There is one way that I’ve found to maximize the bang-for-your-buck with boosting Facebook posts: Timing.
Since the beginning of Facebook, there have always been 2 sides to paying for advertising: Advertisers want to pay as little as possible to get as much exposure as possible, and Facebook wants to make as much money as possible… Facebook also has a balance on their hands – they don’t want to give you too much exposure for too little money, or too little exposure for too much money and at the same time, they don’t want news feeds to be covered in boosted posts from pages you didn’t like.
If you pay $100 to reach 5 people, Facebook may be happy that they made $100, but you won’t like do that again. If you reach 10,000 for $5, you may only spend $1 next time to get the reach you’re hoping for, then Facebook investors wouldn’t be happy, and the people actually using Facebook, may see so many ads that they choose another platform, then nobody is happy…
Once you’ve decided in your audience, budget and duration, there’s one more way to get the best reach possible for your advertising dollars, and that is WHEN you decide to boost. Pay for your boost AFTER your organic reach has run its course.
How Organic Reach Works:
When you post something to your Facebook status, Facebook uses a REALLY complex set of algorithms to decide who they will show your post to. Again, they’re trying to create the best experience possible for their users so they continue to use Facebook. These algorithms can be over-simplified into:
- Post type (images and video get way more engagement than just text)
- Previous engagement (someone who liked, commented or shared your last status will likely also enjoy this one – have you ever noticed it’s the same people who keep liking your posts?)
- Date posted (What you see in your news feed is usually from the last few hours? Sometimes if a post is getting a lot of engagement, it may have been posted a few days ago. Not much shows up from last month or last year without some new engagement or boost.)
So organically, your post will gain some exposure on it’s own for free… LET THIS HAPPEN!!
Don’t boost your post before it hit its organic reach… if you do, you’re spending money paying Facebook to ‘boost’ your post to people who would have seen it for free.
Check out this recent video that we boosted:
You can see the organic reach was 2764 and the paid reach was 1044. It would have been a complete waste or money to post the status, then immediately ‘boost’ it – we may have only had 2000 people see it AND have paid money for that!
Once I saw the organic reach start to fade away, I tried a few other opportunities for engagement. I asked questions about comments that people had left on the post. When they respond to those questions, Facebook sees engagement and will show it to a few more people.
I sent a link to the video to our staff and asked if they would like to share the video (it was a clip from our last service where our Pastor was sharing some thoughts and it resonated with some of our staff specifically).
THEN… after letting it play out organically, engaging with the comments, and asking people outside of Facebook to visit and share the post (don’t do this all the time to the same people… it could get annoying) , I chose to pay for a boost.
In this case, I posted September 29, then let the organic play out. By October 1, it was dropping drastically, so I added a boost October 1.
When you decide to do the boost, Facebook will ask about your audience, budget and duration. Here are some tips on making the most of those options.
Use the comments below and let me know how this has worked for you!
