5 Things About Facebook Boosting You Didn’t Know

Facebook marketing or boosting is a cost-effective way for businesses to reach a targeted audience on a platform that they are using an average of four hours a day. Depending on the quality of content, budget and industry, businesses will see varying results. The key thing is to make sure that you set realistic expectations and understand that people are not on social media to buy things, but to be entertained and informed. If your only goal is sales, you will be disappointed. However, if your goal is to introduce your brand and promote yourself, you will see results that you are happy with.

While FB has gone to great lengths to make boosting easier for everyone, there are a few things that you may not be aware of that can help you improve results including:

1. You can retarget: Something that’s not often discussed is that you can actually retarget from your website onto Facebook. The idea is simple, and you may have noticed it before. You visit a website, look at an ad or read a blog and then leave. Within a day or two you notice the same company pops up on your newsfeed, encouraging you to respond to the same ad or even like the page. This is a great tool because you are targeting people who have already visited your site and who are familiar with your brand. If you have your own email database, you can also upload that list to FB and send ads to profiles that match the addresses.
2. You can use it for lead capture: It’s not just about sales and likes. You can create an ad on the platform that focuses on getting people to sign up. This is a great idea if you are trying to build your own database. Simply run a promotion and ask people if they want to sign up for more information. This option tends to have higher conversion rates because you are not asking for people to buy anything.
3. You can invite people to like your page if they engaged your ad: If you run an ad via boosting and you start to see engagement (likes, shares, comments), you can invite those people to like your page for free. This is a great idea because rather than paying for likes you are getting actual engagement and adding likes at no additional cost.
4. Free works best: The highest conversions are based on the quality of the content and what you are promoting. If it’s funny, that will get a great response. If it’s educational, that will also get a great response. However, the best is when you offer something for free. For example, if you own a fashion company, you can run a promotion encouraging people to sign up for a chance to win a free shirt or shopping spree in your store. If you can get 1,000 emails you will be able to send upcoming promotions to that list and see higher conversion rates because they are already familiar with your brand.
5. Targeting on Facebook and Instagram may need to be different: While Instagram is owned by FB and you can use Facebook marketing and boosting to run ads on Instagram, there may be a difference in targeting between the two platforms. For example, if you are trying to get signups for a free health insurance consultation and you are targeting people between the ages of 25-55 on FB, you may want to target people between the ages of 25-35 on Instagram because that’s the higher demographic on that platform.

If you are new to Facebook marketing, it’s a good idea to take some time and research the options the platform presents to you. This not only helps you to save money but gives you an opportunity to have a more successful campaign.