Hootsuite’s Promote feature allows users to put advertising budget behind important
social media posts - to help them reach their full potential.
In this video, we’ll walk you through how to promote both Facebook and LinkedIn posts.
Facebook posts can be promoted in 3 locations in Hootsuite: from published posts in-stream
------- from the Composer ----- or from the Promote tab.
Let’s dive into the Promote tab. Here, you’ve got two main options: First is Single Post
Boosting, where you manually select specific posts. And second is Automated Boosting, which
automatically identifies and boosts published posts based on criteria you set.
To set up an auto boost - select your page - ad account - and save.
Then, name your new Campaign and pick an Objective. If you’re unsure what to pick, review the
available options to ensure they match up with your campaign goals. Next, set up Automation
Triggers, so Hootsuite can identify the posts that need to get boosted.
Depending on the objective you’ve picked, you can set triggers around content type,
engagement, and keyword. For example, you could set triggers to promote any Facebook
posts that’ve been shared at least 100 times, contains a video, AND includes the terms BEACH
and TROPICAL. You could even add an additional trigger that excludes any posts containing
the words ‘unhappy’ and ‘cold’.
Now, pick an audience type: With ‘Recommended’, you specify a location, and Facebook uses
a lookalike audience. By contrast, ‘Build Your Own’ audience offers a range of targeting
options including age, interests, and connections.
If you already have saved and custom audiences on Facebook, access them here. For more information
about these options, simply hover over the Tooltip icon.
Facebook Ads will automatically publish to Instagram as well. Your spend will be prioritized
toward whichever of the two platforms is performing better. However, if you don’t want your
Facebook Ad to appear on Instagram, simply toggle this option to Off.
You can set a daily budget OR set an amount for the entire campaign.
Please note that your daily spend may not be maxed out, depending on a variety of factors,
including whether your audience was available during the time you specified.
Hootsuite will evaluate all posts moving forward that meet your criteria. It will also review
posts from the previous 7 days, to expand the pool of potential posts to promote - and
get you up and running faster.
Now that we’ve covered automated boosting, let’s now look at manually boosting individual
Facebook posts.
You can search for posts to promote within the boost table OR by scrolling through published
posts In Stream.
In the boost table, scroll through to identify the post you want to boost. You can review
the engagement stats to determine which posts are performing well. Once you find the right
post - click Boost Post. Then, select an ad account and enter the boosting criteria.
Note the preview pane on the right, where you can review what your Ad will look like
on Mobile, Desktop, and Instagram.
Finally, click to boost it.
To boost a post in-stream, simply scroll to find the post you want to boost - click Boost
post - and follow the same steps.
Now let’s say you want to create a post from SCRATCH and then put some advertising
dollars behind it. Facebook users can do this right from the Composer.
Simply click New Post - select a page - and click to boost it on Facebook.
Fill in the fields - and Save. With your boost settings saved, finish creating
your post as normal.
To edit the boosting settings on a draft or scheduled post, navigate to the Planner.
With Hootsuite’s promote tool, LinkedIn users can put advertising spend behind individual
LinkedIn Page organic posts via the Promote tab AND from published posts in-stream.
To get started - select LinkedIn under the Promote tab - and click to begin sponsoring.
View the metrics next to each post to determine its performance. When you identify the post
you want to promote, click Sponsor Post - and select an ad account.
Next, name your campaign - choose a campaign objective - and build your target audience.
LinkedIn also allows users to target based on specific professional attributes.
For example, a recruitment company could run a website clicks campaign targeting Senior
Civil Engineers, with 8-10 years of experience, who work at competing companies.
LinkedIn users can enable the Audience Network feature, which surfaces the ad to an audience
with similar attributes to the targeted one on LinkedIn’s network of publishers.
Next, set a campaign budget and duration.
Then click to Sponsor on LinkedIn.
To promote a post from an Updates stream, simply click Sponsor Post - and follow the
prompts.