3 Top Facebook Boost Myths Debunked

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3 Top Facebook Boost Myths Debunked

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Since Facebook announced that its news feed would prioritize meaningful personal interactions over posts from brands, it’s become harder than ever for brands to get their organic content in front of Facebook users.

In this increasingly competitive Facebook landscape, you need to make sure your content is working as hard as possible. The Facebook Boost Post button can help you reach your business goals by allowing you to quickly create a Facebook ad out of an original, organic post.

But, there are many myths—fake news, if you will—floating around about Facebook Boost.

Continue reading to discover:

• Common Facebook Boost myths—and what the truth is
• Expert tactics for using the Boost button from Hootsuite’s own social media team
• How to get the most value out of your Facebook ads

Bonus: Download a free guide that teaches you how to turn Facebook traffic into sales in four simple steps using Hootsuite.

1. The bigger your audience, the better your results

It might seem counterintuitive to say that getting your content in front of less people can actually work better for your business, but it’s the truth.

“Many businesses think that boosting a post to a wider audience, will improve the performance of their content,” Nick Martin, Hootsuite’s Global Social Engagement Specialist explains.

“But, that thinking isn’t necessarily right. If your audience is a huge group of uninterested Facebook users, you’ll end up paying a lot more for less results.”

The key is to figure out exactly who your audience is, and what they’re interested in. You want to increase the probability that they will engage and ultimately convert.

When you have an audience set that is too large and your budget is too low, it can make it hard for your ads to compete with other advertisers who can spend more money to reach the same audience.

To avoid this, narrow your boosted post’s demographics and set specific parameters for who will see it—including their age, sex, location, and interests.

You can also create custom audiences based on existing contacts, or lookalike audiences based on people who’ve already engaged with your Facebook business Page in some way.

Get more results with a smaller audience by:

• Reaching your target audience based on their interests. Instead of just broadcasting a boosted post to a broad group of people, consider the interests of your target audience. For example, if you’re a local fitness centre you might want to target Facebook users who have liked Pages related to healthy eating.
• Targeting lookalike audiences. These users already have a connection to your business, so you’re able to bypass the brand awareness stage—saving time and other resources ($$$).
• Reaching people near your business. There’s no use boosting a post to users across the world if you have a bricks-and-mortar store in New York and don’t ship internationally. Save your budget and target a smaller radius around your business for better results.

2. More budget means improved performance

If a bigger audience doesn’t mean better results, then surely a bigger budget will, right?

Wrong.

More spend behind your boosted post does not necessarily mean you’re going to see a better return.

“Stronger content needs to be your focus—not an increased budget,” Martin explains.

“If your audience isn’t engaging with a piece of content organically, putting a huge amount of money behind it and boosting it won’t make it magically perform.”

Instead, you first need to create engaging content by knowing and paying attention to your audience and their interests. Once you have organic content that is performing well, then you can start boosting posts—not the other way around.

“Here, you need to pay attention to your analytics,” Hootsuite’s Social Marketing Specialist, Christine Colling, explains.

“If you’ve boosted a post, it’s important to watch closely for the point where engagement drops off. If you miss this, you’ll end up paying to reach people outside of your target audience who won’t click through or engage.”

How can you get the most out of your boosted posts?

• Concentrate on better content. Figure out what organic content is doing well and boost those posts, rather than boosting a poorly performing post in the hopes it will suddenly engage your audience.
• Pay attention to analytics. This will not only help with the previous point, but will ensure you aren’t wasting your budget past the point of audience drop off. When you closely watch your analytics, you’re able to quickly put a stop to budget-busting activity.

Bonus: Download a free guide that teaches you how to turn Facebook traffic into sales in four simple steps using Hootsuite.

Get the free guide right now!

3. You should boost every post

While it may be tempting to hit that boost post button for all of your content, that could do more damage than good.

“Before you click on the boost post button, you need to make sure you have a clear purpose for that content,” Colling explains.

“What business goals will the boosted post help you reach? If you don’t have a solid answer, you might want to rethink putting more budget behind boosting the post.”

Are you trying to get more likes on your Facebook page? Or are you trying to increase traffic to your sales website?

Knowing your goals will help you determine metrics to measure success by and create an effective call-to-action (CTA.)

A good test is to come up with a clear CTA for a post you want to boost. If you have difficulty figuring out exactly what you want your audience to do—and why—it’s probably not a great idea to click the boost post button.

What kinds of posts should you boost?

• Posts with clear objectives. Only boost a post if you know exactly what business goal it’s helping you reach. Never boost just for the sake of boosting.
• Posts that already perform well. As mentioned above with our second myth, there’s no use boosting posts that aren’t getting your audience’s attention already. No amount of budget or boosting is going to make a lackluster post sparkle.
• Organic posts that have had some time. Because you want to make sure a post is going to get attention, you never want to boost a brand new post before you know how it will perform. Give your post at least a day or two before you click that boost post button.

While it’s tempting to click the boost post button whenever you want more eyes on your content, there are consequences to being overly trigger-happy. As the debunked myths above show, less is often more when it comes to the boost button and your Facebook marketing strategy.

Save time, reach the right audience, and make the most of your advertising budget by automatically boosting your top-performing Facebook posts from the Hootsuite dashboard.

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July 19, 2018 at 08:26AM