If you own a business, there is a high likelihood that you have some sort of digital presence. More often than not, this will include a Facebook page. And at some point it is possible that you’ve used the boost button on your Facebook page to amplify the reach of your content. It looked like a good idea, the cost was not prohibitive, and the eventual reach was impressive. And that’s where it ended, not? Dear Facebook page admins, consider this an intervention. Should you be boosting? The short answer is no. If the answer is what you came for, you can stop reading right here – isn’t that a relief? But if you do want to find a better solution to your online ad spend, feel free to read on.

Facebook marketing is a challenge for many page owners. There is still a perception that page likes should be increasing, and that the actual page likes all see a post when it goes live. No, actually, they don’t. The Facebook algorithm changes all the time. And thanks to that, it means that only a small selection of your actual page fans will see a post from your business page at any given time. You’ve probably read/heard that Facebook has substantially decreased organic reach for business pages. That means that to be seen in your community’s news feed, you need to spend money. Yes, it shouldn’t be a surprise: Facebook is pay to play. It is a business, after all.

Here’s where the “solution” appears to come in. Facebook ads, surely? After all, it seems so many businesses are jumping on board with Facebook ads, and rightly so. It looks so very easy, everyone can click on that boost button. Trust me, you are not the only one. Hundreds of thousands of page managers have been using the ‘Boost Post’ button to increase their post reach. It is easy as pie: Targeting is set (general, usually to your page’s users and location, maybe also age), a budget is chosen, and there it runs: active until either the budget runs out, or you’ve reached the end date that you’ve selected.

So, what exactly is the Facebook Boost Post function that we are talking about?

The “Boost Post” option is technically part of the greater Facebook ad system, but it can be accessed through your actual business page post feed instead of the ads manager. This does make initial ad creation easier, but it requires you to promote specific posts (instead of creating specific ad-only content) and with fewer options about who you want to see your ad and where.

When you view posts on a Page that you manage, you’ll see that blue “Boost Post” option underneath the post itself, alongside its current engagement (people reached and actual views).

The Boost button is certainly quick and convenient. But in this case, convenience comes at a cost. Your digital Ad campaigns can be huge financial and time investments, so you don’t want to take any risks. The answer cannot be that you want to reach more people. You have to be more specific. Facebook engagement is a great goal for any social media strategy, but if you’re forking out money, you want more than just likes, comments and engagement. But let’s be frank, if you boost, you’re paying for reach. That means that you pay for people to just see what you’ve posted. While it might seem like a good thing, you actually end up paying for people to glance at (and then scroll past) your boosted post.

Make no mistake, the Facebook ad platform is the secret weapon for many businesses that know how to use it correctly to market their products or services to their target audience. There’s no other advertising platform quite like Facebook, and definitely not one that delivers the value that Facebook does in terms of its precise targeting. Also from a cost point of view, there is simply no other medium that can compete.

The Facebook ad platform offers more demographic information about people than any other advertising platform, including interests, behaviors, likes or dislikes, household income, age, gender, religious or political beliefs, married or single, whether they have children in the home or at a tertiary institution and much much more. However, please also know that the abundance of information and targeting options for advertisers that can be used for advertising from within Facebook can be overwhelming for anyone who hasn’t got the experience from working at a digital agency. Facebook knows this which is why it created the Boost Post option from the page interface as the above screenshot from our company page.

So, what are your options apart from boosting? We cannot emphasise this more strongly: if you want bang for your buck, if you want measurable results, the ad campaign is the best way to go. Creating a full ad campaign on Facebook is a little more complicated than boosting a post. To create an ad campaign, you’ll usually start from scratch in Facebook business manager, and you’ll need a little more advertising expertise. You have so many more options – you can define and fine tune your targeting, you can run split ads, you can run dark ads (ads that are not posted as actual posts, and that only your targeted audience can see – this is particularly helpful if you want to run a couple of ads that look the same visually, but you want to compare results, and you don’t want to spam your community). Did you know that Facebook provides more than 17 different marketing objectives, none of which you will find if you are boosting posts and advertising from the page interface.

The purpose of any ad spend should be to increase business. It could be to generate leads, build a database, drive traffic to your website – whatever your end objective is. But it cannot be to get more likes, more comments, or more engagement. Nobody has budget to waste on vanity reach, we want results.

If you are keen to take your advertising to the next level, and you want to connect with us to assist, give us a shout at: jolindy@besociable.co.za, or pop in at our website: http://www.creativetouch.agency