The Boost button appears next to most posts on a business account. It is the quickest way to pay for reach, and also the easiest way to pay for the wrong thing.

This guide covers what a boost is on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and LinkedIn, what it costs, what it does not do and when a campaign in the ad tool is the better choice. It is written for businesses in Sweden and based on the platforms’ help pages, read on 24 October 2026. Menus and rules change often, so check in the app before you pay.

What does boosting a post mean?

Boosting turns a post you have already published into an ad, so that it is shown to more people than your followers. Meta describes a boosted post as an ad created from existing content and says it counts as an ad on your invoice. You choose a goal, who should see the post, a budget and how long it should run.

The words differ between platforms. Facebook and Instagram say Boost, and some help pages talk about promoted posts. TikTok calls the tool Promote, or Kampanj if your app is set to Swedish. LinkedIn says Boost.

PlatformWho can boostGoals you can chooseUsed daily in Sweden
FacebookAnyone with Page access who may advertiseMessages, engagement, website visits, leads and calls, among others45 %
InstagramProfessional accountsProfile visits, website visits or messages46 %
TikTokCreator and business accounts, aged 18 or overViews, followers, profile visits and website visits, among others15 %
LinkedInSuper admins and content admins of the PageVisits, awareness, engagement, video views, events and leads5 %

Daily use among internet users aged 8 and over, according to Svenskarna och internet 2026 from Internetstiftelsen, the Swedish Internet Foundation. Other details from the platforms’ help pages, as of 24 October 2026.

Facebook

You boost from your business’s Facebook Page. On a desktop, switch into the Page, click Ads center, Advertise and Boost Facebook content, then Boost post on the post you want. You can also boost from Meta Business Suite. Meta fills in the image and text from the post, and you choose the goal, the audience (Meta’s suggestion, or your own by age, gender, location and interests), the duration and daily budget, and the placements. Turn on Special Ad Category if the ad is about jobs, housing, financial services or social issues, elections or politics.

Meta’s own advice is to boost a post that has already had plenty of comments, likes and shares, because it has probably resonated with your audience. How to run the Page itself is covered in Facebook for business.

Instagram

You need a professional account. Tap Boost below the post or reel, or go via Professional dashboard and Ad tools. There are three goals: more profile visits, more website visits or more messages. If you choose the Automatic audience, the ad is shown to people similar to your followers. According to Meta, most ads are reviewed and start running within an hour.

Reels have their own requirements. According to Instagram’s Help Centre, a reel cannot be boosted if it uses licensed music, face or camera effects, GIFs, product tags, interactive stickers or third-party filters, and it should be vertical 9:16. The sources disagree on length: the page on boosting a reel says up to 90 seconds, while the page on reels shared to Facebook says 60 seconds. Stay under 60 seconds to be safe. A reel already shared to Facebook cannot be boosted afterwards, but you can choose to boost when you tap Share to Facebook before publishing. More on reels in Reels for business and on the account in Instagram for business.

TikTok

Start Promote from the options menu on the post, or from TikTok Studio or the business centre. Choose a goal, then either a promotion pack with a suggested budget or a custom promotion where you set the budget, duration and audience, which can be based on gender, age, location and interests. TikTok’s requirements: you are at least 18 with a creator or business account, the post is public, and it uses original sound or sound cleared for commercial use, such as the Commercial Music Library. Promote works for videos and photos, but not for Stories.

TikTok is clear that the results in its promotion packs are estimates and that it cannot guarantee a set number of views or clicks. More in TikTok for business.

LinkedIn

Super admins and content admins can boost Page posts, from a desktop only. Text, single-image, video, document, event, article and newsletter posts can be boosted, but not a post that has been boosted before. You choose the goal, audience, start and end date and a total budget, and the boost is billed through an ad account in Campaign Manager. If you don’t have one, one is created.

You can also boost posts from your own profile, but LinkedIn says this is being rolled out gradually. Boost credits included in Premium All-in-One can only be used for posts from your profile, not your Page. More in LinkedIn for business.

How much does it cost to boost a post?

It costs what you decide. You set the budget and duration, and the platform sells the impressions in an auction, so the price per impression or click varies with audience, competition and season. Meta says you control your total spend through the budget and can set a spending limit per campaign or for the whole account.

Minimum budget. On the help pages we have read, none of the platforms gives a fixed minimum in Swedish kronor. Meta says the minimum varies by country and objective, and that Ads Manager shows a notification if your budget is too low. LinkedIn calculates the minimum total budget from the length of the campaign and shows it if your amount is too low. TikTok suggests a budget in each promotion pack and shows the cost in local currency or in Coins, its in-app currency. Dollar minimums quoted online come from second-hand sources, so rely on what the tool shows you.

How the budget can move. A daily budget at Meta is an average, not a daily cap. According to Meta, one day can cost up to 75 percent more than the daily budget, but not more than seven times the daily budget in a week. LinkedIn boosts use a total budget spread over the period that is not exceeded, and boosted Page posts are charged per impression. In Meta Business Suite, watch out for Run this ad continuously: the boost then runs until you pause it. Set an end date instead.

The fee in the iPhone app

Since February 2024, boosting in the Facebook app for iPhone or iPad is paid through Apple’s App Store, and Apple may take a service fee of 30 percent of the ad payment. According to Meta, the same fee applies in most regions when you add funds to your ad account in the Instagram iOS app. The fee goes to Apple, not Meta. Meta says the ad is delivered the same way if you boost on facebook.com, instagram.com, in Meta Business Suite or in Ads Manager, where the fee does not apply.

TikTok says paying with Coins, Apple Pay or Google Pay may add a service fee, usually around 30 percent, set by Apple or Google. If you boost from your profile in the LinkedIn app, credits are bought through Apple’s purchase flow on an iPhone. LinkedIn does not say whether this costs more.

Receipts and VAT

Boost from an ad account in your business’s name and add your VAT registration number, which Meta offers for VAT-registered businesses. According to Meta, how VAT is handled depends on which Meta company is the seller on the receipt. If it is Meta Platforms Ireland and you buy for business purposes, no VAT is added and you handle the VAT yourself. If it is Meta’s local company in Sweden, VAT is added, and you can probably reclaim it if your business is VAT-registered. If you buy ads for personal purposes, VAT is added. TikTok says it cannot issue custom invoices or special tax invoices. Ask your accountant whether the paperwork is good enough for your books before you boost on a larger scale. How large a budget is reasonable is discussed in Ad budget for local businesses.

What a boost does not do

A boost buys impressions. It does not change what decides whether those impressions become customers.

  • It does not raise reach afterwards. We have not found any statement from the platforms that a boosted post gets more organic reach once the boost ends. TikTok says Promote only improves the visibility of the content on TikTok. How organic reach works is covered in How the algorithms work.
  • It is not bought followers. Paying the platform for an ad is different from buying followers or engagement from a third party. Meta says comments it detects as coordinated fake engagement are shown less, and that in 2024 it took down more than 100 million fake Pages engaged in scripted following.
  • It promises no result. Meta shows estimated reach and results before you pay, and TikTok says results cannot be guaranteed.
  • It does not fix what comes next. If the post leads to a profile without a link, a website where booking is hard to find or messages nobody answers, you pay for visits that lead nowhere.
  • Not everything can be boosted. Since 6 October 2025, Meta no longer shows political, electoral and social issue ads in the EU, citing the EU regulation on political advertising. Ads about jobs, housing and financial services must be marked as a special ad category, which can limit targeting. According to Instagram’s Help Centre, Meta has temporarily stopped showing ads to teens in the EU, EEA and Switzerland, so a boost will not reach customers under 18 here. And Meta says that for people in the EU, the ability to advertise is limited if the account has a subscription without ads.

Boost or a campaign in the ad tool: what is the difference?

A boost is a simplified version of the platform’s ad tool. Meta says boosted posts do not have as many customisable and detailed targeting options as a regular ad, and LinkedIn says boosting limits the options for objectives, audience, bidding and budget. These are the differences that matter for a local business.

Comparison of boosting a post and running a campaign in the ad tool. A boost starts from a post you have already published, has goals such as messages, calls, visits and engagement, an automatic audience or age, gender, location and interests, and is measured in the platform's insights and with tagged links. It suits a post that already works and a simple goal. The ad tool starts from a new ad or an existing post and adds leads, sales and website conversions, lookalike audiences, more detailed targeting and measurement of enquiries and bookings on your website. It suits steering, testing and measuring against bookings.
A boost buys reach for a post that already works. The ad tool is needed when you want to steer, test and measure against bookings. As of October 2026, according to Meta’s and LinkedIn’s help pages.

Goals. A Facebook boost can bring messages, engagement, website visits, leads or calls. Ads Manager adds objectives such as Leads, App promotion and Sales, and ads can be optimised for website conversions. On LinkedIn, Campaign Manager adds website conversions, job applicants and lead generation.

Audience. When boosting, you pick age, gender, location and interests, or let the platform choose. In Ads Manager you can build lookalike audiences, people similar to your customers, and combine audience types. Meta says some detailed targeting features are only available there.

Format. A boost shows the post as it is. In Ads Manager you can make carousel ads, write your own descriptions, choose more placements such as Messenger and WhatsApp Status, and increase the budget on the days and times when you expect most demand.

Measurement. A boost’s results appear in the platform’s own insights. Ads in Ads Manager can be optimised for conversions on your website, such as a booking or a submitted form, which requires your website to measure them.

So the Boost button is not a mistake in itself. It is the right tool for a simple job and the wrong tool for a campaign that needs to be steered and measured. Building ads in Ads Manager for a local business is covered in Meta Ads for local businesses.

When is boosting enough for a local business?

In our view, a boost is enough when four things are true: the post already works with your followers, the goal is simple (messages, calls, profile visits or visits to one page), the offer is time-limited, such as free slots next week or an open day, and someone is ready to respond, with a link straight to booking and messages answered the same day.

Audience size matters too. Meta says its ad delivery system works best with an audience of 2–10 million people, and that detailed interest targeting may be better used only when the audience is at least two million. LinkedIn recommends 50,000–500,000 people for a custom audience when boosting from your profile. A local catchment area is often smaller than that, and our view is that a local business usually does best by letting location and age set the limits and skipping interests. According to Meta, age and location are treated as firmer limits when the platform chooses an audience for you, while other choices are used as suggestions.

Switch to the ad tool when you want to measure enquiries and bookings on your website, reach people similar to your customers, make carousel ads with your own copy, run ads continuously or advertise jobs, housing or financial services. How we work with ads on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and LinkedIn is described on our pages in Swedish.

Two made-up examples. A hair salon has three free slots on Thursday and a reel with its own sound that has already brought in messages: boosting that reel for three days, with messages as the goal and a local audience, is probably enough. An electrician wants more quote requests for EV chargers this spring and to know what each one costs: that needs a campaign optimised for the form on the website and measured there.

Measure what brings customers

Reach and likes say little about the business. Decide before the boost what counts, and choose the goal accordingly.

  • Choose a goal that resembles a customer. Messages, calls and visits to your booking page are closer to a sale than engagement. On Facebook, the goal you choose becomes the name of the boosted post in Ads center.
  • Tag the link. Add UTM parameters to the link in the post or profile, for example example.se/book?utm_source=instagram&utm_medium=paid&utm_campaign=boost-free-slots, so visits from the boost show up separately in your web analytics.
  • Read the platform’s figures. Facebook shows results in Ads center, Instagram in Ad tools, TikTok in the Promote overview and LinkedIn in Campaign Manager.
  • Count the enquiries. Ask new customers how they found you, and note messages and calls during the boost. Divide what the boost cost by the number of enquiries. That is your cost per enquiry, which you can compare between boosts and with other marketing.

Do it yourself or get help

Boosting a single post yourself takes a few minutes and is often the sensible choice. What takes time is having posts worth boosting, week after week, and knowing when a proper campaign is needed. How social media fits with the rest of your visibility is covered in Social media for local businesses, and what help costs in What does social media help cost?

With us, posts on Instagram and Facebook are part of the Plus and Premium packages, with Reels and TikTok in Premium, together with your website and Google profile. The ad budget is not included. If you want to buy reach beyond the regular posts, we build campaigns platform by platform, and you get a fixed price for our work in plain text before we start. We take no percentage of the ad budget, which goes in full to the platform, and the accounts and ad account are yours. How we work is described on our page about social media help.

Frequently asked questions

What does boosting a post on Facebook mean?

You pay for a post that is already on your business’s Facebook Page to be shown as an ad to more people, including people who do not follow the Page. You choose the goal, audience, duration, daily budget and placements. According to Meta, a boosted post counts as an ad and appears as one on your invoice.

How much does it cost to boost a post on Instagram?

You decide, because you set a daily budget and how long the boost runs. Meta gives no fixed minimum in Swedish kronor on the help pages we have read, and says the minimum budget varies by country and objective. If you boost in the iPhone app, Apple may take a 30 percent service fee, so boost on instagram.com instead. As of 24 October 2026.

Is it better to boost or to advertise in Ads Manager?

It depends on the goal. A boost is simplest when a post already works and you want more messages, calls or visits. Ads Manager offers more objectives, such as leads and sales, more placements, carousel ads and more advanced targeting, and is the right tool when you want to measure enquiries and bookings on your website.

Can you boost posts on TikTok and LinkedIn?

Yes. On TikTok the tool is called Promote, or Kampanj in the Swedish app, and you must be at least 18 and use original sound or sound cleared for commercial use. On LinkedIn, super admins and content admins can boost Page posts from a desktop, and boosting posts from your own profile is being rolled out gradually. As of 24 October 2026.

Why can’t I boost my post?

Common reasons are licensed music in a reel, sound not cleared for commercial use in a TikTok video, a reel that has already been shared to Facebook, shared posts and cover photos on Facebook, or a LinkedIn post that has been boosted before. Meta does not allow ads about social issues, elections or politics in the EU. On Facebook, hover over the message that the post can’t be boosted to see the reason.

Does a boost bring more followers and better reach afterwards?

A boost can bring followers if you choose that goal, for example on TikTok. But we have not found any statement from the platforms that a boost raises a post’s organic reach afterwards, and TikTok says results cannot be guaranteed. Bought followers and fake engagement are something else: Meta says coordinated fake engagement is shown less.

Sources

All web pages read on 24 October 2026 unless another date is given. Menus, requirements and fees reflect the situation in October 2026 and may change. Some of Meta’s and LinkedIn’s help pages were read in Swedish, so their titles below are our translations.