Stop Boosting your posts! (until you do this)
Picture the scene: your post that you’ve spent hours crafting just isn’t getting any traction at all, you’ve got a new promotion that you thought would get lots of engagement, but instead you got tumbleweeds. So far, so Instagram, right? There’s that magic boost button, just sitting there ready to be pressed!
Now hold right there…
It’s time to step away from that boost button! Until you know the right way to use it that is.
First off - ask yourself this: is there a reason why this post isn’t getting the engagement you hoped? Let’s not blame the algorithm now and be honest with ourselves. There’s every chance that the post is just not engaging enough and adding the boost button is quite frankly a waste of your money.
Take a look at your content, does it invite engagement? Really? Are you asking a question? Giving your followers a call to action? Or are you just broadcasting? If you invite a conversation you'll struggle to start one. And if no one cares about your organic post, boosting it simply means you’ll be spending money to show it to more people who don’t care that much about it.
But my organic post IS getting lots of engagement!
Brilliant! Once you start getting some organic engagement on your posts, it might be time to hit that boost button. But now you need to ask yourself why? Is it because you truly benefit your audience, or is it just a vanity metric to make yourself feel good at the end of the month?
Try this checklist before you boost:
Does it have a great call to action?
Does that link to the website do exactly what you want it to do?
Will it really benefit your business?
Should I boost or run a Facebook ad?
When you press boost Facebook will show you a variety of objectives. If you would like more engagement (comments, shares, saves) then you can either boost or run through ads manager. The difference with using ads manager is that you can create a whole new (engaging) post, targeted to the right audience, shown across all placements and you can test it against other options.
If you want people to contact you, perhaps to make a booking or ask for more details then you can choose boost and pick the message objective. Again, if you are used to using ads manager you can create a messenger campaign and use this post or create a whole new ad to encourage people to start conversations in Messenger. Your ads can then be targeted to the right audience, shown across all placements and you can test them against other options.
If you want people to visit your website, ask yourself what you want them to do when they get there. If you want them to simply visit a web page your read your blog then boost away! But if you want them to take valuable action when they get there then ads manager, with all the different parameters it gives you is the way to go. Creating an ad in ads manager with a traffic or conversions objective is likely to get you better results. Again you'll want to make sure you target the right audience and you can then show these ads across all placements and test different creative and audiences.
I need more advice!
Well, (hem, hem) that’s where I can help! I offer 1:1 client management of your ads campaigns and also offer ads power hours if you want to run campaigns yourself. You can book a free discovery call with me here:
