How To Boost a Post on Facebook Like a Pro

Boosting Facebook content helps you leverage your best-performing posts and can even give new life to under-performing content. 

Whether you want to drive traffic to your boost product sales with Facebook Shop, build brand awareness or reach a new audience, Facebook boosting can be used strategically to meet your goals while minimizing ad spend and making the most of your budget. Here’s what you need to know about Facebook boosting, including how to boost Facebook posts and how to leverage it within your Facebook marketing strategy.

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Facebook boosting allows you to turn your existing organic posts into paid advertisements to reach a wider audience. To boost a post, you’ll need to set up a Facebook Business Account, which enables you to set a budget and define how you want to allocate your budget. Your budget influences key factors like audience reach, impressions and the duration of the boost. 

Boosting is an accessible option for organizations of any size because it's straightforward and doesn’t require advanced advertising expertise. It’s ideal for businesses that want to expand the visibility of their posts quickly and engage a broader audience without the complexity of full-scale Facebook ad campaigns.

What’s the Difference Between Facebook Ads and Boosted Posts?

Facebook ads and boosted posts serve different purposes within Facebook's advertising suite. Boosted posts are organic posts that have already been shared on your page and you pay to expand their reach to a broader audience. They're simple to set up and focus primarily on increasing engagement, like getting more likes, comments and shares. Boosted posts are ideal for those looking to promote existing content quickly without the need for advanced targeting or creative options.

Facebook ads, on the other hand, are more customizable and powerful. With Facebook ads, you can create specific campaigns designed for different objectives, like driving website traffic, increasing conversions or generating leads. They offer detailed targeting options, creative formats like carousels and videos and a wider range of placement choices across Facebook, Instagram, Messenger and Meta’s Audience Network. Overall, Facebook ads offer more flexibility and tools for businesses aiming to achieve specific marketing KPIs and goals beyond engagement.

Boosting your existing Facebook content is a great way to reach new users in your target market. Here’s a step-by-step guide to boosting a Facebook post:

• Log in to your Facebook Business Account: Ensure you're logged into the correct account that has admin access to the Facebook page.‍
• Select the post you want to boost: Navigate to your page and find the post you'd like to promote.‍
• Click the ‘Boost Post’ button: The ‘boost’ button is usually located at the bottom right of the post.‍
• Define your objective: Choose what you want to achieve, such as getting more engagement, driving traffic to your website or collecting leads. This will determine the best type of content to boost for your unique goals.‍
• Choose your audience: Select who you want to see your boosted post. Options include targeting people based on location, age, interests or custom audiences like your followers or lookalike audiences.‍
• Set your budget: Decide how much of your social media marketing budget you want to spend on boosting. You can set a total budget or a daily budget, and Facebook will estimate how many people you’ll reach.‍
• Choose the duration of the boost: You can set the length of your boosted post, which can range from one day to several weeks. ‍
• Review your payment method: Ensure your payment details are up to date, or add a new payment method if needed.‍
• Preview your boosted post: Review how your post will look to your target audience across different placements (mobile, desktop, etc.).‍
• Finalize and click ‘Boost’: Once you're satisfied with your settings, click ‘Boost’ to launch the promotion.‍
• Monitor the post's performance: In the Facebook Ads Manager, you can track how your boosted post is performing and adjust settings if necessary.

Since Facebook boosting is highly customizable, it’s important to be intentional with your social media marketing strategy. Without clearly defined goals or tactics, you risk wasting money and losing the ability to pinpoint what went wrong — or right. 

Set Goals and Track Results 

Before boosting, establish clear goals to measure success. Whether you're looking for more engagement, traffic or conversions, having specific objectives will help guide your decisions. Regularly track your post’s performance so you can refine your strategy to focus on what works and eliminate what doesn’t.

Start Small

When testing the effectiveness of your boosted content, start with a smaller budget. This allows your team to evaluate which posts or strategies provide the best return on investment without overspending. As you identify successful tactics, you can scale up your budget for future boosts.

Share Posts That Exceed Performance Benchmarks

Do you have content with an astronomical engagement rate? It’s often a good idea to prioritize boosting this content over lower-performing content. Posts that already have strong organic engagement are more likely to perform well when boosted. 

However, you should consider your goals. For example, are you trying to expand your audience — or reach an entire new demographic? What resonates with your current audience might not resonate with a brand new demographic, so be mindful of what your end goal is before boosting highly engaging posts.

Be Weary of Automatic Placements 

Facebook’s Advantage+ Automatic placements will push your boosted posts across various Meta platforms, including Instagram. However, not all ad visuals are optimized for every platform. To ensure your content looks its best and reaches the right audience, consider manually selecting where your ad appears.

Create a Custom Audience

Building a custom audience can improve how impactful your boosted posts are. Custom audiences let you target users who have interacted with your brand before, whether they visited your website, are registered for your brand’s emails or have liked your social content.  

The cost of raising a Facebook post varies depending on your budget. Facebook recommends a minimum spend of $1 per day, while some social managers choose to spend over $100 per day. For smaller budgets, boosting at $5-$15 per day is common and can still increase reach and engagement, especially for posts that already show strong organic performance. 

Facebook allows you to customize how your budget is spread across the duration of your boost, to ensure you don’t run out of budget and maintain visibility throughout your campaign. The platform also provides estimates on reach based on your budget, giving you insight into how much exposure your content can get.

Brands can leverage Dash Hudson to enhance their Facebook ad and overall social media strategy by utilizing powerful tools designed to optimize content performance and streamline scheduling. Dash Hudson’s Facebook Insights provides brands with in-depth analytics, helping them track engagement metrics, identify top-performing content and refine their strategy based on data-driven insights. This allows brands to focus their ad spend on content that resonates most with their audience.

In addition, the Multi-channel Scheduler simplifies planning and publishing across Facebook and other platforms, ensuring consistent timing for maximum engagement. For e-commerce brands, the Facebook Product Catalog Integration seamlessly synchronizes product offerings, making it easier to run dynamic ads featuring real-time product availability, ultimately driving conversions. Together, these tools give brands the data and capabilities needed to execute a winning Facebook strategy.

Why can’t I boost on Facebook? 

You will not be able to boost a post if you don’t have a Facebook Business Account — regular Facebook accounts are unable to boost. If you want to boost a Facebook post, you can switch your personal account to a Facebook account and boost from there. 

Can you edit a boosted post? 

Yes, you can edit certain components of a boosted post on Facebook — but only from your desktop browser. You cannot edit text, images or video, but you can edit Audience, Duration, Budget and Payment Method. To edit a boosted post: 

• Click the three dots on your post. 
• Click ‘Edit ad’. 
• From there, make your changes.
• When complete, select ‘Save changes’. 

What Does It Mean To Boost a Post on Facebook?

Boosting a post on Facebook means paying to promote an existing organic post to expand its reach beyond your followers. It’s a quick way to increase visibility, engagement or drive traffic to a specific action.