Statistics reveal that one in three people use social media to learn about or discover new brands, products, or services. There’s even a saying that if your business is not on social media, it doesn’t exist.
However, creating a profile on social media is just the beginning. It can be a real challenge to thrive in the sea of over 50 million businesses on social media.
One effective strategy to grow your social media reach is by boosting posts. The three social giants, Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, feature paid ads where you can boost a post, so it floats in the feed of thousands of potential customers.
Today, you’ll learn why and how to boost social media posts. We’ve also included tips and strategies to get the most out of your boosted posts.
Why Boost Social Media Posts?
Boosting posts should be a part of your social media marketing strategy and budget, and there are multiple reasons why. Here are some of the many benefits of boosting your posts:
1. Enhances Your Brand’s Visibility
Boosting posts is one of the best ways to create awareness about your brand.
When you boost a post, it becomes visible to many people, including those who are not following you yet. Thus, you are likely to reach more potential customers.
2. Drives Engagement
The more people see your post, the better chances you have of getting likes and comments.
However, as much as sponsored posts can help you with it, engagement largely depends on the quality of content you’re posting. Later on, we’ll discuss what posts you should boost for better engagement.
3. Focuses on Your Target Audience
Before you can boost a post, you have to set your target market.
You can choose the particulars of the audience you wish to target, such as their age, language, location, gender, and more.
With custom targeting, you’ll be able to reach the people who are most likely to buy your products or services.
How to Boost a Post on Social Media
Here are some of the best techniques to boost social media posts:
Over three million businesses actively advertise on Facebook. Boosted posts are ads you can create to get more likes, messages, video views, leads, or calls.
Follow these steps to boost a post on Facebook:
1. Select Your Audience
Before you boost a post, you must specify the audience you want to reach. Many businesses skip this step because they don’t know how to do it.
However, you’ll get a better result when you target a custom audience.
Okay, so how do you create a custom audience on Facebook Ad?
First, let you must know the types of audiences on Facebook:
- Customer List
Customer lists allow you to integrate your existing customer base into your Facebook audience.
For example, if you have a list of emails, phone numbers, or FB user IDs, you can upload them manually on your Customer List or use a custom audience sync tool.
- Audience From Your Website
By linking your website to Facebook, the platform can match your website visitors to their user profiles. You can then use this information to create custom audiences that target all your site visitors or those who have visited your product page or category.
- Audience From Your Mobile App
After you register your app to the Facebook for Developers site, you can create a custom audience consisting of people who interacted with your app.
You can even target the audience that has downloaded your app but may not be using it.
- Engagement Custom Audiences
This allows you to target people who already interacted with your brand by liking or commenting on your posts or viewing your videos on Facebook or Instagram.
2. Boost a Post
To boost a post on Facebook:
- Go to your Facebook Page
- Find the post you want to boost
- Click Boost Post at the bottom right of your post. If you can’t select Boost Post, boosting may be unavailable for that post.
- Choose the results you’d like to see from your ad. You can do this step manually or let Facebook do it based on the relevant goals in your settings.
- Fill in the details for your ad. You will be asked to set the audience, total budget, duration, and payment method.
- When you’re done with the settings, click Boost Post Now.
Boosting Posts on Facebook: Best Practices
Boosting posts on Facebook can greatly benefit your business. Check out these tips to get the most from your boosted posts:
1. Set a Clear Goal for Boosting a Post
There could be many reasons you want to boost a post. Maybe you want to increase your Page Likes or advertise a new product.
Also, you can do it to raise brand awareness. In this case, try sharing an educational or entertaining post in the form of a video or image.
Aside from customizing your target audience, Facebook allows you to select an objective when boosting a post.
The objective varies depending on the content you’re posting. For example, if you’re posting a video, you can choose to get more people to watch it or to connect to potential customers.
Setting a clear goal also helps you write an effective call-to-action for your post and measure the success of your efforts.
2. Boost Posts That Are Performing Well
You don’t have to boost every single post. Choose only those that are performing well already.
You can visit Insights on your Facebook page to check the performance of your posts. Choose a post with a high engagement rate (more likes, comments, and shares) that is more relevant to your goal.
Posts that already received many clicks organically are more likely to drive clicks when boosted.
3. Narrow Your Audience
What’s great about Facebook Ads is it provides you with so many ways to customize your target audience. You can choose specific demographics, interests, and behaviors.
Below each category, there are more sub-sections.
To understand more about your main audience, which is your followers, go to Insights and click People. Then, select Your Followers from the top to see their demographics.
The insights will give you a good idea of your target audience and the people who are most likely to like your page and engage with your posts.
4. Know the Right Time To Boost a Post
Just as there is the right time to publish a post, there is also the right time to boost a post.
When it comes to the timing of a boost, it’s best to do it when it has already shown up organically in your followers’ newsfeeds.
Again, check your Page Insights to find the time when your followers are mostly online. This gives you an idea of your existing followers. Plus, you can assume that your new followers will have similar behaviors.
Instagram has the power to reach over 850 million people. That is why many businesses are into this platform as well.
The Boost Post feature is only available on the Instagram mobile app.
Like Facebook, you can also choose your advertising goal. For example, you can choose to boost a post for more profile visits or messages.
To boost posts on Instagram:
1. Go to Your Instagram Feed
Choose the post you want to boost. Click the Boost Post button at the bottom of your post. Then choose a goal. You have three options:
- More profile visits
- More website visits
- More messages
Whatever your goal is, choose the option that best aligns with it.
2. Choose an Audience
You can pick from three targeting options:
- Automatic: By choosing this, you tell Instagram to target people who are just like your followers.
- Local: This option lets you target people in a specific location.
- Manual: Here, you can choose people, places, or interests.
3. Set Your Budget and Campaign Duration
Instagram will tell you the expected reach and clicks your post will attract after setting your campaign budget and duration.
4. Review Your Ad
After that, Instagram will ask you to review the parameters you’ve set and boost your post.
What types of Instagram posts can you boost? On Instagram, you can boost various types of posts, from photos to videos, carousels, stories, and even posts with product tags.
Boosted posts will appear in the Stories and the Explore tab.
Boosting Posts on Facebook and Instagram
Facebook and Instagram advertising are linked together, which makes boosting posts on these two platforms a lot easier. You can advertise on Instagram through Business Suite and Facebook Ads Manager.
Simply check the “run promotion on Instagram” to boost the post across both platforms.
Boosting Post on Instagram: Best Practices
Similar to Facebook, when you start to build up photos on your Instagram profile, you’ll see what posts perform well with your audience.
Below are some key practices that will help you maximize your IG ads.
1. Check Your Page Insights
Learn about your followers by going to your account insights. There, you will see what types of posts your followers are more likely to engage with.
Chances are, it will also work on your target audience.
2. Highlight Your Brand
Seeing your boosted post is likely the first time someone learns about your business. Make sure to choose posts that best represent your business.
3. Choose Quality Content
Choose a post to boost that will capture the attention of your target audience. Whether you’re promoting a photo, a video, or a carousel, the post your boosting should be engaging.
Use the right hashtags and captions.
On Twitter, you can boost a post through the Quick Promote feature. After selecting a tweet from your timeline, you can set your target audience and campaign duration.
Here’s how you can promote a tweet:
- Find the tweet you want to promote from your timeline.
- Click the Tweet Activity button. Then, click Promote this Tweet. From there, you will be asked to set your budget, audience, and campaign duration.
- After that, Twitter will show you an estimate of the impressions and engagements you will get from your promotion.
- At this point, you can now pay. You will be asked to add your credit card or billing details and review your promotion.
- Click Create Promotion.
- Wait for Twitter to approve your campaign.
How to Customize an Ad on Twitter
You can customize your campaign by defining your target audience, budget, and ad duration. This is how you do it:
- Audience: You can choose your audience based on country, city level, age, and gender.
- Budget: You have nine options, ranging from $10 to $5,000 or your local currency equivalent.
- Duration: You can choose to run your ad for up to 30 days.
Boosting Posts on Twitter: Best Practices
Boosting posts on Twitter is an opportunity for you to promote your brand and reach new users who might be interested in what your company offers.
Consider these strategies when promoting a tweet:
1. Promote Your Account
On Twitter, you can promote just a tweet or your entire Twitter account. This kind of promotion lets you target users who haven’t followed your brand yet.
The ad will show in your potential followers’ timelines, particularly in the Who to Follow suggestions and search results.
2. Promote a Trending Topic
Twitter shows the most popular topics and hashtags in real-time. This paid ad lets you get a spot on the “Trends for You” section in your potential followers’ timelines.
3. Use Instagram Insights
Instagram Insights is an easy way to track how your posts are performing. It shows data on your reach and impressions, interactions, and profile visits.
It also gives you insights into your audience, particularly their age range, gender, and where they are based.
What Kinds of Posts Should You Boost?
Boosting posts is an investment. You want to make sure you get the most out of every penny you spend on it.
Thus, you must choose the right posts to boost. Don’t just boost any post. Select the post that will:
Tell a Story
A great way to engage with your audience is to tell a story. It can be about your brand, how you came about your business concept, an experience that sparked your interest, and how you became what you are today.
Share a bit of backstory with your audience, inspire them, and give them something to relate to. You can even share behind-the-scenes content like how you do your business.
If your goal for boosting a post is to raise brand awareness, you can share a peek at your day-to-day operations. For example, if you’re a SaaS company, you can share a video explaining how you’ve built your software.
Capture Your Brand
Consumers love visuals. Boosting the best photos of your products or services on social media is a great way to promote your brand and spark people’s interest and curiosity over your brand.
You can also make an infographic that talks about your brand and images of your best-selling products.
Are Highly Engaging
You can ride on the success of your existing posts by promoting them. If you have posts that have drawn good traction, they are the best candidates for boosting.
Suppose you have UGC campaigns in the past, such as positive testimonials from your customers. In that case, you can promote these posts on your social media account and leave a positive impression on your audience.
Promote Your Products
Consider boosting your post when you have new deals and offers and want a bigger audience to know about them (not just your existing customers or followers). Just make sure to include a high-quality image.
Whether you are promoting a new product or an event or simply giving an update, you want to include an eye-catching visual as it is the first thing that your audience will see.
Boosted Post vs Paid Ad
At this point, you have a clearer idea of boosted posts and how they can help grow your social media following. However, you might be wondering, what is the difference between boosted posts and ads?
The main difference between boosted posts and ads is that the latter provides more customization options for you to choose from.
For example, you can choose where your ad is placed, from your target audience’s news feed to Instagram Stories, instant articles, Messages, and even Audience Network.
You can choose an objective early on in your ad. You can choose from options like conversations, lead generation, and store traffic. This helps you align your marketing strategy with your business goals.
Social media ads also give you more options to identify your target audience. Additionally, it features advanced tools that allow you to create “lookalike audiences” which leads you to a new audience that shares similar characteristics with your existing audience.
Finally, you can decide how you want your ad to look. You can use text, images, and videos to capture your audience’s attention.
Tips When Boosting Posts on Social Media
Here are some other tried-and-tested ways how to boost a post on social media, whether it may be on Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter:
Set Reasonable Duration
The duration of your boosted post also plays a key role in making it successful. It is not recommended to boost a post for more than one week.
The reason is that it might just show up to the same people multiple times especially if you currently have a small audience. It’s best to stick to a week or less of boosting.
Once you’ve set the duration of the boost, monitor the performance of your ad multiple times a day. If the post-performance is declining, you can pause the ad.
Analyze Your Ad’s Performance
What should you be looking at in your Ads manager? Here are some of them:
- Frequency
- Unique Link Clicks
- Reach
- Impressions
Frequency
This is the most important metric in social media advertising. Frequency refers to the average number of times a person saw your ad.
Ideally, your frequency should be low because you don’t want to irritate your target customers. Nevertheless, it still depends on the type of post you are boosting.
For example, if you want to boost an informative post and you want people to read it, a frequency of two or more isn’t a good sign.
The reason is if they didn’t read your post the first time, they aren’t likely to read it the next time either.
However, if you boost social media posts that link to a landing page, a high frequency won’t harm you because you’re promoting a marketing page that people usually resist.
A high frequency is also good if you aim to boost your brand awareness.
Unique Link Clicks
Unique clicks on Facebook estimate how many people clicked on a link, not the actual number of clicks you received.
It counts people, not actions, and uses sampled data. It’s good to look at your link clicks (unique link clicks) to understand how well your ad performs.
Reach
Reach indicates the number of people who have seen your boosted post. People may not always click on your ads, but seeing your post allows them to engage with your message.
Post reach tells the number of people who saw your post on their news feed. Most marketers gauge the success of a boosted post by checking the number of people reached for a given post and then comparing it to their total follower count.
However, it is best to measure it against the total number of fans who were on Facebook at the time you boosted your post.
Impressions
Impressions are the number of times your content is displayed on your audience’s feed, regardless if it was clicked or not.
Think of it as the number of unique people who saw your post. For videos, it is not required that it starts to play for the impression to be counted.
On Facebook, impressions have two categories: served and viewed.
Served posts don’t need to appear on the screen or even finish rendering to count as an impression. Meanwhile, viewed impressions don’t count until the ad appears on the target audience’s screen.
On Twitter, reach and impression are a little more straightforward. In this platform, an impression is any time someone sees your boosted tweet, either in the search results, in their feed, or as part of a conversation.
On Instagram, reach and impressions are used the same way as Facebook does. That is, reach indicates the total number of unique accounts that have seen your post or story while impression indicates the number of times users saw your post or story.
Effectively Boost Social Media Posts
Boosting posts on social media is an effective marketing strategy. Whether you’re looking to raise brand awareness, find new customers, or promote a product or service, boosting a post on social media allows you to reach as many people as you want.
However, there are a few things you have to keep in mind when boosting posts. Consider the quality of your content, your goals and objectives, and your budget.
Furthermore, make sure to apply the best practices we’ve mentioned in this guide so you can ensure the success of your boosted posts.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
1. How do I boost an existing post on Facebook?
You have two options to boost an existing post on Facebook. One is on the Ads Manager.
Go to Posts and then choose the content you want to promote. Click Boost.
Alternatively, you can go to your newsfeed. You will see the Boost button on the bottom right of your post.
Before completing the process, don’t forget to set the parameters, such as the target audience and budget.
2. How do I boost Facebook posts to Instagram?
To turn your post into an Instagram ad, follow these steps:
- Go to Ads Manager
- Select the Page Posts
- Click the box next to the post you want to promote.
- Click the dropdown menu under Actions and then choose to Create Ad
- Select Save Draft
- Under the Identity section, choose Instagram from the dropdown menu.
- In the Ads Preview, choose Instagram Feed and Instagram Stories
- Click Publish.
3. Can you edit text on a boosted post?
No. You can’t edit the text, images, or videos once you’ve boosted a post.
If you want to change anything on your content, you have to create a new post and boost it. You can just cancel the existing ad.
It’s important to check the preview of the post to have an idea of how it will appear on your target audience’s feed.
4. What happens if you delete a boosted post on Facebook?
When you delete a boosted post, the ad will end immediately, and the results will no longer be available. You will have to pay for the days that your post was boosted.
5. What happens if I pause a boosted post?
Pausing the boost allows you to resume your boosted post at a later time. Sometimes, you might need to pause a boosted post, especially if you’re concerned about your audience’s time zone.
For example, you may pause it at night if your content requires filling out a form or completing a purchase.
