What Is a Paid Social Campaign and How Is It Different from Boosting a Post?

Social media ads are an effective way to attract the attention of those people who are not currently following your business on social media. Nevertheless, it should be kept in mind that not all social media ad formats are created equally.

There are two popular methods: promoting the already existing content and launching an actual paid social media campaign. Both require investment, but the degree of control over the process is quite different.

What Does Boosting a Post Mean?

Boosting an already created post is one of the easiest ways to apply paid reach to content on social media.

A company can pick up any post that has been published, choose an audience, allocate funds, and determine the duration of the promotion.

It is effective in case the primary objective is to promote content that already works great.

For instance, a company can decide to boost its product or event announcement, as well as any popular educational post.

What Is a Paid Social Campaign?

The paid social campaign uses an advertising process that is more formalized. Rather than focusing on promoting a particular post, the marketer can come up with campaigns depending on the business objectives.

The advertiser can come up with campaigns for various business objectives such as:

  • Website traffic
  • Generating leads
  • Making sales
  • Promoting app usage
  • Increasing brand awareness
  • Generating engagement
  • Retargeting

This way, the advertiser has more control over the use of the budget.

Audience Targeting Is a Major Difference

A boosted post will help the user to create an audience for the post, but a complete paid promotion campaign may help in targeting the audience in a better way.

The audience can be created on the basis of interest, demographics, behavior on the web, site behavior, or any kind of interaction that one has had with the brand.

Creative Testing Matters

Another significant distinction is testing of different advertising creatives.

There are numerous images, videos, texts, messages, and even calls-to-action that you can use in a paid social media campaign. Then by collecting the performance data, you can see which ones are performing better.

It is much harder to test your creatives if you boost just one social media post.

Budget Control and Performance Tracking

While both processes need a budget, campaign management gives more chances for understanding how the money will be used.

There is a chance for a company to monitor metrics like impressions, clicks, engagement, leads, conversions, and cost per acquisition.

With this information, one can see what is doing well and what is not.

It may happen that a boosted post got many likes; however, it does not mean anything for the business.

When Should You Boost a Post?

Boosting makes sense if the objective is simple.

For instance, a company might wish to reach out to a larger audience with an announcement or to boost activity on an existing post that has generated good organic response.

It is fast and easy to do, making it suitable for small-scale promotion.

When Is a Paid Campaign Better?

Campaign-based advertising becomes more effective when there is a well-defined business goal of advertising.

In case of generating leads, making sales, targeting certain customers, and measuring conversions, campaign-based advertising is better.

Campaign-based advertising also allows marketers to make decisions based on performance indicators rather than participation only.

The Goal Should Come First

The most common mistake is selecting an advertising approach without setting the business objectives first.

In case the goal is simply brand visibility, then the boosting may suffice. If the goal is measurable business growth, then a campaign-based approach is more likely to work.

It all depends on the audience, budget, creativity, industry, and objectives.

Final Thoughts

Both boost posts and paid social media campaigns can play an important role in digital marketing but they have their own uses. Boosting allows you to easily extend the reach of your existing posts, whereas paid social campaigns allow you to go into more depth in terms of targeting, testing, optimization, and performance measurement. Incinque Agency is there to help you plan and manage your paid social campaigns through strategies focused on your goals and performance.