I love talking about Facebook Ads.  I believe they have the power to make a massive difference in my business and in yours.

But one of the biggest mistakes people make, and probably one of the most asked questions I get about Ads is the following:

“To boost or not to boost”

So, I thought I’d deal with just that question today!

It probably won’t surprise you at all to learn that I am anti-boosting.  But it will surprise you to hear that I think they do have a time and place (and I’ll talk about that a bit later).

Recently, a Facebook account manager had this to say about Boosted Posts:

You are targeting engagement of heavy users and this does not correlate with purchase intent, brand recognition, etc. Instead, it is solely focused on those who tend to react or “like” anything.

Yikes! Do you want to spend most of your ad dollars with an objective where people “like” anything?

And anyone who has listened to my podcast knows, (as I’ve said it a lot), when it comes to social media, my bank manager doesn’t accept “likes” as payment and I suspect yours doesn’t either!

Boosting, frankly, is chasing that vanity metric – likes.

It’s not good business strategy and it doesn’t help you reach those business goals.

The abundance of information and targeting options for advertisers that can be used for advertising from within Facebook can be overwhelming for anyone that doesn’t work at a digital agency.

Facebook knows this which is why it created the Boost Post option from the page interface.

It knows it needed an “easier” option for businesses, so it created one – but it doesn’t mean it’s the right one for you.

Easy isn’t always best.

Easy isn’t always the right option.

Here’s THREE reasons boosted posts are not a good option:

Reason One

There are far more effective options available to you as an advertiser. Boosted posts are just one of twenty different marketing objectives Facebook offers advertisers.  Many of its other marketing objectives will help you achieve business outcomes that Boosted Posts will not, such as leads, sales, brand awareness, increasing video views, and more.

Reason Two

Boosted posts are focused on engagement (these are vanity metrics – like I mentioned before) and targeted specifically to the 16% of users likely to engage with an ad.

Each of Facebook’s marketing objectives is designed for a specific goal and boosted posts are focused solely on post engagement. And engagement is not a good objective to pursue when you are focused on business outcomes such as growing revenue.

Reason Three

When you boost a post from your page interface, the targeting options are further restricted (versus running ads from the ad manager or Power Editor) as you cannot test different styles of creative (images, copy, or video) or bidding types.

And if you’ve learnt anything from me with the blogs and podcasts I do, you’ll know one of my mantras  – marketing is all about test and measure and repeat!

If you recall my blog last month on Facebook Ads, you’ll remember in it I wrote, “assume nothing, test everything!”

Just like we learnt in Footloose the movie – there is a time for everything and therefore there is a time for boosting (maybe, perhaps, almost!)

So, when would you boost?

The best case for running boosted posts are to increase your visibility within the organic news feed and to communicate something to your fans. The people who see your boosted posts are most likely going to be your most engaging fans – the social butterflies – those people that are always “liking” and engaging with posts regardless.

My bestie who owns a retail shop (Judd’s in Yarrawonga – just to give it a plug) boosts, despite my requests not too (grrr) and she gets results.  She puts up a picture of the new green shirt that’s just arrived, boosts it for a couple of dollars and boom, it’s sold out.

I hate that!  But why does it work – well, because of what I just said, she’s boosting to her most engaged fans – the ones who already love her and her business.

You might argue that the green shirt would sell anyway, but that’s a test and measure thing!

So, do this with extreme caution.  Be really aware of what the goal is.

So as we wrap up this little rant when it comes to Facebook Boosting, I would love for you to put your hand in the air and say these words “Jenn, from today I promise to keep my fingers off the boost button and I will make time to learn the Ads platform, because I know it’s so much more powerful for my business”.

Excellent – glad we got that sorted!

Now if you’re interested in my Facebook Ads for Beginners course, I’d love to be the person to teach you.

I take your hand and I walk you through, step by step, not only on the actual Facebook Ads platform, but also goal setting, starting with the end in mind, your client avatar and SO MUCH MORE.

This is truly a labour of love.

My mission is to help as many small business owners as I can. This course is purely built on that core value.  I see so many small business owners not using the platform correctly because they don’t know how.

And an added bonus – if you do my Facebook Ads for Beginners course, you’ll have lifetime access.  As the platform changes, this course will update too, and you will have access to those updates, and I have an exclusive Facebook Group for my students of course so they can slip in there and have their questions answered by me or get help from fellow students as well.

I’d love to connect with you all on social – so let’s get social on social – I’m on all the good platforms, so let’s do that!

​​Or, come along and join our closed private Facebook group Like Minded Business Owners and continue the conversation or get the answers that you’ve been looking for from our brilliant community!

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Jenn Donovan is a marketing strategist and social media extraordinaire, coach and mentor to savvy business owners.  Owner and Founder of Social Media & Marketing Australia.

With a passion for making business simple, because it’s isn’t easy but it should be simple or at least simpler, she’s built a reputation for helping other small business owners simplify their marketing and businesses so they can reach their goals, be more profitable and live the dream (finding the freedom they set out to achieve when they started … the illusive small business owner freedom dream …!)

Jenn believes in giving before asking and that’s why she’s the host of the popular Small Business Made Simple Podcast