To Boost or Not To Boost

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...that is the question.

To level-set, 'boosting' means paying a platform to show your post to more people as popularized by Meta.

And now LinkedIn has gotten into the game, not just with pages, but, as Brendan Gahan (great follow) discussed in his post, on a profile level, too.

But here's the sticky-wicket: the algorithm sees and considers everything. And if you've shown yourself to be someone who pays to gain exposure for your own posts, many have posited you will no longer get reach on non-promoted posts.

In other words, you've made your profile 'pay to play'.

I've not seen any credible evidence this is true, but algorithms are opaque and complex, so I wouldn't doubt it.

So if you want to boost your posts for faster growth or some other objective (if you're a brand, for example, the goal may be customer acquisition), what should you consider to make your spend as effective as possible?

Top tips in descending order of importance:

?? Boost What's Already Working. If you're spending your money trying to 'save' posts with poor reach, you may as well set it on fire. If you boost a top-performing post that's already driving strong engagement and desired outcomes, you're more likely to get the same enthusiasm to new viewers. When boosting a profile, I do a nothing/medium/large strategy: if after 1 hour, a boost is performing 2x or more above expectation, I do a large boost, 1x - 2x, I do a medium boost, and less than that, I don't bother.

?? Popular or Effective? Is your post driving your desired outcomes or is it just doing well? For example, I sometimes post family pics on LinkedIn that have huge engagement, but I'm unlikely to boost those. They don't tell the story of my digital content strategy expertise. The best posts to boost follow the best practices of an ad unit: on-brand, eye-catching creative, and a clear call-to-action.

? Know Your Timelines. Boosts can happen in an hour or over the course of a month. If your content is evergreen, you could save a lot of money boosting over a longer time period. If you're writing about breaking news, you may want to boost aggressively for one day. There's nothing worse than a boosted post that's irrelevant (see: a boosted post about Thanksgiving recipes on December 5).

????♀? Define the Right Audience. When boosting, you have the option to choose the audience you're boosting to. Don't get lazy here. If you're a game streamer, don't just target 'anyone that likes games'. What's the desired age? Gender? Country? What else might they like? What games do you play? Get specific.

My mission for you: try a $5 boost on a Facebook or Instagram that was recently successful (or any other platform, I just find Meta to be easiest). Or, if you don't want to spend, hit the button and try setting a campaign.

You should see it on the bottom of eligible posts and it will look like this:

Then, if you have the means, test the outcomes. Did your $5 drive real impact? Did it affect your reach on other posts? Did your new audience stick?

If it worked for you, try the nothing/medium/large strategy going forward!

That took 2 minutes. You have 8 minutes left. Go boost...I mean...grow 1% right now!

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About the Author

Phil Ranta, is the COO of Fixated, a content and gaming studio building IP around creators, a LinkedIn Top Voice in Innovation & Tech, and has been creating content for the internet and building internet businesses professionally for nearly 20 years, starting on MySpace and riding trends to the present. He was the Head of Gaming Creators, North America at Facebook, the first network lead at Fullscreen, the COO at Studio71, and spent 10 years as a working comedian (including 2 years on cruise ships). He's a husband, a dad of two littles, and an insufferable digital media wonk.

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