The Boost Post button on Facebook is tempting.
You publish a post, Facebook tells you it could reach thousands more people for £20, £50 or £100, and with a couple of clicks your advert is running.
Simple.
But here's the problem:
Easy doesn't always mean effective.
Boosting a post isn't necessarily bad. The mistake is spending money without first deciding what you actually want that money to achieve.
What Do You Actually Want From Your Advertising?
Before spending £1 on Facebook or Instagram advertising, ask yourself:
What is my goal?
Do you want:
- More people to see your business?
- More engagement?
- More website visitors?
- More messages?
- More enquiries?
- More leads?
- More sales?
These aren't all the same thing.
If your business actually needs customers, getting hundreds of extra likes isn't necessarily going to solve the problem.
So, Is Boosting a Facebook Post Bad?
No.
There are situations where boosting a post can make sense.
For example, you've published a great piece of content and want more people in your target audience to see it.
You might want to increase awareness of your business or generate additional engagement around a particular post.
In those situations, boosting can be a convenient option.
The problem comes when businesses automatically use Boost Post as their entire advertising strategy.
The £100 Question
Here's a simple way to think about it.
Imagine you're about to spend £100 boosting a Facebook post.
Before pressing the button, ask:
“What do I want this £100 to produce?”
If the answer is:
“More likes.”
Fine — if that's genuinely your objective.
But if the real answer is:
“I want more customers.”
Then your advertising needs to be designed around that goal.
Boosting vs Meta Ads Manager
For businesses that want more control over their advertising, Meta Ads Manager provides considerably more options for building campaigns around specific objectives.
Depending on the campaign and business, that can include greater control over areas such as targeting, placements, creative testing, conversion locations, budgets and measurement.
Instead of simply saying:
“Show this post to more people.”
You're thinking:
“What action do I want people to take after seeing this advert?”
That's a much better question.
Don't Confuse Engagement With Customers
This is one of the biggest mistakes businesses can make with social media.
A post gets:
👍 200 likes
❤️ 30 reactions
💬 15 comments
It looks fantastic.
But how many enquiries did it generate?
How many sales?
How many bookings?
Engagement can absolutely be valuable. It can increase awareness, provide social proof and help content reach more people.
But engagement and commercial results aren't automatically the same thing.
A campaign with fewer likes but five genuine enquiries could be far more valuable to your business than a campaign with hundreds of reactions and no customers.
Start With the Goal, Not the Button
A better advertising process is:
1. Decide what you want.
Is it awareness, traffic, leads, messages or sales?
2. Decide who you want to reach.
Who is your ideal customer?
3. Create advertising for that person.
Give them a reason to stop, pay attention and take action.
4. Choose the appropriate campaign setup.
Build the advertising around the desired outcome rather than simply promoting whatever you happened to post that day.
5. Measure what matters.
If you want leads, measure leads.
If you want sales, measure sales.
Don't declare success purely because an advert received lots of likes.
Your Organic Content and Advertising Have Different Jobs
There's another important distinction.
Your regular organic social media content can help keep your business visible, demonstrate expertise and build credibility when potential customers research you.
Paid advertising can then be used to deliberately reach selected audiences and pursue specific objectives.
The two can work together.
Organic content helps build the presence. Paid advertising helps expand the opportunity.
Don't Stop Boosting — Stop Boosting Without a Strategy
The headline of this article says:
STOP BOOSTING YOUR POSTS.
The more accurate advice is:
Stop automatically boosting posts without knowing why you're doing it.
There's nothing inherently wrong with the Boost button.
But before Facebook asks you to spend another £20, £50 or £100, stop and ask:
“What result does my business actually need?”
Then choose the advertising approach that gives you the best chance of achieving it.
At Page Crowd, we help businesses build their online credibility and run Meta advertising focused on meaningful business objectives.
Don't just pay to be seen. Have a strategy for what happens next.
Contact Page Crowd today.
