You spend lots of time making content to share on Facebook. However, with the decline of organic reach, are you seeing enough return on that investment?
That is where the Facebook boost post function comes into play.
Available to anybody with a business page, boosting a post on Fb means paying to get your content seen by more people.
In this guide, we will show you how to use the function, and how to get the most out of the Facebook boost post button. We will also recommend a tool that will save you even more time boosting posts—with even better outcomes.
Advantages of boosting a Facebook post
- Make up for declining organic reach. Fb has gone on record to say that organic reach for posts from companies is decline. In other words, the number of people your posts could reach is falling. Fb’s purpose here is to fill news feeds with content from friends and family, rather than brands. Fb boosted posts are your opportunity to overcome that shift.
- Reach a wider, targeted audience. With Fb boost, you will be capable of reach a much wider audience as you are not limited to people who already subscribe to your page. And you will be capable of set parameters for the categories of people that will see your post. For instance, you could narrow your boosted post to focus on one very particular demographic, like 30 to 35-year-old women in the US.
- Easy to use. When you click on “Boost Post” your content will go live nearly instantly. As soon as Fb reviews it and offers it the go-ahead, it’ll begin reaching more people. And any kind of post could be boosted—short messages, photos, videos, links to a site, and so on.
- Control. You will have the option to handle your post once it goes live. For instance, you may reduce your planned run short, or select to boost another post instead.
- Access to analytics. Due to Fb Insights, you will get a detailed summary of the performance of your boosted posts. Head to the Insights tab, and click on Posts. From there, you will see a breakdown of all of your posts—including boosted ones—when it comes to reaching, clicks, reactions, comments, and shares. You will also have the chance to spice up your other posts (when you have not already).
Facebook Boost post button features
What does a Fb boost post include?
The content is up to you to determine—you could enhance nearly anything you need, whether it is an announcement, a promotion, or a call-to-action. From there, you will be concentrated on three main variables:
- Audience. Set the parameters for who will see your boosted post, including their age, sex, location, and interests. You could also make custom audiences based on existing contacts, or a lookalike audiences based on people who have already shown interest in your Fb business Page.
- Budget. You have full control over how much you spend, with budgets as low as $1 per day.
- Duration. Run your advert for a fixed period of time, whether it is a single day, week, or till you manually turn it off.
Facebook boost post button cost
Fb promoted posts, like any form of social media advertising, cost money. However, how much, particularly, will it set you back?
Instead of paying per advert placement, or paying per click, you will be setting your own budget—so technically, you could pay any amount you want. The minimum budget is $1 per day. So hypothetically, you can run a campaign for a week with just $7. Clearly, the more you pay, the more reach you are going to get.
For each budget level, and each target audience, Fb is going to give you an estimated reach. For instance, when you are targeting people living in the US over the age of 18, $2 will reach between 163 and 872 people. $5 will reach 432 to 2,070 people, and $15 will reach 1,506 to 6,834 people.
In fact, these numbers will vary, based on who you are targeting. When you are targeting men in their early 20’s in San Francisco, for instance, $2 will reach 200 to 880 people—just like the national average, however, adjusted based on the new parameters.
When you are curious about how much your Fb post is going to cost to boost, the best way is to experiment with these variables and see for yourself. You could get the full pricing estimates long before you commit to paying for anything.
boost a post on Facebook
Now let’s dig into the steps you will need to take to boost a post on Fb:
1. Select a post to boost
When you are drafting a post that you need to increase right out of the gate, click on the grey Boost Post button in the lower-right corner of the post box.
When you would like to boost an existing piece of content, click on the blue Boost Post button in the lower-right corner of the post you need to boost. Or, you could navigate to the Insights tab and see a list of all of your posts. Each will have a Boost Post button next to it.
2. Target your audience
After clicking the Boost Post button you will be taken to a menu where you could start to choose targeting options. By default, you could opt to include only people who currently like your Page—or all present followers and their friends. However, most companies find it better to target a specific demographic, based on age, location, sex, or interests. If you wish to create a custom audience (or more than one) for your boosted post, click on the Create New Audience option.
From there, you will have the ability to define your audience, however, you would like. You could add or remove locations, set the age range, and even embody people who are excited about particular topics or pages.
3. Set your budget
When you have defined your target audience, you will need to choose a budget for your campaign. Since your audience is set, you will have a realistic gauge for how far your post could reach under each budget tier. Again, the minimum is $1 per day; this budget shall be your total budget for the campaign, spread across however many days you wish to run it.
4. Set the boost duration
Next, determine when you need your post to run. By default, you could select one day, seven days, or 14 days. Or you could select to run the advert till a specified date in the future.
5. Preview the post
Take the time to review the advert copy and creative. Ensure it is free of errors, that all the links work, and all of the visual elements look good. That is your last chance to make changes before it goes live.
6. Choose a payment option
Fb accepts all of the payment kinds you may expect. All you should do is fill out your details (if they are not already saved in Fb).
7. Boost
Now, you are ready to boost! Fb does review all boosted posts, so it might take a while before you see yours published. You could check the status of your boosted posts at any time by looking at the Delivery column of your Adverts Manager.
Facebook boost post tips
So what could you do to ensure you are getting the most out of your Fb boost post?
- Have a clear purpose for your promoted post. Are you trying to get more traffic to your site? Are you trying to get more page likes? Or are you just raising brand awareness? Understanding your purpose might help you craft a call-to-action (CTA) that makes sense, and measure the true effectiveness of your work.
- Experiment with different demographics. Enhance your post to different demographics to see how differently they perform. For instance, you can segment your audience based on location, or based on age, to see which parameters appear to be best for your brand.
- Narrow your audience ASAP. For all audiences and audience segments, work on narrowing your parameters asap. The extra particular your posts are, the more related they will be to the people seeing them.
- Keep away from working the same advert for too long. According to Facebook, even initially successful promoted posts tend to see a decline in outcomes after a week of running. Try to keep away from letting your boosted posts run for longer than that.
- Experiment and compare different adverts. That is essential. Experiment with a lot of different promoted posts, including different kinds of content, different audiences, and different durations. You will have access to all of your historical data, so the more posts you must study, the more you will learn about what works (and what does not) for your brand. With that info, you will be capable of craft much more effective posts in the future.
- Automatically boost posts to save time. When you are a Hootsuite user, you could set up customizable rules based on the number of likes, shares, comments, or a specific keyword to automatically boost your top-performing Facebook posts straight from the Hootsuite dashboard.
A Facebook boost post button has the power that will help you reach lots of people who may never otherwise hear of your brand—and for as little as a few. If you wish to get the most out of your Fb campaign, whether it is attracting new followers or earning more traffic for your website, it’s one of the best tools to utilize.