Why You Should Never Hit the Boost Post Button on Facebook

You post on your Facebook business page, then go back to check it. You see a blue button asking if you want to boost the post.

You read, “Boost this post for $22 to reach up to 3200 people”

Sounds like a great deal, doesn’t it!

“Imagine how many customers I can get from that amount of people seeing my ad!” you say to yourself.

So you go right ahead and hand over your money in hope of more sales, leads or website clicks.

You may have some success by getting a few likes or shares or the odd click, but I’m guessing more often than not you don’t see much action for that $22.

Don’t worry, I fell for it too when I was starting out.

Boosting your post from the newsfeed is like handing over a nice donation to Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook.

Facebook uses an algorithm so advanced it calculates who to show ads to, based on actions they have previously taken.

It categorises people into groups such as “those who engage with a lot of content”, “those who click links” and “people who are likely to make purchases” just to name a few.

When you go to boost a post, the Facebook algorithm automatically sets the objective to how your post is set up. If it is set up as an image or video with no link it will set your objective to engagement or video views. If your post has a link then it will likely set it up to get website clicks.

Then it will show your boosted post to people who are likely to take the action of the objective they set. 

This means that if you boost a post in which you’re trying to get people to buy your product or service, your ad will only be shown to people who are likely to like, comment or share your post or people who regularly click and browse. Not the result of a sales or lead as you may have intended.

Instead of boosting posts, by using your Ads Manager account in Facebook, you can choose from a number of objectives that best suits the outcome you want to achieve.

If you want leads, the leads objective is the way to go. If you want sales, the conversion objective is the best option. If you want traffic to your website, the traffic objective is the best choice. If you want like and comments then the engagement objective is best.

Another critical thing to consider if you decide to boost a post is how you are going to follow up with people who engage or click on your ad. Do you have a re-targeting ad set up to get in front of them again? If not, you are leaving money on the table, as people who engage with your brand more than once are three times more likely to buy from you.

If your marketing objective is to get new leads or sales, create your Facebook ads in your Ads Manager account as it has many more options to maximise the return on investment for your ad spend. Always make sure you create a strategy and plan out a customer journey to ensure your prospects take the desired actions you require.