When you’re posting content to Facebook, and you want to make sure it gets seen, what do you do? Do you make a Facebook ad, or “boost” the post? And for that matter, what even IS boosting a post? These are the questions that haunt us in an age where being seen on social media is king and hard to come by. Understanding the difference between Facebook Ads and boosting is important and both can help your business when used correctly!
Let’s start with the basics:
To boost a post, event, or job means you are putting money behind the post to help it reach an audience of your choosing. You can target a location (city, state, country, etc.), who you want to see it, how long you want it to run, and how much you want to spend on it.
When you go to boost a post, you do it directly on Facebook when or after you create the post. Ads are made specifically in Facebook Ads Manager or a Facebook Ads tool.
Using Facebook ads, you can target audience, location, timeline, and budget just like with a boost, but you have even more options. You can pick whether you want it to show up on desktops, phones, or even the different types of phones (carrier, model, etc). There are different types of ads you can choose from based on your campaign goals, such as striving for website clicks, general branding or promoting your Facebook page. You also have a little more creative freedom with Ads, with the ability to use carousel ads or add multiple call-to-action buttons.
We even use a specialized tool for Facebook Ads that allow us to create many different kinds of content, put them together in different combinations, and A/B test those combinations all at the same time.
How and When to use?
First things first, define what you are trying to achieve with your message. If you are looking for general brand awareness or more interest in a job listing or event, then try boosting the post. Boosting is a great and quick way of getting your preexisting content out to the world.
When you have a promotional sale going on, or something that is actionable, then Ads are the way to go. And If you use external systems as we do, Ads gives you the opportunity to generate a lot of content at once and gives you lots of analytics back about your audience that you can use in the future.
If you want more help putting together content for your Facebook page, we’d be happy to talk with you! Just email us at hi@bluefishds.com and let us know. Thanks!