Why You Should Never Boost Your Facebook Posts
DISCLAIMER: "Boosting posts are effective and can drive traffic to your Facebook business page which can help give you social proof. However, this article is to highlight that if you're looking for more sales and a ROI, boosting is probably not the best way to go."
THE "ALL-SEEING EYE" OF FACEBOOK
Facebook is one of the most powerful "data engines" in the world. With over 2.2 billion users on the platform, they hold a wealth of information about you, your nuances, your preferences, your habits, what makes you laugh, cry, angry; what you like to read, what drives you up the wall, where you like to go out, what you like to eat, drink, drive, wear, listen to and watch - you get the gist!
One experiment showed that the Facebook algorithm was much more accurate in predicting personality than friends, work colleagues and even family members (including spouses)
Facebook have a rich wealth of information on every single user - every single action you take on the Facebook platform (and even some actions you take whilst off the platform) gives them another vital piece of information to be able to predict what type of post or advert you are likely to ENGAGE with or TAKE ACTION on.
WHAT DOES "ENGAGE" MEAN?
This term, "engage" is really Facebook coded language for "users who are prone to like, comment or share your post" and I'm sure everyone reading this article is aware that while likes, shares and comments can be helpful from one perspective, they don't actually generate profit. You can't deposit likes in your bank account!
I've often heard it said, "We tried advertising on Facebook. It didn't work." - when I dig a little deeper about what they actually did, guess what??
Yep - they boosted their post!
Sooooo - when you create a post on your Facebook Business page, quite often you'll see a message from Facebook letting you know that you can reach "X" amount of extra people by boosting your post for ￡X
And you think, "wow, yeah I'll do that". You click "boost post" and you're generally given two options.
Show your post to:
- People that already like your page and their friends OR
- People who live in a particular geographical area (you can choose the radius that this covers aswell as age and gender)
Now Facebook will tell you that when you "boost" a post they will show your post/advert to people who are most likely to "engage" with your post - as I mentioned earlier, this basically prioritises your post to attract likes, comments and shares.
On face value this sounds quite good so you'll follow through and pay your money in the full expectation that you'll have a stream of new customers lining up, calling your number, sending you emails or visiting your establishment. And what happens? You get nothing but some likes, comments and shares. On the flip side, at least it does what it says on the tin!
ARE YOU SETTING YOURSELF UP TO FAIL?
The thing with Facebook "boost" is that it clearly isn't set up to prioritise your post to the eyes that matter - the users that are most likely to "take action". When I use the term "take action" I'm talking about the people that Facebook knows are interested in your product or service, are most likely to make a purchase (or download your pdf, go to your website, download your app, claim your offer, visit your establishment etc)
Afterall, that is the main purpose of your adverts isn't it? You want people to take action and ultimately spend money with you.
CROUCHING TIGER, HIDDEN DRAGON
This is a quote from Chinese mythology, popularised by the film by the same name released in 2000. This Chinese idiom is a reminder that many people have hidden strength. Abilities and talents that are latent, lying below the surface but nonetheless very present.
You can unleash the power of Facebook to laser-target your ideal customers, also referred to as your "audience". This is not done by boosting your posts but by using the Facebook Ads Manager
The actual number of audience permutations you can select are massively diverse - for example if I wanted to target my advert to women over 35 who live within 15 miles of my salon and like cats (the animal not the theatre production), eating lasagne and action movies; and only show that advert between the hours of 8am and 1pm to people that have visited my website or my competitor's website, I could do that.
By the way if they happened to like the theatre production Cats I could actually throw that in the mix too!
You can't do this type of targeting by boosting a post. You definitely can't do that with flyers, radio ads, TV ads or directory ads.
This article is not meant to be a "how to" for Facebook ads" - if Facebook ads is something you want to explore then you have two options - do a course (many free and paid courses online) OR pay someone (or an agency) to run ads for you.
Have you ever boosted a Facebook post before? What was your experience?
Is Facebook advertising something you are considering or currently doing?
I hope this has been helpful, shed some light on what not to do and given you some food for thought about how you could actually use Facebook advertising more effectively.
This is quite helpful, I've been preparing to invest in Facebook ads and wanted to do that by boosting my posts. I know better now. Thanks for sharing.