Boost a Facebook Page post

Boost a Facebook post to increase the value and extend the reach of your best Facebook Page content. You can set promotion objectives and timelines, define engagement criteria, and target specific audiences to optimize your ad spend. Your plan type determines the promotion spending you can administer (for more information, see How do promotion budgets work?).

Once you have a Facebook ad account, you can do the following:

• Boost existing live posts in Hootsuite Promote (go to Publisher , and then select Promote).
• Boost a scheduled post in Hootsuite Planner.
• Boost a post when you create a new post (for instruction, see Create a promoted post for a Facebook or LinkedIn Page).
• Boost a post in a Facebook Timeline stream.

This article discusses using Hootsuite Promote (go to Publisher , and then select Promote) to boost existing, live posts and manage your boosted posts.

Before you begin

Boosting requires a Facebook ad account that’s associated with one of your Pages and that has a valid payment method attached. The user who connects the Facebook Page to Hootsuite must have advertiser permissions for the ad account in Facebook.

• To create an ad account in Facebook, see the Facebook help article How to create a Facebook ad.
• To connect your Facebook Page to Hootsuite, see Add a Facebook account to Hootsuite.
• To manage your ad accounts, see Manage ad accounts in Hootsuite.

Team, Business, and Enterprise plan members in Hootsuite organizations must have Advanced or Custom (Promote ads or Manage ad accounts) permissions for the Facebook Page in order to boost posts.

Promote your Facebook post

1. Go to Publisher , and then select Promote.
2. If you don't have a Page with an ad account connected to Hootsuite, you'll be prompted to do that the first time you select Promote. For instruction on creating and connecting your Facebook ad account, see the previous Before you begin section.
3. Select from the following options:
   • Find a post to boost - Select an existing, published post to boost. Note, it can take up to two hours for post changes to appear in this list.
   • Set up an automated boost - Create an auto-boosting campaign. Auto-boosting campaigns automatically identify and boost your published posts based on criteria you set.
4. Select the Facebook Page ad account to use to boost your post.
   • Not seeing one of your ad accounts? The user who adds the Page to Hootsuite also adds the ad accounts. To import an ad account, reconnect the Page using your Facebook credentials.
   • Missing a Facebook Page that’s connected to Hootsuite? If you are a Team, Business, or Enterprise plan member, make sure you have Advanced or Custom social network permissions for the Facebook Page.
5. Optionally, select Edit in the Objective section to define your promotion objective and trigger settings. You can customize the following:
   • Objective - Select from one of the following advertising objectives to prioritize who to show your boosted post to:
     • Engagement - People who are likely to engage with the post (those likely to react, comment, or share).
     • Website Clicks - People likely to visit your home page. Optionally, set a Custom Link keyword or a part of a URL to boost posts containing that information.
     • Video Views - People likely to watch your video.
     • Reach - The maximum number of people in your audience.
   • Automation trigger (for automated boosts) - Automation triggers are the various actions that initiate an automated boost. If you are using auto-boost, you can choose to set automation triggers to review and boost posts from the past 7 days (for the duration of your campaign) that meet your criteria. The following trigger options are available:
     • Automatically boost posts with Facebook Hot Post trigger - Use the Facebook Hot Post feature to intelligently boost organic posts that have higher engagement rates. See What are hot posts?
     • Automatically boost posts that meet your minimum requirements - Boost posts that meet a set, minimum number of likes, comments, shares, video views, or reach. You can add multiple triggers (for example, the post must have at least 50 likes and reach at least 200 people for it to be boosted).
     • Automatically boost all posts - Boost all of your posts for the past 7 days.
   • Content type (for automated boosts) - Select to boost posts with any combination of links, status, images, or videos in them.
   • Keywords (for automated boosts) - Optionally boost posts that only include or exclude keywords that you define. You can define multiple keywords to include or exclude.
6. Select to target a specific audience for your ad. You can select from the following options:
   • Build your own audience - Select Edit next to this option to customize your target audience by setting custom demographics, interests, and connections criteria.
   • Recommended audience - Set a target location and build your audience using Facebook's Lookalike Audience feature which targets people who would likely be interested in your business because they're similar to your best existing customers. For more information, see the Facebook help Learn About Lookalike Audiences.
7. Turn on Instagram Placement to have your ad appear on both Facebook and Instagram.
8. Set your Budget and the Duration of time you want to run your ad.
9. Select Boost on Facebook.

Edit your post promotion settings

You can manage and edit your own scheduled or past post promotions at any time.

1. Go to Publisher , and then select Promote.
2. Filter your campaigns by Ad account and by Campaign Status.
3. In any of your promotions, you can do the following:
   • Select Edit Name to change the post name.
   • Set the promotion status to Active or Inactive.
   • Select Options to edit or delete the campaign settings.
     

You can also edit your promotion settings from Hootsuite Planner (go to Publisher , and then select Planner). Edit a post, and then select Edit next to Promote this post.

View metrics for your promoted post

You can view engagement information for your promotions (like reach, spend, reactions, shares, clicks, and comments).

1. Go to Publisher , and then select Promote.
2. Select your Ad account and a Campaign Status.
3. Select View metrics for any promotion.

FAQ

Why does my post say boost is unavailable?

Certain posts, like shared posts, cannot be boosted. To diagnose why your boost is unavailable, see the Facebook help article Why is my boost unavailable?

What does an error status indicate?

Error status means the post promotion failed to pass Facebook’s review and did not publish. Sign in to your ad account on Facebook for details. A common reason for failure is when a the ad account is missing a valid form of payment.

What is a hot post?

High-performing Facebook posts are flagged as hot posts . Consider hot posts as good candidates for promoting because they have a higher organic engagement rate. You can easily promote hot posts using an automated boost.