There is a lot of jargon to take in when starting to play in the world of social media marketing, and two of the most used jargonistic terms are boosting and ad campaigning via Facebook. But what is the difference?
What is a boosted post?
The keyword here is simplicity, the boosted post is the most simple ad you can place on Facebook. You created a boosted post by simply allocating a budget to an already existing post on your pages feed. It is easy to find the boost button on any of your posts by just looking down in the bottom right-hand corner. You simply click boost, add a budget and, more people will see your post in their news feed than normally would have.
A regular or ‘organic’ post is a post with no budget allocated to it, and on average you would be lucky if more than 1% of your followers actually see the post.
By boosting, you are paying for this post to be seen by not just your followers, but a larger pool of people.
You would generally use a boosted post if you wanted to increase engagement on the post (i.e. get more likes, shares, clicks etc.)
But the reason a boosted post is considered simplistic is mainly because of its limitations in comparison to an actual Facebook ad, or campaign.
What is a Facebook ad?
The first you need to know about Facebook Ads is that you need to have a Facebook business manager account in order to run them.
Facebook ads give you the most dynamic choices available for marketing your business, and not just via Facebook, but on Instagram as well. These choices include likes, driving traffic to websites, app installs, on-site conversions, offer claims, & local awareness and recall, and more!
The optional call to action buttons featuring drivers like ‘shop now’, ‘sign up’, ‘download’ and ‘contact us’ are a defining feature of the Facebook ad.
The main difference really is that boosted post ads have more targeting options, and by being able to build the post/ad from scratch in the ad manager console, avoiding having it show up on the Facebook page as a post (otherwise known as an unpublished, dark or ghost post).
Which is better for you?
Organic posts, if they can gain traction, can be more persuasive to an audience simply because they are seeing the post on its own merit. Adding a budget will make the post say that it is sponsored content, which can immediately affect the validity of the message to the viewer; as an organic post is considered akin to word-of-mouth.
But getting traction on an organic post is next to impossible after a series of algorithm changes over the years has turned each user’s news feed into prime real estate. Boosting will overcome these algorithms, just with limited targeting options. So if you are just wanting to give a little ‘boost’ to a post that is already getting a bit of traction without too much fiddling around, then the boost post is for you!
If you are in any way more serious about marketing your page or business than simply boosting, then setting up a business manager account and learn all the joys of building, running, and optimising campaigns through Facebook Ads is for you.
