Carissa Richardson of Kindred Strategy joined us recently to help us better understand social media advertising and while she had A LOT of great tips and advice, our community was surprised most by her advice to avoid boosting posts on Facebook and Instagram. Read that again…avoid spending money boosting your posts on Facebook and Instagram if you want a return on your investment.
What’s a Boosted Post?
You may be asking yourself what a boosted post is. Businesses that organically post on Facebook and Instagram are frequently asked by the platform to boost a post because it’s been shown to be highly engaging and for a very small amount of money (sometimes as low as $5), they’ll suggest that you boost your post to get more eyeballs on it.
It’ll look something like this…
Benefits and Limitations of Boosted Posts
Facebook likes to say that by spending just a little money on boosting a post that you can improve the reach of that post by hundreds or even thousands of eyeballs. What they often don’t share is that those eyeballs may not exactly be who you need to be paying attention to.
Boosted posts are simple and uncomplicated and don’t require you to have a business or ads manager set up. This makes it very easy for you to agree to do them. They word the offer in such a way that makes you feel like you’d be dumb not to take them up on it too.
But keep this in mind: boosted posts offer little to no insights into who will see your post. Often, you will be paying to have your post in front of current followers and their friends. These may not be the potential customers that you would choose otherwise.
When you made your original post, did you include a clear call to action? What was your goal with it? When you boost a post, it goes out to the world exactly as you originally shared it, so it may garner a lot of likes, but if you didn’t ask people to do something more than like your post, why are you paying to post it?
What’s the Alternative to Boosting a Post?
If you agree with Facebook or Instagram that your post kicked butt and you have a clear call to action in it that you think is compelling and you want more people to see it, then we recommend doing the following:
- Create or log in to your Facebook Business Manager / Ads Manager
- Select “Create Ad”
- “Choose a Goal” like Get more subscribers or Get more website visitors and start creating.
- Under “Ad Creative”, select “Use a Post” and select the post that was performing so well.
- Edit away…caption, images, CTA button
- Create the audience that you choose.
- Choose duration and budget and you’re all set!
While these platforms can be complicated when you’re first getting started, don’t let them intimidate you into spending your money in ways that don’t serve your goals. Just because boosting a post is simple and cheap, doesn’t mean it’s worth your time or money to do it.