Boost Facebook Page posts

Promote Facebook Page posts to ensure your organic content reaches its full potential. You can boost Page content in just a few clicks from the Hootsuite dashboard. First, add your Facebook ad account to Hootsuite (see Add a Facebook account to Hootsuite for detailed instructions). Then, Hootsuite’s boosting feature will recommend an ad campaign for you that promotes your posts with the most engagement. Review and approve the campaign, or edit the settings to define which types of posts get boosted. Professional, Team, Business, and Enterprise plans can also create single post campaigns to invest in specific posts.

There is a maximum (based on plan type) to how much Hootsuite users can spend from their ad accounts every 30 days. More about each plan’s promotion budget below

To boost a post while creating it, see Publish or schedule a promoted post

How does it work?

1. Get started by selecting a Facebook Page and Ad Account connected to your Hootsuite account.
2. Boost creates a drafted campaign that will automatically promote the best posts on your Page with a budget you control. You can get started in one click, or quickly edit and create your own boosting settings.
3. That's it! You can get back to work while Hootsuite’s boosting feature automatically optimizes your posts in the background. You can check in to the Overview section to view your campaign results.

Getting started with Boost

Boosting requires a Facebook ad account that’s associated to one of your Pages, and has a valid payment method attached. Ad accounts are connected to Hootsuite together with an associated Facebook Page. The user who connects the Facebook Page to Hootsuite must have advertiser permissions for the ad account in Facebook.  Learn more about Facebook ad accounts

In Hootsuite organizations, team members with Advanced social network permissions for the Facebook Page can boost posts. Custom social network permissions are available to Enterprise team members to Promote Ads (to create boosting campaigns) and/or Manage ad accounts (to add or remove the Page’s ad accounts).

Select Publisher from the launch menu, and then select the Promote tab. The first step is to ensure you have both a Facebook Page and an associated ad account connected to Hootsuite.

Already have your Page and ad account added to Hootsuite? Skip to Creating an automatic boosting campaign

To add an ad account (if the associated Page is already connected to your dashboard)

1. Click Get started with Boost.
2. Select a Page to boost posts from.
   Missing a Facebook Page that’s connected to Hootsuite? Make sure that you have Advanced or Custom social network permissions for the Page.
3. Click Add an Ad account.
4. Select the ad account you want to add to Hootsuite, and then click Done.
   Not seeing one of your ad accounts? The user who adds the Page to Hootsuite also adds the ad accounts. To import another ad account, reconnect the Page with your Facebook credentials.
5. Click Save and continue. Next steps

If you don’t have any Facebook Pages connected to the Hootsuite dashboard yet, you’ll be prompted to Connect to Facebook to import both the Page and its associated ad account.

1. Click Connect with Facebook.
2. Enter your Facebook profile credentials (email and password), and then click Log in.
3. Check the box beside the Page(s) you want to add to your dashboard, and then click Done.
4. Now check the box beside the associated ad accounts you want to add to the dashboard, and then click Done.

See Manage ad accounts to add or remove ad accounts from the dashboard, or manage team member access to an organization's ad accounts.

Creating an automatic boosting campaign

Select the Facebook Page and ad account you’ll be using to boost posts, and then Hootsuite’s boosting feature will recommend a campaign for you. Publish the campaign right away, or edit its settings to determine what gets boosted, to which audience, for how long, and with how much budget.

Up to three most recent posts from the last seven days, and all future posts, that fit the campaign’s boosting criteria will be promoted. Note that only live posts can be boosted by automatic campaigns. To apply a boost to a post while it's scheduled, see Publish or schedule a promoted post

To create a new campaign

1. Select a Facebook Page and ad account to boost from, enter a name for the campaign, and then click Next/Save.
   Missing a Facebook Page that’s connected to Hootsuite? Make sure that you have Advanced or Custom social network permissions for the Page.
2. Review the recommended campaign. Click Boost on Facebook, or click Edit to the right of each component to customize it:
   
   • Ad account and Page: Select a different Page or ad account to boost from, or edit the campaign name.
   • Objective and Automation Triggers:
     • Select the objective from Engagement, Website clicks, Video views, or Reach.
       
     • Change the boosting triggers based on your goal: Automatically boost posts with Facebook Hot Post Trigger, Automatically boost posts that meet your minimum requirements, or Automatically boost all posts.
       
     • Engagement/Reach: Select which Post Types to boost: Link, Status, Images, or Video.
     • Optional: Enter keywords to boost posts based on content.
     • Add a Custom Link (Optional) if Website clicks has been selected as the objective.
   • Special Ad Category: If the campaign will contain any ads related to credit, employment, or housing, check the box and then select the correct category. Learn more
   • Audience: Select a recommended audience, a saved or custom audience that you've created on Facebook, or build your own. Multiple custom audiences can be selected, including lookalike audiences.
   • Instagram Placement: Toggle this on or off to display your ad on both Facebook and Instagram or just Facebook.
   • Budget and Duration: Specify the budget to be spent per day or in total during the specified date range.
3. Click Boost on Facebook.

Boosting a single post

Select a specific Page post and ad account, and then review the recommended campaign that Hootsuite suggests for you. Publish the campaign right away, or edit its settings to modify your ad’s objective, audience, duration, and budget.

Single published posts can also be boosted from your Facebook Page My Posts and Timeline streams. Certain post types, like shared posts, cannot be boosted. If you see Boost Unavailable on a post, check this article to find out why it can't be boosted. To boost a scheduled post, see this article.

To boost a single post

1. Click Find a post to boost, and then review a list of published posts from the Facebook Pages you can boost from. It can take up to two hours for a post to appear in the list after publishing.
   

   Tip: If a post is flagged as hot , it means Facebook has identified it as having a good organic engagement rate, and recommends it for boosting. More details

2. Click Boost Post to the right of the post.
3. Select an ad account to boost with, and then review the recommended campaign.
4. Optional: Click Edit to the right of each component to customize it:
   • Objective: Select the objective from Engagement, Website clicks, Video views, or Reach.
   • Audience: Select a recommended audience, a saved or custom audience that you've created on Facebook, or build your own. Multiple custom audiences can be selected, including lookalike audiences.
   • Instagram Placement: Toggle this on or off to display your ad on both Facebook and Instagram, or just Facebook.
   • Budget and Duration: Specify the budget to be spent per day or in total during the specified date range.
5. Click Boost on Facebook in the bottom-right corner.

Editing a campaign

Users can manage and edit their post promotions from inside Hootsuite.

Customers can edit the following: 

• Name of the campaign
• Status of the campaign (active-pause)
• Special Ad Category
• Audience
• Triggers (only for APP)
• Campaign budgets
• Campaign duration

To change the campaign name, select the pencil iconnext to the relevant name.

To update the Campaign status, use the switch button for activating or deactivating a campaign.

All the other properties can be modified using Edit , accessible from the Actions menu.

Campaign status

Your new campaign will appear in the Overview tab, which displays the status and progress of each boosting campaign.

Click the arrow to the left of the campaign name to see the posts being boosted under each campaign, and the engagement stats resulting from your ad spend. Any metrics in Hootsuite Analytics that report on paid content include boosted content.

Campaigns can be paused , restarted , or deleted  with the buttons in the top-right corner of each campaign. 

Each campaign has a status in its top-right corner: Boosting, Paused, Completed, or Error.

Promotion budgets

Promotion budgets are not a credit. They indicate a limit on your spending. Ad budgets in the boosting feature work the same way as they do on Facebook. Your ad spend for your boosted posts is paid to Facebook from your Facebook ad account. Learn more about how ad billing works on Facebook.

Hootsuite users can spend the following amounts from their ad accounts using Hootsuite per rolling 30 days. These limits include Facebook boosted posts and LinkedIn sponsored posts:

• Free - $100 USD
• Professional - $500 USD
• Team - $2000 USD
• Business - $5000 USD
• Enterprise - No limit

These limits refresh over the 30 days. Click Monthly Ad Spend in the Overview tab to monitor how much of your maximum monthly ad spend through Hootsuite has been used so far. The amount calculates in aggregate the money spent on Facebook boosted posts and LinkedIn sponsored posts. Thresholds are calculated in your Hootsuite account currency.

If the budget threshold is reached, campaigns are paused. When your balance refreshes, you can create a new campaign to boost again.

Boosting from Hootsuite will also be unavailable if your Facebook ad account has any overdue balances.

Hot posts

Hot post icons flag high-performing Facebook posts within the posts table. These posts are recommended for boosting as they have a higher organic engagement rate. When the post is flagged as hot, it will stay this way. You can choose to boost it whenever it is convenient. You can automatically boost Hot Posts or choose to boost one whenever it is convenient.