Facebook Boosted Post Advertising Techniques

Benefits To Boosting Posts:

• It’s just super easy and simple to do
• Without boosting only up to 10% of your audience will actually end up seeing the post
• If your post was doing well organically then it will help provide social proof to the ad when boosted because the ad will still have the likes, comments, and shares that the original post contained

Negatives To Boosting Posts:

• In general you have less targeting options when you choose to boost a post versus crafting a promotion through the more advanced Facebook Ads Manager platform. Here are some key targeting options you lose out on when you boost a post:
  • Cannot create custom audiences from seeing your post, such as lookalike audiences based on email lists
  • Custom ad scheduling on an hourly basis (dayparting)
  • Custom conversion tracking via the Facebook Pixel
  • No split testing images or copy
  • No tweaks to headlines, news feed link descriptions or display URLs

Boosted Posts Versus Facebook Ads Created In Ad Manager

As of 2018 there is no discernible difference in performance metrics between a boosted post, promoted page, or ad placement on the Facebook platform (see this study here). The average post without some kind of monetized enhancement had an average reach of 3% of the page’s audience. In larger sample sizes there have been some small differences between the “promoted page” type versus a “boosted post” or “Facebook ad.”

Key Boosted Post Strategies

There are some key things to keep in mind when creating boosted post ads on Facebook:

• Make sure you are boosting posts that already performing well organically, and ideally already have a high number of comments, shares, and reactions. This will provide valuable social proof to your ads.
• Make sure the posts you are boosting are visually striking
• Consider boosting posts that offer valuable content to your audience rather then hard sales copy
• In your audience targeting options choose the “People you choose through targeting” option rather than relying on the “People who like your Page and their friends” option which might not reflect the actual best audience for your post
• It is sometimes best to not choose a boosted post strategy if you don’t have Facebook page fans quite yet. Running ads until you get around 500 fans, can help create the necessary audience for boosted posts to be most effective. (Especially because then you are increasing the number of people in your organic reach and in your ad audiences that have already shown interest in your business)
• Make sure that you have installed the Facebook pixel so that you are tracking people who have visited your site and are able to market to them in the future

Improving Your Organic Content and Reach

Before you boost high-performing content, you need to create the right conditions for high-performing Facebook content. Here are some key tactics to keep in mind when creating Facebook page content:

Video and Live Video Content

• Facebook’s algorithms will prioritize video content first, and they will prioritize live content over everything else
• Make sure your video can be viewed without sound. Most Facebook users will not turn the volume on their phone and thus your video needs captions
• Use a square or 1:1 ratio format so that you can also post to Instagram and it will take up the most amount of screen real estate on mobile devices

Create High-Quality and Incredibly Valuable Content

• It is simply not good enough to create mediocre content in today’s day and age. People will engage with your business if you are offering truly valuable, free, interesting and reliable content. The things you produce should not feel spammy and should leave the person feeling inspired and/or educated.
• Make this high quality content easily digestible. Make it easy to read, offer visuals and freebies. Offer something easy and useful that you wish you had found for free yourself when you needed it the most.
• All you ask for in exchange for content is data when marketing your business. Sometimes this comes to you as explicitly as an email sign-up, and sometimes this comes to you implicitly through interaction with your ad that allows you to remarket to that person and a similar audience

Engage With Your Audience

• Algorithms will always change and so having the attitude of trying to growth-hack your way to high engagement rates means that you will end up feeling burnt out and possibly be wasting your time when the algorithm inevitably changes again. Instead, focus on small, meaningful interactions on social media.
  • Respond to every comment in an authentic and personal manner. You are still building relationships with someone behind the screen!
  • That’s it. Just genuinely comment. That’s what building your community is about.

THEN, Promote Posts At The Right Time

• Make sure that you boost posts that are performing well organically.
• One way to create higher performing content if you have a smaller page is to spy on your competitor’s top organic posts in order to understand what your target audience engages with. You can do this by going to clicking on your insights tab on your Facebook page and under posts you can choose ‘Top Posts from Pages You Watch.’