If you’re confused by Facebook Advertising options, you’re not the only one. Carousels, Organic Reach, Boosting, Sponsored Posts… there’s certainly a lot to consider. But many people are stumped by the one question; what’s the difference between Paid Facebook Ads and Boosted Posts? Well, if you’ve ever wanted to know the answer, sit down and keep reading.
Facebook Marketing can be tricky to wrap your head around, especially if you’re not up-to-date on the current Marketing lingo. But we’re here to clear it up and help you find what’s best for your Small Business.
While there are a few similarities between Facebook Paid Advertising and Boosted Posts, there are a lot more differences that give your Business very different end results. For this reason, it’s worth understanding which is the right one to choose for your Small Business’s Marketing Strategy.
To save you the time, stress and energy of doing the research yourself, we’ve done the hard work for you. Below you’ll discover all the major points of difference between Paid Facebook Ads and Boosted Posts.
What Are Paid Facebook Ads?
You know those Ads that show up on the sides or the middle of your Facebook newsfeed? That’s a Paid Facebook Ad. You’ve no doubt seen them before, floating around your Facebook from time to time. Targeting you when you least expect it.
These Ads contain relevant content and a unique Call-to-Action saying ‘Click Here’, ‘Find Out More’ or ‘Shop Now’. They contain content such as images, video, links or written content and they’re pretty hard to miss. That’s why they can be a really effective Marketing Tool for your Small Business.
These Ad Campaigns are designed to help you get more traffic, leads, engagement, sales, likes or whatever your key objectives are. You can have multiple Ads running at once, with each of these targeting a different target audience. For example, if you own a clothing shop, you can create one Ad for Business Suits, and target this to middle-aged men. You can then create a second Ad displaying girls’ clothing items, and target this towards Female Facebook users between the ages of 12 and 18.
One of the best things about Facebook Advertising that doesn’t occur in Boosted Posts, is the ability to be ultra-specific with your Ads. You can create highly-unique Target Audiences, so your Ads will be shown to people most likely to buy from you, select a Call-to-Action button that suits your Small Business, and even customise an entire set of Ads.
Depending on your goals for Facebook Advertising, you can set appropriate budgets and have overall control of the life of your Ad. This makes them easy to manage and helps you plan your Digital Marketing well ahead of time.
And since Facebook has buddied up with Instagram, you have the ability to display your Ads on 2 of the world's biggest Social Media platforms through the one Campaign.
All in all, the capabilities of Paid Facebook Ads are pretty phenomenal. They’ll get you noticed by your target market, allow you to retarget your Site visitors who didn’t convert and increase your Business’s branding ten-fold.
What Are Boosted Posts?
When you post normal content on your Facebook page, only a percentage of your followers will actually see it. ‘Boosted Posts’ are a way of promoting this organic content to a bigger crowd of followers and quickly pushing your content to your audience.
If you’ve ever manually posted a photo, status or video, you’re given the option to ‘Boost’ your post. Do this and you have yourself a ‘Boosted post’. Essentially, a Boosted Post is further promoting a post you’ve already shared with your audience. When boosting a post, you can choose the budget, audience and time boosted for. Your post then gets sent away to a team of Facebook Gurus for approval.
While Boosted Posts also display as ‘Sponsored’ on Facebook, they’re not the same as Paid Facebook Ads, as they have a lot less features compared with Paid Facebook Ads.
For instance, while you can plan which posts you’re going to boost, it is less strategic strategy, as you can’t target a specific audience – your post simply goes to all of your followers. They are also attached to your Facebook Page, and not a separate Campaign which could lead to your Website’s Homepage, or a product page of your Online Store.
In a nutshell, Boosted Posts are good for exposure, engagement and profile building, but they don’t directly invite leads, traffic and sales to your Business.
Which One Is Right For Me?
While using Boosted Posts might seem a lot easier, using Paid Facebook Advertising will prove to be a much stronger and more beneficial long-term Digital Marketing Strategy for your Small Business.
Yes, Boosted Posts give you that added ‘boost’ to your post, and there’s certainly no harm investing in a particularly popular post from time to time. But if you really want to see a spike in increased traffic, engagement and conversions, then Paid Facebook Advertising is the way to go.
If you want to find out more about this highly effective Digital Marketing Tool, then give us a call at Sites n Stores. We’d love to chat to you about how Paid Facebook Ads can increase your sales performance and help expand your Small Business. Get the right targeting, content and Ad creative from us at Sites n Stores, so you can keep focus on managing your Small Business while knowing your Digital Marketing is being taken care of by the experts.