How to effectively boost posts on Facebook – and why you should be doing it
The days of organic reach on Facebook are sadly long gone – to reach your target audience you have to pay for it. Luckily, advertising on Facebook is pretty inexpensive – and the results can be impressive.
One of the easiest, cheapest and most effective ways to advertise on Facebook is to use the Boost Post button. This has the power to help you reach thousands of people who would otherwise never know about your brand, and for just a few pounds a week. Boost Post is also incredibly easy to use – there are three main variables to consider:
Audience: The key to your advert’s success is to make your audience as targeted as possible, based on gender, age, location, interests, demographics and behaviours. The more specific your parameters are, the more relevant your posts will be to the people seeing them.
Budget: you can spend as little as £1 per day. The more you pay, the better your reach. For each budget and each target audience, Facebook will provide you with an estimated reach, so it’s a good idea to experiment with the variables to see what you can get for your money.
Duration: Your ad can run for one day, one week, one month, or until you decide to manually turn it off.
How to boost a post
- To get started, just click the ‘Boost Post’ button in your post’s box – you can do this for current posts, or new ones.
- A box will then pop up, where you can choose your target audience or create a new audience, based on gender, age, locations and detailed targeting (ie demographics, interests and behaviours). These could include horse riding, showjumping, eventing, dressage etc.
- Once you’ve defined your target audience, you decide on your budget and duration of your boosted post. Facebook will then tell you the cost of that ad per day.
- The next step is to pay for the advert, with credit card, PayPal or by setting up a direct debit.
- Facebook then reviews the post, before publishing. Voila!
Tips for success
Make sure you’re getting the most out of your boosted posts, with these top tips:
- Have a goal
Having a specific goal for your boosted ad will help you spend your money more effectively and measure the results. This could be to:
- Boost website traffic
- Increase brand awareness
- Increase brand engagement (shares, comments, likes)
- Drive sales
- Promote new content or blog posts
- Target your audience: the more targeted your audience, the more relevant your posts will be to the people seeing them.
- Try different demographics: experiment with your post by boosting to different demographics to see how they perform.
- Try different ads: it’s a good idea to boost a range of posts, with different types of content, to see what works best for your brand. Armed with this information, you’ll be able to create more effective posts in the future.
- Short and sweet: according to Facebook posts tend to see a decline in results after one week, so avoid letting your boosted posts run for too long.
- Time of day: another important factor when boosting a post is knowing the best time to post on social media. Try posting at various times of the day and week to find out when your users are most active.
- Automatically boost posts: if you use Hootsuite you can automatically boost your top-performing posts by creating rules based on the number of likes, shares and comments.
By following the above advice you’ll soon be on your way to attracting a larger audience and making the most of your Facebook campaign.
Now you know how to get started with advertising on Facebook, in our next blog we will be looking at how you can create a successful ad campaign. It will be packed full of great tips to help you avoid common mistakes that cost time and money.
If you’re muddled about your marketing or stumped by social media, get in touch in touch to find out we can help build your brand and engage with your audience.
