Have you tried boosting posts on Facebook and Instagram without much success? Don’t worry, you’re not alone.
The boost button is a nice feature for small business owners that don’t have a lot of time, but it does take a little bit of effort to get the most value out of your boosts. However, most small businesses don’t know that. What most people believe is that boosting posts means you get to just hit the boost button and then hit “Go” without putting any thought into what you’re are doing. It’s a recipe for wasted money and broken dreams.
But what if I told you just 5 extra minutes while boosting a Facebook post can make your ads 3x more effective?
Well, it’s true. If you follow these quick tips, you’ll learn how to boost a Facebook post the right way, and I promise that you are going to be amazed by the results. Before we go into these tips, let’s talk about why you may want to boost a Facebook post in the first place.
Why boosting a Facebook post is a good idea
Just to quickly recap why you should care about how to boost a Facebook post. Here are our top benefits of boosting Facebook posts.
- Quick and easy
- Very affordable
- It’s easy to gather social proof and experiment
There are definitely reasons that you’d want to be using Facebook’s ad manager rather than simply boosting. You can check those out in our linked post above.
How to Boost a Facebook Post
Now let’s dig into our tips about boosting Facebook posts.
Tip #1 – Make sure to change your goal (20 seconds)
This is the first mistake that is made because it is the first thing that you can change on your ad.
Goals are your way of telling Facebook what you are trying to accomplish with your ads. There are various options when it comes to these objectives like Link Clicks, Engagements, and Messenger Conversations – each serving their own purpose.
When you go to boost a Facebook post, one of these is going to be selected by default, most likely, automatically where Facebook will decide for you what is best based on the content. But let’s say you actually want people to go to your website. Unless you make that change, Facebook won’t know that and won’t optimize your ads accordingly.
Tip #2 – Always create your audience yourself and use all the tools (4 minutes)
You are going to be tempted to select the option that lets Facebook pick the audience for you. While this isn’t the worst thing in the world, Facebook will never know your business as well as you do.
So, what do you do? Spend some time creating a basic audience. Select the location, use the interests of your target audience, and develop a much more specific strategy that fits your business. This is what is going to take the most time in these 5 minutes, so spend some time here, play around, think about your target market, and experiment!
Tip #3 – Turn off automatic placements (2 seconds)
Automatic placements are the fastest way to waste money with your ads. Facebook actually owns a number of platforms that you can advertise on (like Instagram and other apps) and Automatic placements tells Facebook to decide for you which platforms to show your ad.
The problem is, your ad is likely not the right format for every platform, which means it isn’t going to look very good or convert in the same way. Except for very unique circumstances, always turn off automatic placements and only put your ads on Facebook where you know what to expect.
Tip #4 – Don’t spread your budget too thin over a large number of days (38 seconds)
The nice part of boosting is that you only need a few dollars to use the tool, but it is a common mistake to stretch that few dollars over a very long period of time.
Let’s say that you are going to boost a post for $5, how long do you think you should boost that post for? The answer is no more than maybe a day or two.
By stretching your budget out over a lot of days, you are damaging Facebook’s ability to show your ad to enough people that will be likely to convert for you. It is much better to set a daily budget that allows your ads to show to a nice amount of people every day. A good rule of thumb is to try to be around $5 per day, but you can go as low as $2 if you really have to.
Despite what people say, boosting is a great tool for small businesses to use as a part of their marketing strategies…. IF you do it correctly.
You are going to be tempted to “set it and forget it” but this is why most people fail with their boosting. By investing just an extra 5 minutes into your Facebook boosts, you are going to see a HUGE difference in results, making that five minutes really well spent!