Boosting with bKash is easy now. Spending well is not.
Since September, businesses in Bangladesh can pay for Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp ads with bKash (The Financial Express). Until then, you needed a card that works in dollars.
That is good news for small sellers. There are about 3 million cards in the country and more than 82 million registered bKash users. People who used to borrow a friend's card, or pay someone extra to run their boosts, can now do it themselves.
YouTube is already full of videos on how to boost with bKash. One passed 11,000 views in three weeks (YouTube). Plenty of sellers were waiting for this.
So it is worth saying now: paying got easier. Spending well did not.
What a boost buys
A boost does what it always did. It puts your post in front of more people. Likes come in, and comments that say only "price?". But someone who has never seen your page does not trust a page they don't know.
Boosting is like hiring a loudspeaker van for the neighbourhood. Everyone hears you. Whether anyone walks into the shop depends on whether they know you, and on who is doing the talking.
In our last article, a Dhaka saree seller told us that fifty people ask the price every day and two order (read it). Easier boosting will not close that gap by itself. It may just buy the same result for more money.
That does not make boosting bad. It works on people who already know you: past buyers, page followers, people who should hear about a new collection. And if you boost, boost a post people liked without help. Money rarely rescues a post nobody responded to.
Four things to do before you boost with bKash
Together they make a small, one-month test.
- Decide what you will count. Not likes, not reach: inbox messages and orders.
- Don't put the whole budget into boosting at once. Use part of it to work once with one small, well-matched influencer.
- Ask every new inbox message one question: "Where did you hear about our page?"
- Write the answers in a notebook in two columns, boost and influencer, and mark whether each one ordered.
Well-matched does not mean famous. It means someone whose videos make people ask in the comments where they bought it. A small following is fine if those followers look like your customers.
After a month, open the notebook. Which money brought more orders will no longer be a guess.
If someone asks for your PIN or OTP
Fake "bKash offer" ads have circulated on Facebook before (Dismislab). Pay for boosts only from your own ad account's payment settings.
If anyone offers to "boost it cheaper" and asks for your bKash PIN or OTP, that is the end of the conversation.