Step Away from the Boost Button!

We know it’s tempting – especially when you get the constant message saying that your post could reach a zillion more people if you just hit this pretty boost button but please… step away…. or at least take some time to understand if it’s really the best use of budget versus running an ad.

Where to start

There’s a common misconception that poor engagement is purely down to the algorithm and that you need to pay to have any voice and engagement on the platform. The harsh truth is that if your post isn’t getting much organic engagement, it’s probably just not a great post (🤷 sorry!)… so rather than back a poor post with money via the boost button, it’s time to firstly take a step back and look at your organic content strategy. Look at your posts and ask why they’re not speaking to your ideal clients (do you know who your ideal clients are and what their pain points are?), look at the copy, at the images, is there a call to action? Are you inviting your audience to engage with you? …Or are you just talking at them and spamming them?

Secondly, you need to be clear on your objective. In the words of Stephen Covey “Begin with the end in mind!”. Why do you want to incorporate advertising spend into your social media and what’s the desired outcome? Once you have a clear answer to this you can look at whether the boost button or an ad will be right for you.

So, how is a Facebook ad different to a Boosted post

A Boost is when you put some money behind an existing post on your feed, you can’t change the post in any way, you are simply choosing an audience to increase the reach of the post to. You also have a limited choice of objectives. It appears on a Facebook or Instagram timeline depending on the option you choose.

A Facebook ad will give you a greater level of control, customisation and measurement of your ad. Created via Ads Manager, you’ll have a choice of more objectives so you can be much more prescriptive about the goal you want to achieve.

It also has a wider range of available placements, including side Ads, Messenger, Stories and Reels.

An ad can be customised – you can add a headline and choose from different call to action buttons to optimise for the outcome you want, and you can customise by placement that you are running the ad to. You can also test more than one version of the ad, within the budget, to see what best resonates with your audience (different images, different types of copy etc).

Ads offer more comprehensive targeting, including the ability to create custom or lookalike audiences, and interest-based audiences that you can save for future campaigns. You also have the ability to build a funnel and strategically retarget your audience to turn them into paying customers.

If you like the numbers, an ad will give you more detailed reporting. This means that you can fully understand what is working and scale it up, or what isn’t working so that you change it and turn it around.

When would you use a Boosted post?

They certainly have their place, for us it’s generally in conjunction with ads rather than instead of them – eg. we might boost a post to gather more engagement on an already successful post, and THEN use that post as an ad via Ads Manager 🚀

If you have a retargeting campaign in your funnel which is picking up Facebook or Instagram engagers, boosting a post which is performing well organically can be an effective way to feed that audience.

If you just want people to visit your website to view a page or read a blog, then you might choose to boost a post – although if you wanted them to take a specific action such as sign up for something, download something  or make a purchase then an ad will be a better option, allowing you to optimise for the action wanted and get the platform to do more heavy lifting for you.

So in short, you get a lot more for your money using an ad over a boost. 

If you’re keen to move away from just boosting and start building some campaigns, check out our Ask Nutshell service - designed to support you to run your own campaign with confidence and to help you learn (at a fraction of the cost of ‘done for you’ ads or training!).