If you’re using Facebook as a marketing tool, you may want to consider boosting a post as a short-term measure to increase exposure for your brand.

We’ve used Facebook’s ‘boost post’ feature for many campaigns, and seen some great results for very little outlay.

(Facebook has recently launched its Product Ads service – more about that soon!)

What is the boost post feature?

When you’re next administering your company’s Facebook page, take a moment to notice the little ‘boost post’ label at the bottom of your latest post. This little feature can help your post get seen by a wider audience. A boosted post will appear higher up in your audience’s newsfeed, and will carry the label ‘sponsored post’.

How does it work?

It’s a simple enough feature to use. Click on the boost post label and specify how long you want to boost your post for and what budget limit you’d like to set. The higher your budget, the more people your post will reach.

Getting started

It’s a very controllable tactic so we’d suggest you trial it on a small scale at first.

1. Develop a post which you think will be particularly interesting to your audience – a seasonal sale or new products in stock, for example.
2. Specify how long you want to boost the post for – it’s likely that 24-hours will be sufficient for you to trial the concept.
3. Decide what demographic you want to target. Facebook gives you various options – boosting your post to target people who already ‘like’ your page, or their friends, is probably the best place to start. If you’re looking at a wider audience, think about their age and gender.
4. Next, specify your budget. The boost post feature will show you how many people you’re likely to reach for different budget levels. Of course, the more you spend, the greater your chances of reaching more people. However, as this is a trial, keep it to a minimum. We’ve seen good results from just £10!

Of course, we wouldn’t advocate boosting too many posts, so pick your moment carefully. And monitor the results – for us there are two key metrics. Firstly, are more people ‘liking’ your Facebook page and, secondly, are they taking positive action such as visiting your website and browsing your products?

If there are ticks in both of these boxes, then the Facebook boost post feature may be a good marketing tactic for you to try from time to time.

For further help in marketing your business on Facebook, please get in touch, we’d be glad to help.