Burned $120 on a boosted post that got 14 likes

I threw $120 at a boosted Instagram post last month for my little candle shop in Austin, figured it would finally get me past the 200 reach wall. It got 14 likes and zero follows, basically all from bot accounts with generic comments. I feel dumb because I knew better, the organic posts with my cat in the background do way better. Has anyone else dumped cash into boosting and seen it flop this hard, or is there a trick to making paid reach actually convert?

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king.eric22d ago

Did the bots at least compliment the lavender scent or were they just dropping the generic "love this 🔥" nonsense? Honestly, I've thrown maybe $300 at boosts over the years and the only thing that converted was a video of my dog knocking over a candle display, so you're not alone in this stupid tax. The trick seems to be that paid reach only works if your content already looks like it's going viral, otherwise you're just paying for strangers to scroll past you faster. Save that $120 for a bigger candle mold or bribe a local influencer with a free bath set, that'll do more than whatever Instagram's algorithm is smoking.

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