Should You Use Boosted Posts On Facebook?

Near the end of 2019, Facebook stated that over seven million businesses were currently using the platform to advertise their product or service.

Today, most businesses know that they should have an active presence on social media — Facebook being one of the most important. What they may not know, however, is how to use this specific platform to most effectively market their business.

One of the original reasons Facebook was designed was to make money through digital marketing, but over the years, it developed sophisticated features to more accurately target users with ads and optimize results for advertisers. One of these key features is Facebook Business Manager, which launched in 2014 to allow businesses to manage all of their advertising efforts in one place. Another commonly used feature is Facebook Boosted Posts which enables you pay in order to increase engagement on posts.

Those new to Facebook advertising may not know where to start. While Boosted Posts help your business reach a wider audience, it is significantly different than Facebook Business Manager, which helps you reach a strategic, specific audience much more relevant to your business.

So, should you boost your Facebook posts? Facebook Boosted Posts are great if you’re trying to reach the current audience who likes your page and their friends. However, if you’re trying to grow your business and hyper-target customers, you should be using Facebook Business Manager.

First, let us explain the process behind Boosted Posts. Then we will highlight four key features Boosted Posts don’t have that might be the reason you should go with Facebook Business Manager.

How Facebook Boosted Posts Work

When setting up a boosted post, you decide three things: audience, budget, and duration.

Audience – Boosted Posts give you three options:

People who like your page
People who like your page and their friends
People you choose through targeting

Budget – the maximum amount you want to spend.
Duration – how long you want the ad to run.

The boosted post will appear on the feed of those in your target audience as well as on your page’s timeline. Facebook always optimizes for engagement, which means reactions, comments, and shares.

Why You Should Use Facebook Business Manager over Boosted Posts

There are many reasons your business should consider using Facebook Business Manager over Boosted Posts. Not only does Business Manager allow you to target more accurately, it also provides you with the ability to utilize data to make better decisions. Outlined below are four reasons not to use Boosted Posts:

1. Boosted Posts have limited targeting criteria

Targeting those who already like your page will only be valuable if you have a large amount of active and engaged fans, which often is itself an entirely separate campaign strategy to build.
The friends of your fans are often way too broad and not relevant to your business.
While you can narrow down an audience through broad targeting, it is very limited. You can only target based on interests, age, and location while Facebook Business Manager allows you to target based on advanced demographics, behavioral options, your Facebook Pixel data and more.
You cannot use or build a custom audience.

2. Boosted Posts may not get you the results you want

The objective of Boosted Posts is always engagement on that particular post. This means while you may get a lot of likes, you may only get a few website clicks. This is fine if your goal is to gain exposure and post engagement.
If you want your audience to not only engage with the post but perform a desired action on it, Facebook Business Manager enables you to create a more custom objective for your campaign. These objectives could be conversions, purchases, lead submits, app installs, store visits, etc.

3. Boosted Posts don’t let you control your ad placement

The default option is always desktop and mobile ad placement on Facebook. Recently, you can now also place boosted ads on Instagram.
This doesn’t always work in your favor. For example, if the objective of your campaign is generating leads, people are less likely to fill out a form on mobile. You would be getting a higher ROAS (return on ad spend) if you were only advertising on desktop.
Facebook Business Manager has many more placement options including Instagram, Instagram and Facebook Stories, Messenger Ads, instant articles, and more.

4. Boosted Posts don’t let you use conversion tracking features

Facebook Business Manager features The Facebook Pixel: a tool that allows you to track if someone reaches your site and takes an action because of your Facebook Ad. This provides you with valuable information on where your website traffic and conversions are coming from.

Conclusion

So, should you use Facebook Boosted Posts? Overall, when deciding which tool to utilize, it depends on your business goals. Facebook Boosted Posts are sometimes valuable if you only want to increase your brand awareness. Unless this is your ad objective, Untitled always recommends Facebook Business Manager. This marketing channel will help you grow your business by giving more control over your ads and enabling you to reach an audience that is more likely to perform the action you want.

If you are interested in running a hyper-targeted Facebook campaign using your customer data, reach out to Untitled today!