Written by Becca Miller
Edited by Allison Herrera
We HAVE to address this issue….boosted posts are the WORST. There, we said it. But before we get heated about this issue, let’s break it down.
A boosted post is when you put money into a post that you already have shared on Facebook. This post can be advertised to your selected targeted audience, but does not come with all of the customization features that Facebook’s AD Manager has. Boosted posts are, in our opinion, a juvenile move. Think of them as merely superficial – resulting in just more “likes” and comments than usual, but no real call to action (CTA).
In comparison, an ad is created in Facebook AD Manager and features much more customization needed for advertising your brand or products. These ads are strategically placed, created, and goal oriented. Proper Facebook ads reveal a sense of professionalism, which expands your credibility as a business.
So, why are we so heated about boosted posts? Well, for one, we’ve found that some companies get “boost happy” – as we like to call it. What that means is that they love to boost a post everytime Facebook tells them it’s a good idea, whereas most of the time it’s not.
Though posts and ads appear in a user’s feed like a regular post, they have two totally different end goals.
- Your post is meant to engage and motivate users to interact with you, as they would with their friends or family, because they love your brand so much.
- An ad is targeting customers you want to not only interact with you, but to go to your website, purchase a product, go to your event, etc. With an ad, you have more control over your audience, your goals, and how your ad looks on different platforms, which ensures peak optimization. It focuses on a CTA.
Boosting your posts aslo skews and limits strategy…especially an ad strategy. Take a look at our graphic below. This shows how a boosted post only has limited objectives, audiences, options, budgeting, and more. Meanwhile, the Facebook AD Manager has many more options for professionals in terms of the strategy and optimization of your ads.
As mentioned in the above graphic, boosting can only give you a handful of options for running an ad. Meanwhile, Facebook Ads Manager gives you more options and objectives that can be maximized and optimized. These are the key objectives that are necessary to run a successful campaign:
- Choosing different ad placements:
- When you boost a post you’ll be able to check or uncheck whether you want your ad to run on Instagram. While with Facebook ads, you get more options for where your audience will see your ad. This could be on Instagram stories, Facebook News Feed side ads, messenger ads, and more.
- Use specific ad objectives:
- When creating ads you have to let Facebook know what your objective and goals are with the campaign. When you boost a post, you really can only focus on website clicks, page engagement, and local business promotions. While Facebook ads give you a full range of objectives and goals from conversions to email subscriptions.
- Maintain creative control:
- Facebook AD Manager gives you the tools to create & design ads that fit the needs of your goals. You can create carousel ads, add specific descriptions, and add a call-to-action button that will drive your audience to take action. There are plenty more creative options available. While boosting a post doesn’t give you the same creative freedom.
- Using advance targeting capabilities:
- This helps you reach people who are more likely to interact or remember your ads. Boosting posts lets you decide on interests, age, and gender for your audience. While Facebook Ads while give you the options of overlapping audiences and lookalike audiences to create an even more customized look at who is connected with your ads
To summarize our point, boosted posts aren’t great for your brand and/or company. There’s no true strategy behind just boosting a post, because Facebook is telling you that you should. After all, Facebook is a machine and is only looking at merely the data they can pull – the data telling them that the post is doing “great” or “better” than other posts. This ignites in Facebook’s algorithm to let you know that you should boost your post! It sounds nice, but again, the machine only knows so much compared to a well thought out and researched strategy.
But don’t worry…this is where we come in! We’re fully trained in creating, strategizing, and optimizing your Facebook ads to meet the needs and wants of your business. Give us a call to get started.
