content is already doing well. You’re going to be more effective with it, and it’s going to cost less for you to boost it.”
So how do you know which content is performing well? Use Facebook Insights to find the posts that are good candidates for boosting. To do this, click on “Insights” at the top of your business page and then go into “Posts.” You’ll find a list of all of your recently-published posts.
Then, in the top right corner, switch the view to “Engagement Rate.”
“Engagement Rate” is the percentage of people that have interacted with your posts over those that have seen it. In other words, what percentage of people actually engaged (reacted, shared, commented) with your content. This is a better indication of whether the content was actually interesting to people than reach alone. This is the content that, when boosted, will get you better results for your spend.
Tip #2: Boost posts that have a business purpose
You’ll also want to be sure to only boost posts that have a business purpose for you, whether it’s driving people to your website, getting the word out about something that’s important for helping keep your business top of mind, or something else. So look at your posts with the highest engagement rate and think about whether or not getting them further reach will contribute in some way to your bottom line or to goals that you have set. Then, boost the ones that will.
Tip #3: Boost to a warm audience
Finally, you don’t want to just boost to anyone. You can create a custom audience that is more likely to interact with you than a random sampling of the general public. Andrea recommends boosting to people that have visited your website or people who have interacted with your videos in the past. Lean more about custom audiences on Facebook.
Looking to take your advertising a step above Boost with Facebook Ads Manager? Check out our post on how to reach more customers with targeted ads on Facebook and Instagram. Want to learn more from Andrea and the other speakers at our International Women’s Day event? Click through below to check out highlights or watch the entire event on Facebook.
Get more tips on the most effective ways to leverage video on social. Check out our guide creating video that gets results on the BigCommerce blog.