How to Boost Facebook and Instagram Posts The Right Way
First, A Disclaimer
You know how you’re not supposed to use the boost button on the social platforms, specifically Facebook and Instagram, because the management and resulting data doesn’t live in the Ads Manager? That’s still a thing. So when we say boost, we mean promoting your organically posted content through Ads Manager. It’s best to have your data in one place for both ease of management and analysis.
Why you need to boost posts
This is pretty simple. If you have a lot of content that you’re sharing that is distinct from your more direct-response-based or brand-boosting social ads and it’s hanging out in organic-no-reach limbo, then you’re definitely not reaching your full audience.
We know Facebook has low organic reach and we know that Instagram is not much better, so it makes sense that you want to get your content in front of the people that follow you. They did already indicate an interest in you by following in the first place, you know. That’s why you need to boost. Capiche?
What objective you should use
Again, don’t confuse your boosted content with your social ads. The point of posting something to social organically is often to reach people with a message or a variety of messages depending on your posting frequency and cadence. Sometimes that message is to click a link or do something other than read, like, or comment, but you should think like a real person thinks and post like a real person posts — with the intent of FIRST getting a message across about something worthy of being consumed. Make your message so good that the natural next step is for the reader to seek a deeper relationship through whatever means they find necessary, be it reading more posts, clicking to your website, or sharing your content with their friends.
What we’re getting at is that you want as many of your fans and followers to see your content often to keep your product top of mind. And you want them to interact with it. That’s proof they like what you have to say. So the short of it is that you should make your objective on your boosted posts either reach or engagement — save the traffic and video views objectives for social ads. (And keep this in mind, the optics of a highly-engaged post say a lot to the potential viewer.)
What content should be boosted
Ok, there’s a chicken and egg issue here. One one hand your best organic content has proved itself to be worthy of recognition, which makes it prime for boosting (and cheaper per result). On the other hand, you may have some strategic messages that you need your followers to see. Maybe you want to tell them about a sale, a change, or a message that will help them become more knowledgeable about your product. Based on your budget, you can do both or can go either way. But in our view, if you only had $100, you should pick the strategic message over the high-performing content 10 times out of 10. (If you’re really crafty your strategic message could be the high performing content. That’s a real win-win, you sly dog, you.) It’s better to get that one key message out than your top performing post that was of a meme that barely related to your brand.
So there’s our two cents. Boosting makes sense but only if you put a sound strategy behind it. Leave it to chance and you’re pretty much trying to steer a rudderless ship.
Want us to help you boost? Give a shout!