I know it is the easiest thing in the world to click that little blue Boost Post button that Facebook teases you with. After all, it’s only going to cost you $6, $11, $27 etc making it cheap marketing, right?

As the organic reach has collapsed over the past few years, many of you are choosing to Boost Posts to get their messages in front of their audiences. But before you boost, read this so you understand why Boosting is not always the best idea or the best way to spend those limited marketing dollars.

There are now more boosting options to target your fans than previously available so you can target just your fans, add friends of fans, or exclude those who are already fans and focus just on attracting new users. Keep in mind that organic reach is so low that if you simply want to reach all your current fans you’ll need to boost your posts to do so.
The first thing you need to ask yourself is what are your goals with boosting your post? Is it exposure to your existing Facebook fans, to get click throughs to a link or page, sales conversion, reaching new audiences etc? What are you trying to achieve?

If you choose to boost posts be aware of the following issues:
• Pushes Engagement not link clicks > Facebook optimizes your campaigns depending on which objective you choose. If you go with Website Clicks objective, Facebook will optimize for link clicks to your website. If it’s Website Conversions – Facebook will analyze everyone who converted already and will try to reach similar people first. But if you boost a post, Facebook will always optimize just for more post engagement – more likes, shares, comments and so on. So even if you decide to boost a link post, Facebook will still optimize for engagement and not link clicks.
• You cannot exclude people > Plus, you can’t include or exclude your page fans or Custom Audiences from your targeting.
• You cannot schedule times it runs, change the call to action button or optimise bidding > making when your post runs limited and possibly not ideal for when your audience is online.
• Limited targeting > With Facebook boost post targeting, you have three options:
o People who like your Page – advertising to all your fans
o People who like your Page and their friends – advertising to all your fans and all their friends
o People you choose through targeting – advertising to a specific target audience you choose.
Although you can choose specific interests, the targeting choices are still very limited. Eg: you can’t choose any behaviours or detailed targeting to reach people who are interested in both Interest A and Interest B either.
• No control on placement – unlike facebook ads where you can specify where you want the ad to appear eg: deskptop, mobile, messenger. Most of the time their algorithms will try to find the cheapest way to achieve an objective, even if it might destroy your overall campaign results.
• Conversion on mobile is lower which is a crucial factor given that mobile usage is sky high. The conversion rate on mobile is usually 2 to 3 times lower than on desktop.
• Boosted ads sit on your Facebook feed – unlike Facebook ads which show up as sponsored. They also stay on your page after they finish running.

So, all my boost crazy buddies, think twice before boosting. It will take you longer to create your campaign in Ads Manager of Power Editor, however, it will be more targeted, more relevant, set up to reach your campaign objectives and gives you complete control, which all make more sense and will equal a greater ROI for your campaign.