Why you shouldn’t boost posts on Instagram & Facebook

Why you shouldn’t boost posts on Instagram & Facebook

Why You Should Not Boost Posts on Instagram or Facebook (and what to do instead)

If you’ve been managing your business’s social media presence, you’ve probably seen that tempting blue “Boost Post” button on Facebook and Instagram which promises to increase your reach with just a few clicks. Whilst boosting a post might seem like an easy win, it’s not always the most effective way to spend your marketing budget and using Meta Business Manager offers more strategic control and better results.

Here’s why:

1. Limited Targeting Options

Boosting a post gives you basic targeting options like age, location, and interests. However, these are pretty broad and might not reach the people most likely to engage with your content or purchase your product.  Meta Business Manager allows for advanced targeting, including custom audiences, lookalike audiences, and detailed behavioural data. This means you can reach the right people at the right time (your perfect target audience), increasing your chances of conversions.

 

2. Fewer Ad Format Choices

When you boost a post, you’re usually limited to a single format—like a photo or video with basic text. This limits creativity and how you tell your brand’s story.  With Meta Business Manager, you have access to a variety of ad formats, including carousel ads, slideshow ads, video ads and collection ads.  You can even upload different-sized images for specific placements, meaning your images look their best.  Advantage+ Ads allow for more engaging and interactive experiences, which can better capture your audience’s attention.

 

3. No Control Over Placement

Boosted posts automatically appear on Facebook and Instagram feeds, but you can’t control where else they might show up, like Stories or the Audience Network.  On the other hand, Meta Business Manager allows you to select exactly where your ads appear. You can choose to show your ads in Stories, in-stream videos, or even on Messenger. This flexibility lets you optimise for the best-performing placements, ensuring your ad spend goes further.

 

4. Limited Optimisation and Reporting

Boosted posts offer basic metrics like reach, impressions, and engagement. But if you want deeper insights—like conversion tracking or ROI analysis— you’re out of luck.  With Meta Business Manager, you receive advanced analytics and detailed reporting tools. You can track website actions, app installs, or even offline conversions. This helps you measure the actual impact of your ads, making it easier to adjust strategies, create retargeting ads and maximise ROI.

 

5. Higher Costs, Lower Returns

Boosting posts is convenient, but it’s not cost-effective. The simplified setup often leads to spending more money without a strategic plan or measurable results.  Meta Business Manager enables you to set more precise budgets and bidding strategies, ensuring you get the most out of every Pound. When testing various images or different text options, you can turn ads off if they’re not working, thereby ensuring the best ads are showing.  Test, refine, repeat.  By optimising ad delivery and targeting, you can lower costs while achieving better results.

 

The Better Alternative: Meta Business Manager

Whilst boosting posts might seem like a quick solution, it’s limited in functionality and control. If you want to maximise your social media advertising budget and see real business results, Meta Business Manager is the way to go. It offers advanced targeting, additional creative options, detailed reporting and better budget management.

 

Why not check out how well your Meta Business Manager is working here.

 

What Meta Business Suite questions would you like to ask?

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Glossary of Terms – Cutting Through the Jargon

Glossary of Terms – Cutting Through the Jargon

If you come across people who like to speak in acronyms or jargon, then you probably won’t find that very helpful when you are just starting out or establishing the digital side of your business.

In this Take Five, we’re having a look at a few small but select digital terms that you may well come across when setting up your business and we hope that you won’t now have to ask what someone’s on about!

Websites

Domain Name – this is the address where visitors can access your website eg www.designandbesocial.com. 

Hosting Company – this is where your website lives (on their servers).

SSL -this should be added to your website when it goes live (a padlock will appear next to your domain name).  If it’s not there,  you then see “not secure” next to a domain name in a browser. SSL is the standard security technology for establishing an encrypted link between a web server (at the hosting company) and someone’s browser (eg Chrome, Firefox, Safari or Internet Explorer).

HTML & CSS – HTML is code that a basic website is written in and CCS stands for Cascading Style Sheet which means that if you alter the styling of something in CSS ie colour for your links – it changes everything throughout the site.

UX – User-Experience – so important and sometimes overlooked in preference for an over-designed look and flashy widgets.  A good UX means a site is designed with your customer in mind and ensures they can easily find what they are looking for (important!).

Social Media Marketing

Hashtags (#) – a # is a way of connecting your social media posts to other social media posts on the same subject eg an event or location.  You can also search for a specific hashtag which is relevant to your business by using a # search. This is more useful on Instagram, Twitter or LinkedIn rather than Facebook.

@ Tagging –  tagging someone in a social media post or photo notifies that person (or page) that they have been mentioned or included in your update or photo.  It can help them/you join in with the social conversion or alert them/you to something interesting that they/you might like to share.  On your Facebook Busines Page, if you don’t have an @name underneath your Company Name, you can’t be tagged.

Bio – short summary of your business on your Facebook or Instagram page with important information and relevant links. Important – not to be neglected.

Scheduling – by planning and scheduling your posts using something like Buffer or Planoly you can save yourself the panic and rush of trying to post on the go.

KPIs – these are used to measure the success of Social Media and Advertising campaigns. Your KPIs can be any type of analytic you choose eg, engagement,  follower number growth, click-through rate or bounce rate.  This should be agreed on at the beginning of a campaign but regularly reviewed.

Facebook Advertising

Boosting a Post – boosted Facebook posts are less complex than Facebook Ads.  However, a boosted post is simply a regular Facebook post that you put money behind to reach a wider audience. An Ad offers more advanced solutions.

CTR and CPC – Click Through Rate and Cost Per Click – two metrics you should consider when looking at the data for your Facebook Ads.  The CTR (expressed as %) is the number of clicks on your advert divided by the number of impressions (the times it is seen).  The CPC is the price you pay for each click on your Facebook ad. 

Business Manager – this is where all your adverts should be run from.  You should set up your own Business Manager and then let others have access to your BM (not the other way round).  It also means you retain your own data and control of your page, audiences and previous ads, etc.

Audiences – these are created in your Facebook Business Manager and can be interest-based, location-based, visitors to your website, lookalikes of your audiences – the list goes on … This is who you show your ads to.

Facebook Pixel – this piece of code, created in your Business Manager, needs to be added to your website so that you can track and target visitors to your site.  If you’re running ads without a pixel (and there are even a couple of very large corporations who do this!) then you’re just wasting your money as you can’t utilise any data to create an ongoing strategy.

Images

Pixel Size – the actual size of your image.  An original image may be up to 6000 px in width but if it is being used on a website the image should be reduced considerably so as not to cause slow-loading of your site.

Pixellating – this is what happens to an image that is, say 200 px wide, and is increased to 500 px in width. The image becomes blurry.  If this happens you need to find the original image file and resize it correctly.

Cropping – this means removing unwanted areas from an image. This basic process is carried out in order to remove unwanted detail from a photo or to improve the overall composition.

Saturate – this means to increase the intensity of colour in a photograph.

Filters – by using specific software or an app, you can change the appearance of an image by altering its shade and colour.  Filters can be used to increase brightness and contrast as well as adding a  wide variety of tones, textures or special effects.

Digital Acronyms

B2B or B2C – Business to Business or Business to Customer – used in an advertising context.

CTA – This button used to grab your customers’ attention – to make them click, purchase or provide their email address. A CTA can be used on your website, in your email campaigns or in your social media advertisements.  It should be obvious.

ATC – Add to Cart – on an eCommerce store.

PPC – Pay Per Click – in relation to advertising.

ROAS – Return on Ad Spend – a metric used to show how effectively your money is being spent on digital advertising.

Is there anything digital you'd like to talk about?

If you’d like to dicuss anything further, then why not get in touch and we can have a chat.

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