While you’re growing your network on Facebook, there’s one more way to reach your ideal clients: boost your Facebook posts. Quite simply, this is paid advertising but it’s a fast and more passive way to reach more people in a short amount of time. Plus it isn’t a ton of extra work because it’s content you are already putting out there. It’s one of the best ways how to get traffic on Facebook.
Isn’t Posting Daily on Facebook Enough?
This answer depends on your end goal for your business. Posting and interacting daily will definitely grow your followers but if you want a quick jumpstart add in a boosted post and examine the results.
One friend recently boosted a post for a total of $30 and it brought in $202 in sales. It was a “set it and forget it” process and she set a monetary limit so as not to break the bank but she was very pleased with that result; so much so that she’s boosting the same post again.
Why Should I Boost my Facebook Posts?
No doubt you’ve noticed lots of changes with the Facebook algorithms lately and you’ve probably heard lots of people complaining about those changes. Business page organic reach has declined drastically so you can’t depend on Facebook algorithms to get your posts seen, even if people have liked your page. So, instead of taking a passive, “I hope you see my posts” stance, let’s be proactive and boost a post to bypass the questionable organic reach of your basic post.
Boosted Facebook posts also allow you to highly target your viewers, so you are in complete control of the demographics (again, a highly proactive approach). You can set a certain geographic area as your target or a specific age range. If you have thought carefully about your target market demographics, this step will be easy to complete.
Speaking of control: you are in control of how much you spend on this boosted post as well as the length of the campaign. Theoretically, you could run a campaign for $1 per day (the daily minimum allowed) but if you spend more money each day, you will reach a larger number of people.
When to use Ads vs Boosted Facebook Posts
It’s important for any business to identify exactly what they’re hoping to achieve with an ad. For example, if you want audience engagement on your Page or to develop your brand awareness, boosting a post is a great way to maximize visibility and grow your audience. To create more advanced ad types and campaigns, you’ll have more control over you placement with Facebook Ads.
Note: If you aren’t interested in boosting a post that’s already on your Page, you can create a new post and instead of clicking Publish, click Boost. There are also some ways how to get free traffic from Facebook, but they aren’t as reliable as paid ads.
Here’s more info on boosted Facebook posts
How to Create your Boosted Facebook Posts
Most importantly: you can only boost a Facebook post from a Business Page, so if you don’t have one set up yet, get that done. Repeat – only from a Business Page. Although if you’re serious about your business, you likely HAVE a Business Page already.
Step 1: Choose which Post to Boost
This can be a current post or you can write a brand new post. If you’ve been active on your page, you will even see recommendations for which posts to boost. The choice is yours, just think about the purpose of your boosted post, then choose the most appropriate post for your goal. This is a very important choice – you don’t want to spend your hard-earned money to promote a post that has little or no income potential. Your first thought should be how can you earn back the investment on the ad cost and then some. I usually think of the potential monthly revenue from a post and then spend about 25% of that in ads.
Step 2: Choose Your Target Audience
If you want to grow your name recognition, select your own demographics, geographic area, and/or age range. You can even create multiple audiences with different demographics by clicking on the “Create New Audience” link.
Step 3: Choose Your Budget and Campaign Duration
How much can you afford to spend each day your campaign runs? How many days do you want the boost to run? You will see Facebook’s estimated reach climb as your budget amount increases. This is still an estimate so make this decision based on what you can actually afford as opposed to the number of people who might pay attention to your boosted post. You can do as little as a dollar or two a day, but as I said, spending 25% of the potential monthly income from that post would net you a 75% profit if the boost is successful. And it wouldn’t be a huge budget impact if it isn’t successful.
Step 4: Setup Your Payment, Hit the Boost Button, then Analyze the Results
Seeing the results of your boost is exciting because Facebook offers easy-to-understand insights for every boosted post. You will see your actual reach as well as how many clicks your post received. From there you can determine if you received any sales directly from this post or if you noticed an increase in friend requests during this time frame.
Luckily Facebook has made boosting a post very simple so once you go through it once, it’s much easier to understand. And once you set all the details, you can go about your day while your boosted post works its magic to bring you more target audience members.
Here are some other Facebook-related posts you may enjoy:
6 Brilliant Facebook Groups for New Bloggers
Sneaky Tricks to Improve Facebook
How to Get Noticed on Facebook
Leave a Reply