Social media and marketing news outlets are littered with articles (Forbes, Ad Age, Social Times) about the demise of organic reach and the need for advertisers to pay to get the reach on social channels that we used to get for free. Of course, this narrative sends the typical social media manager into a frenzy because we want people to see the great content we are posting on behalf of brands.

In response, Facebook and Twitter have released ways for brands to easily increase the reach of their posts by using the Boost Post button on Facebook or Quick Promote on Twitter. Sounds like a dream come true, right? Wrong!

Although these functionalities allow us to increase reach very quickly with a small spend behind them, they don’t really get to the true benefits of advertising on these channels. These quick options don’t allow us to use the treasure trove of targeting options available on these channels to advertisers. They also don’t allow us to organize these ad buys in a way that lets us easily test performance and make educated decisions on which types of content and targeting options we want to use in the future.

Instead of hitting the “easy” button and elevating our reach $10 at a time, we should take the extra time to apply the correct targeting, funding, strategy and organization to the promotion, not boost, of each post. This will allow us to get the most out of every dollar we spend.

So I ask you — no, I beg of you — no more Boost button!