Boosted Posts 101: Knowing What Content To Boost on Social

Boosting posts is a powerful strategy to amplify your reach and engagement. Whether you're a seasoned marketer or just starting out, understanding how to effectively promote and boost your content can make a significant difference in your online presence. In this guide, we will explore the benefits of boosting on Meta platforms (Instagram and Facebook), identify the types of content that generate the highest engagement and impressions, and determine when you should test out boosted content. Additionally, we'll show you how to leverage Dash Hudson data for strategic insights to refine your boosting strategy.

Content Promotion Across Social Platforms

Different social media platforms have their own terms and tools for promoting or boosting content visibility. Here’s a rundown of what some popular platforms call their promotional features:

• Meta (Instagram & Facebook): Boost Post
• X: Promoted Tweets
• LinkedIn: Sponsored Content
• TikTok: Promote
• Pinterest: Promoted Pins
  

While each social media platform and social media marketing tools used for promoting or boosting content are different, the objectives are generally the same — to generate more visibility, drive engagement and achieve precise targeting. Let’s explore some of these features further.

The Best Time To Boost Organic Content 

Growing brand awareness is a primary reason many businesses boost social media content. Dash Hudson analyzed over 1,000 customers who used paid Instagram promotions and found some impressive results. Our findings showed that boosted content can achieve 3x more impressions and 6x more video views compared to organic content and even 7x more impressions and video views compared to content created by creators, regardless of the budget allocated. 

This data indicates that although organic content is valuable, using paid boosts can significantly increase both reach and engagement. Just like paid content, the best time to boost organic content is when it’s performing well and earning engagement with your followers and you have specific goals for gaining more visibility and engagement. Focus on strengthening your best-performing posts with strong organic engagement to get the most return on your investment. 

Brands should schedule boosts during the times when their target demographic is most active to ensure maximum impact. The best time to boost your posts depends on your unique audience. Dash Hudson’s Scheduler tool makes scheduling a breeze, but its AI technology provides the best times to post based on your data. 

Which Content Performs Best When Boosted

For most brands, text and image-based posts remain faster and cheaper to produce and, therefore, represent a larger share of their regular content mix. There are noteworthy differences to highlight when boosting Static and Reels content on Instagram and Facebook. 

Dash Hudson analyzed the performance of boosted Static and Reels content on Instagram to understand how the different formats influenced the results. Here's what our research uncovered:

• Boosting Static posts generated significantly higher engagement rates than Reels, pointing to their effectiveness in building community relationships.
• Reels outperformed Static in audience impressions, proving to be better at growing brand awareness.

Content boosting recommendations:

• To generate engagement: Consider boosting Static content that could encourage conversation in the comment section.
• To increase awareness: boost Reels content, as it leverages the powerful Reels algorithm to reach a broader audience.

3 Signs You Should Boost Organic Content

Boosting content is an actionable, low-cost and low-effort social media marketing strategy that quickly amplifies the reach and impact of your most promising content. By investing in boosting, you ensure that your best-performing posts are seen by a broader or more narrowly defined audience, which increases your chances of reaching your social media goals. This tactic is particularly effective when your content is already resonating with users, outperforming other posts or when you want to test different messaging and imagery.

It’s Reaching Your Target Audience

Boost your content when it reaches your ideal audience but doesn’t fully capture their attention. If your social media metrics show that your content is popular within your desired audience segment but could have a wider impact, it's time to boost. This will increase the content's visibility and engagement by appearing more frequently and in more prominent places, ensuring it reaches and resonates with a larger portion of your target audience.

It’s More Engaging Than Other Posts

When content demonstrates higher engagement than other posts — through likes, shares, comments or watch time — it becomes a prime candidate for boosting. This indicates strong resonance with your audience, making it ideal for amplification to maximize its impact and convert into sales. Additionally, entertaining content highlights the importance of entertaining content; content with a high Entertainment Score tends to receive more impressions and engagements when boosted, suggesting that selecting content most likely to entertain and engage is crucial for optimizing your promotion budget.

To Test Different Messaging and Imagery

Boosting content is a strategic approach for brands looking to A/B test different messages and imagery to identify what most effectively engages their audience. By promoting multiple versions of your content as boosted posts, you can directly compare how different verbiage and images perform in terms of user engagement and conversion rates. This method is particularly valuable when using platforms like Instagram, where boosted posts can provide clear insights into audience preferences. The gathered data informs your marketing strategies, ensuring that you direct investments toward content that has proven its appeal and effectiveness.

Explore ROI With Dash Hudson

Dash Hudson's Social Advertising Suite offers brands a powerful array of tools to optimize ROI and assess paid performance across social platforms. Through its Content Library, brands can use AI to predict and select high-performing content, ensuring effective budget allocation. The Relationships feature provides detailed influencer and creator ROI analytics, helping brands pinpoint valuable partnerships. Additionally, customizable Dashboards offer real-time insights into campaign performance, enabling brands to track key metrics and refine their advertising strategies for maximum impact. Together, these tools help brands enhance engagement and conversions through data-driven decisions.

FAQs 

Why won’t Instagram let me boost my post? 

If you can't boost a post on Instagram, it may be due to the type of account you have, the nature of the post, or compliance issues with Instagram's advertising policies. For detailed information on eligibility and troubleshooting, refer to the Facebook Business Help Center.

When you boost a post on Instagram, who sees it? ‍

When you boost a post on Instagram, it can be seen by a broader audience beyond your followers. You can customize who sees the boosted post by selecting targeting options based on factors like age, interests, location, and behaviors. This targeting helps ensure that your content reaches the most likely people interested in your brand’s offers. For more details on boosting posts and audience targeting on Instagram, you can visit the Instagram Help Center.