Pros and Cons for Using Boosted Posts vs. Ads on Facebook

• Boosted Posts

• Facebook Ads

What is a boosted post?

Any regular post you make on your business Facebook page can be “boosted” to appear to an audience outside of your regular followers. This is considered a paid advertising choice. As a sort of “advertising light,” you won’t have as many choices as a full-fledged ad. You can build a targeted audience, but you can only choose between two objectives: engagement and website visits. The boosted post will then show up in your audience’s Facebook feed as an ad.

What is a Facebook ad?

Facebook ads are created from scratch. That means it will take more time and/or more money even before you’re ready to start running the ad. If your talents don’t include graphic design and marketing research, you will need to hire someone to help you do this right.

The flipside of these complications is that, for your efforts, you will have an intriguingly creative, goal-oriented advertisement specifically built for a targeted audience of your choosing.

Why should you boost a post?

This is the quickest, easiest, and cheapest alternative. Your content has already been created, so all you have to do is click a few buttons and let ‘er rip.

Keep in mind that boosted posts are better suited to increasing engagement and exposure rather than converting sales. Use these kinds of ads to drive traffic to interesting things on your website such as special promotions.

Why should you create a Facebook ad?

You’ve heard the “50% of my ad dollars are wasted, but which 50?” story a million times. Facebook advertising is inexpensive enough that you can run a trial ad, tweak it, and run the ad again until you get it right. You aren’t putting it on a billboard or committing to a year’s subscription.

The ability to build your perfect audience is also a big plus. Choose from geographic location to gender to life events to industry and more. Facebook will then show your ad to the people who fit that target.

Facebook ads work better than boosted posts for conversion. Gather leads, prompt store traffic, and even make sales straight from your ad, depending on your Call To Action.

What are some tips for boosting posts?

Obviously, you should be boosting your own content, not content curated from other businesses. Also, it makes sense to look at your insights and see which of your recent posts had the greatest reach and the most engagement. Those posts make the best choices for boosting.

If you don’t have a good candidate already posted, you can always write a brand new post and “boost” it from the beginning instead of just “publishing” it. Among the boosting options are displaying in Facebook desktop and mobile feeds as well as on Instagram.

What are some tips for Facebook ads?

You have more options here for ad placement than with boosted posts, including Feed ads, Instagram stories, and Messenger ads. Think through where your best customer is most likely to engage with you.

Do your best SEO research to find the terms that will resonate with your target audience and make sure you use them in your ad copy. But don’t go too heavy on text either. Creating that perfect Call To Action is tricky but all-important. This is where you might want to run A/B tests and make some tweaks.

Most critical is your image, whether it’s a photo or a video. Some bland freebie image isn’t going to generate much interest, so budget for an eye-catching graphic that tells your ad’s story at first glance.