Boost a Facebook post

Boosted posts are paid ads that you create from existing Facebook posts. Boosting posts gets your high-performing content in front of more people, for more reactions, shares, and comments. Promoting your posts on Facebook can increase your followers and build more awareness for your brand.

When you boost a post, you set an objective based on your marketing goals, choose who you want to see it, how much you want to spend, and how long you want your promotion to run. You can also set up an automated boost and let Facebook choose the best content to promote for you.

Before you begin

Boosted posts are a form of paid advertising, so you need to connect an ad account to Hootsuite that’s associated with your Facebook Page before you can promote any posts.

If you’re working with a team in a Hootsuite organization, you also need advertising permissions on the social account to run promotions. For instructions on how to add an ad account and set advertising permissions, see our article on Manage ad accounts and advertising permissions.

If you don’t have an ad account for your Facebook Page yet, see Facebook’s help article: Add an ad account to your Business Manager.

Boost a Facebook post

You can choose a post to boost, or set criteria to determine which posts to automatically boost.

Important: The new EU Digital Services Act requires social media companies like Meta, to provide greater transparency on ads served through their platforms. If you want to publish ad sets that target audiences worldwide or in EU countries or associated territories on Meta's platforms, you must ensure each such ad set includes beneficiary and payer information. Ad sets that do not comply will be rejected by Meta and not published on its platforms. Learn more about the EU Digital Services Act.

Boost a single post

Follow these steps to select to boost a single Facebook post.

1. Go to Ads and select Facebook Boost.
   
   Tip: You can also boost a post from other areas in Hootsuite.

   • Go to a Facebook stream feed , select Boost post on the post and then enter your Boost settings.
   • Go to Create, select your Facebook Page, create your post, and select Promote this post to enter your Boost settings.
   • Go to Plan, select a scheduled post, select Edit to open it and enter your Boost settings.
2. Select Find a post to Boost to see a list of your Facebook posts. Keep in mind that it can take up to two hours for new posts to show up in Hootsuite.
3. Choose the post you want to promote, and select Boost.
4. In the Boost settings window, select the ad account you want Meta to charge for the boosted post, and select Save.
5. Choose an objective. Meta uses this information to show your post to people who are likely to take the action you want.
6. If your ad is in a Meta-designated special category, you must identify it to comply with Meta’s anti-discrimination policies. If this is the case, select the Yes, my ad relates to credit, employment, or housing box, and then select the ad category that best fits your ads. Facebook restricts targeting options for special ad categories.
7. Choose your audience from one of the following options:
   • Build your own audience - If you want to build your own audience, select Edit and specify which attributes to target, like location, gender, age, and interests.
     
     Tip: Refine your audience by demographics, interests, or behaviors. Enter a keyword in the detailed targeting box, and select one or more options from the list of suggested categories.
     
   • Use saved audience - Select a saved audience you've already created on Facebook.
   • Use custom or lookalike audiences - Select custom or lookalike audiences you've already created on Facebook to reach people who have already engaged with your brand or to reach new people who are similar to the audiences you've already targeted.
     Note: You create custom and saved audiences in Meta Business Manager. Enter your audience name and Hootsuite will retrieve the audiences associated with the ad account you’re using to boost your posts.
8. Select Yes, my ads target audiences in the EU, if your ad targets audiences worldwide or in EU countries or associated territories (this is a requirement of the EU Digital Services Act).
9. Choose whether you want Meta to promote your Facebook post on Instagram, or just on Facebook. (If your post has more than one image, Instagram placement is not available.)
10. Set your budget and the length of your promotion.
11. Select Boost on Facebook.

Set up an automated boost

Follow these steps to set criteria that determine which posts to automatically boost for you.

Step 1: Set up your Facebook campaign

1. Go to Ads, and then select Facebook Boost.
2. Select Set up an automated boost.
3. Select your Facebook Page and ad account, and then enter a name for your campaign.
4. Choose an objective (the business goal you want to achieve) for your campaign. You can choose from the following options:
   • Traffic - Drive traffic to a website or landing page.
   • Engagement - Get people to interact with your ad. Select from the following conversion locations:
     • On your ad - Select the type of engagement you want to optimize for: Post engagement (comments, likes, or shares) or Video views if your ad includes video.
     • On your website - For this selection, you'll need to set up and install a tracking pixel on your site. See the Facebook help: How to set up and install a Meta pixel.
   • Awareness - Get more people to remember your brand.
   • Leads - Track leads conversions for your website.
   • Sales - Track sales conversions for your website.
5. Choose the result that you want to optimize for. Available options depend on your campaign objective and the type of engagement you selected.
6. If your ad is in a Meta-designated special category, you must identify it to comply with Meta’s anti-discrimination policies. If this is the case, select the Yes, my ad relates to credit, employment, or housing box, and then select the ad category that best fits your ads. Meta restricts targeting options for special ad categories.
7. Select Next: Audience and budget.

Step 2: Choose your audience and budget

When you set up the target audience for your ad campaign, you have a few options to choose from. You can build your own audience, based on specific characteristics like location, age, and interests, or you can use a saved audience or custom audience, imported from Facebook. For more information on Facebook saved and custom audiences see the following:

• How to Use a Saved Audience
• About Custom Audiences

1. Choose your audience from one of the following options:
   • Build your own audience - If you want to build your own audience, select Edit and specify which attributes to target, like location, gender, age, and interests.
     
     Tip: Refine your audience by demographics, interests, or behaviors. Enter a keyword in the detailed targeting box, and select one or more options from the list of suggested categories.
     
   • Use saved audience - Select a saved audience you already created on Facebook.
   • Use custom or lookalike audiences - Select custom or lookalike audiences you already created on Facebook to reach people who have already engaged with your brand or to reach new people who are similar to the audiences you've already targeted.
     Note: You create custom and saved audiences in Meta Business Manager. Hootsuite retrieves the audiences associated with the ad account you’re using to boost your posts.
2. Select Yes, my ads target audiences in the EU, if your ad targets audiences worldwide or in EU countries or associated territories (this is a requirement of the EU Digital Services Act).
3. Meta will automatically choose ad placements for you based on your objectives. If you'd like to choose your own placements, check I want to manually choose the placements. Learn more about Meta's placements.
   
   Note: When you choose an Instagram placement for your ad, Hootsuite tries to find the Instagram account associated with the Facebook Page you’re using for your campaign. If no Instagram account is found, Hootsuite uses the Facebook Page as a Page-backed Instagram account to place the ad. Learn more about Instagram account requirements.
4. Set your budget and the length of your promotion. You can set a daily or total budget for your ad campaign. Meta allocates your ad spend until the campaign ends or the budget runs out. If you select the Total option, Meta requires a minimum spend of roughly 1 USD or EUR per day, but the amount varies depending on the ad account currency.
5. Select Next: Set your auto-boosting criteria.

Step 3: Set your auto-boost criteria

Set the criteria to automatically promote posts that match it.

1. Choose which posts to boost automatically. You can choose to boost all posts, your most popular posts (those with the most engagement), or select Posts with a minimum amount of engagement. Here, you can set minimum engagement criteria that must be met for the post to auto-boost.
   
2. Set the duration of time you want to boost each post.
3. Enter keywords that must appear (or not) in posts you want to boost. You can enter multiple keywords (select Enter to separate keywords).
4. Enter any of your Hootsuite organization's tags that must be included in posts you want to boost. Your organization's tags are different from hashtags. These tags allow you to visually classify posts and conversations by category, which is useful for keeping track of things like engagement for specific campaigns and for providing other team members context about specific messages or posts. You can include multiple tags (select Enter to separate tags). Learn more about tags.
5. Select Publish campaign. Hootsuite sends the campaign to Meta for approval. Meta typically approves the campaign within 24 hours.

Once your campaign is published, you can view your ads in your content calendar and manage your campaign in the Advertise area of Hootsuite.

Edit your boost settings

You can manage and edit your scheduled or past boosted posts at any time.

1. Go to Ads , and then select Facebook Boost.
2. Filter your campaigns by Ad account and campaign status.
3. In any of your boosted posts, you can do the following:
   • Select Edit Name to change the post name.
   • Set the status to Active or Inactive.
   • Select Options to edit or delete the campaign settings.
     

Note: Once a boosted post has been published, you can't change the content of the post. If you need to make a change to the content, delete the boost campaign, then edit the post and boost it again.

Manage boosted posts in your content calendar

If you added Boost settings to a scheduled post, you can change them before the post is published. Only boost campaigns created in Hootsuite appear in your content calendar.

1. Go to Plan to view your calendar. You can quickly identify your promoted posts here - just look for the $ sign on the post.
   
2. Select the scheduled post, and then select Edit.
3. In the Edit post window, go to the Promotion section, and select Edit.
4. Make your changes, and then select Save settings and continue.
5. Select Save edits.

You can also delete the boosted post from your content calendar. If you want to duplicate the post (select More and then select Duplicate), you'll need to re-enter your Boost settings.

Once a scheduled promotion is published and live, you can monitor the promotion results in Advertise (go to Ads, and then select Facebook Boost).

Review Facebook boost performance in Advertise

You can review performance metrics for your boosted Facebook posts at any time.

1. Go to Ads, and then select Facebook Boost.
2. Select an ad account from the list to see all Facebook Boost campaigns associated with it.
3. Optionally, filter the campaign list by campaign status (active, inactive, or all campaigns).
4. For each boosted post, you can review specific metrics like reach, amount spent, and engagement.
5. Select See Post on Facebookto view the post on Facebook.

FAQ

Why does my post say boost is unavailable?

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

Why does my boost have an error status?

Error status means the post failed to pass Facebook’s review and did not publish. Sign in to your ad account on Facebook for details.

What is a hot post?

Facebook flags high-performing posts as hot posts . Hot posts are good candidates for boosting because they have higher organic engagement.