Amanda Clark
Here is another question that our entrepreneurial friends ask from time to time: How can we generate more traction, more heat for our best Facebook posts? How can we get more eyes on the content that we’re most proud of?
The quickest way to get more attention on your best posts is to boost them, which is the term Facebook uses for its paid post promotion. In fact, small business owners really need to boost some of their posts, though certainly not all of them. Facebook’s algorithms are such that, if you don’t boost some posts from time to time—if you don’t put money into the system—none of your posts are going to fare very well at all.
Preparing To Boost Your Posts
A couple of preliminary points to make here: First, you can only boost posts to your Business page, not your personal Facebook account. To boost posts, make sure you are logged into an account that is attached to your Facebook business page. (If you either created the page or have been given administrative powers by the page creator, you should be fine.)
Also note that, since you’re not going to be boosting every single post, you should make sure the ones you do boost are chosen methodically. To some extent, there might be merit in playing around with different kinds of posts to see which ones get the biggest love. Certainly, if you have a post that got a lot more likes or shares than is typical for your page, that one is a good candidate for boosting. Additionally, posts that have links back to your company website, or that note current promotions or sales, are often good ones to boost.
How To Boost Your Posts
Now: As for the mechanics of it all…
- Start by going to your Facebook business page and finding the post you want to boost. In the bottom right corner of the post, you should see an option that says Boost Post. Click it!
- A screen will pop up that allows you to choose your Audience. You can display the post either just to your page’s followers, to followers and their friends, or to an audience of “strangers” you choose through demographic targeting. Choose who you want to boost the post to, then move down to the next section.
- The next section will ask you to select the dollar amount and duration of your paid promotion. If you’re new to this or are still trying to experiment, we recommend starting with a low dollar amount—but just remember that doing so means your paid promotion won’t necessarily generate as much buzz as a higher-spending campaign.
- Once you have everything set up, hit Boost in the lower right corner and you should be good to go!
All of this requires strategy, of course—you need to pick your promotions carefully—but also some compelling content… content that’s worth boosting.
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