Facebook Boost Guide

Boosting On a Budget–Expand Your Reach Without Breaking Your Bank

Did you know the average, organic Facebook post only receives about 2% of reach? That’s because Facebook algorithms have been recently re-designed to reduce promotional ‘clutter’ in the newsfeed (based off of audience demand). People want to read stories, not advertisements, so Facebook adjusted its algorithms to control the enormous flood of content being poured into the platform and strike a healthy balance among personal stories and brand stories (promotions) being streamed.

So How do I Get my Brand Noticed?

Unfortunately, the only way to truly ensure your content gets noticed is to financially invest in it. The more you pay–the more you play. But don’t be alarmed that playing will break your bank, you may be surprised how far as little as $5 will reach (hundreds!

Map Your Strategy

Before diving any further, let me point out that not every single post you publish should be boosted. Prepare a social media strategy and editorial calendar ahead of time that outlines who will be creating and sharing what content, when, to whom, and through which mediums. Further, identify which Facebook posts warrant a boost. When crafting your strategy, you will want to consider:

• The amount of content you have to work with (blogs, case studies, video, etc).
• Your key objectives behind sharing each piece of content (user end-goal, call-to-action… ex: are you simply trying to increase brand awareness? Or convert followers into donors)?
• Key content topics that all messaging should focus around (ie: informational, promotional, and cultural posts).
• Your monthly budget available.
• Your internal staff (or external partners) who will be managing ongoing content creation and sharing.

Once you have your editorial calendar ready, you can use it as a reference map anytime a post needs to be shared or boosted.

Boost Your Post

Once a post has been published and you are physically ready to give it a boost, be sure to define your: audience, message, creative, timeline and budget. Going in order, begin with defining your audience. When prompted, you will be given three options for this: people who like your page, people who like your page + friends, and people you choose through targeting.

Define the Audience

People Who Like Your Page

Goal: Target your existing, loyal fan base. Use To:

1. Spread awareness about big news and special updates.
2. Convert social media followers into sales-ready leads buy nurturing them with posts that lead them to your website to read a full blog story, watch a video, or join an eNews subscription.

People Who Like Your Page + Friends

Goal: Target your existing, loyal fan base and further reach their like-minded network of followers. Use To:

1. Spread awareness about big news and special updates to a slightly wider audience of relevant people.
2. Attract new, like-minded followers similar to your existing contacts.

People You Choose Through Targeting

Goal: Share content with the precise demographic of people that are the most likely to

be interested in the piece of content being shared (customers you want to attract more of). Use To:

1. Attract new followers within your desired target market and introduce them to your brand.
2. Attract new site visitors that are among your desired target market for further interaction.
3. Attract desired target market and invite them to connect with your brand through Facebook, blog, eNews or website.

Insert Message + Creative

You may already have your own process for writing the social messages and managing photo inventory for their creative, but if you don’t, feel free to adopt or adapt from my personal strategy:

I find it helpful to begin crafting all of the social posts I plan to share from each blogpost in Google Docs. Through my Google Drive, I can organize a “Social Media Posts” folder that then breaks down into monthly topic folders for each blog publication I host. For photos, I manage a Dropbox account of digital storage for folders within each blog publication.

Once I have my monthly folder filled with all of the social posts I plan to share that month, I C+P each of them into my editorial calendar and into Buffer to physically schedule the posts to be shared automatically.

Tip* You can use Hootsuite or alternative platforms to manage your scheduling. For Facebook specifically, I personally find the built-in scheduler tool to be very sufficient.

Tip* Free tools like LetterCount and Bitly help me track the character count for the entirety of my messages–including a truncated link.

*Tip* Remember, only once your post has been published can it can be boosted. Set reminders when posts are published that need to be boosted!

Don’t forget to think in advance about creative that should be paired with your message (photo, video or graphic) as you craft it. Does creative currently exist, or does it need to be created? For managing these digital assets, I recommend getting a Dropbox storage account. I also find it helpful to C+P direct links to media in the editorial calendar, and tag the file with a name that matches the social post it will be paired with somehow.

Set Timeline + Budget

Schedule

Boosted posts can be scheduled for a single day, seven days, or fourteen days by default. You can also choose to use the calendar to create a custom time duration (I personally love three day boosts).

Budget

Facebook allows you to bid as low as $5 a day on posts (ideal if you budget conscious) but think about what you are ultimately trying to achieve and set a value to that objective. Trying to get someone to subscribe to your monthly eNews? What is the value of this action? Thinking about what posts warrant the highest value and need the most attention will help you allocate your advertising funds. Facebook also gives you the option to set a daily or lifetime budget. If you want to be sure people will see your ad everyday for a specific period of time, choose the daily budget. If your objective is to control cost, it is recommended to select the lifetime budget.

Once you determine a final budget, Facebook will give you an estimate of how many people it will reach and allow you the opportunity to make any adjustments accordingly.

Measure Your Results

Once your boosted campaign has ended, compare your results to your original objective and determine if you have accomplished your goal. Facebook will tell you how many people viewed your post, liked it, or shared it. You will also be able to see if people clicked through to your website or to claim an offer. Use this data to further adjust your overall boost strategy.

Happy boosting!