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How to Choose Which Posts to Promote on Social Media

Boosting certain posts on social media can greatly increase your scope of reach and help you gain more followers more quickly. But there’s an art to it. Boost the wrong posts, and people who see them will write your brand off — potentially forever. But boost the right posts, and magic can happen. So how do you avoid putting the wrong posts up on that pedestal? And how do you select the cream of the crop? We’ll tell you below.

Analyze organic results

A great place to start when trying to figure out which posts will perform best is, well, to find out which posts have performed best! Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram all have Insights features where you can actually see which of your posts got the most views, likes, most engagement, etc. The more traction a post received organically is a pretty good indicator that it will do even better when boosted. However, keep in mind that you don’t want to completely ignore lower-performing posts. Sometimes, if you have the means in your budget, it might be worth it to put some money towards the kinds of posts that hadn’t done as well as others but still show promise. You might be surprised by the results. 

Have a ‘call to action’

As we mentioned earlier, you want to pick the absolute best post to boost. This post will deliver quality content and value to your target audience. It should also include a call to action. A call to action is a marketing term that refers to a phrase or element within your advertisement that aims to prompt an immediate response or encourage a sale. Basically, it encourages the viewer to act immediately. In order to include a call to action, you must first determine what your biggest goal for your advertising campaign is. Is it to drive more traffic to your website? Sell more of a product? Gain more followers on your social media page? Once you determine your main goal, you will want to tie this into your call of action. 

For example, if your goal is to sell more of a certain item, you’ll want to advertise that product front and center. Include some language about how this is a limited time deal, so viewers should order as soon as possible in order to secure their purchase. However, of course you want to avoid lying about the scarcity of an item, so come up with a message of urgency that fits your situation. Then, of course you will need to provide a clear, convenient link to where people can purchase the product.

Which posts NOT to boost

Each social media platform actually has guidelines on what you can and cannot advertise or use for advertising purposes, so we highly recommend skimming over those policies to ensure that you aren’t breaking any rules with your ads. For example, Facebook is very strict about the amount of text you can overlay on an image. Include too much text, and it could result in your post not being boosted at all. 

Also, do not under any circumstances waste money boosting third party content. You’re essentially providing a competitor with free advertising and sending potential followers to their website or their product instead of yours. You only want to boost original content. (Read: QUALITY original content!)

In conclusion…

Boosting posts is an invaluable tool that you definitely should be setting aside a chunk of your advertising budget for. But take care that you do your due diligence with lots of research and careful selection, otherwise your money will go to waste. As long as you use previous results and new data to inform your decision, it’s likely to be a success!