Author Promotion and Facebook Advertising

I had a bit of free Facebook advertising that was about to expire, so I had them "boost" a post--the one that gave a link to my recently aired interview with a local PBS station. I realized only later that the post actually linked to my blog, which itself gave the link to the interview. That's a lot of links to ask someone to follow!

(The actual interview link is here:)

https://vimeo.com/340742147?fbclid=IwAR1SldahLEq1E73IzOYvGM5T5Nce-9gvFuAGDoZ5qfIQhgu4jRpsMWQRc0Q

To add to what I hope is not the confusion, the post FB is boosting is not from my regular FB page, but from my author's page, which is here:

https://www.facebook.com/MarkRHunter/

My thinking at the time was not that it would expose people to my author's page or blog. It was more that this particular post would take them to the interview, which includes talk about our books and has a link to the web page at http://www.markrhunter.com/*, which--of course--has links for ordering our books. I've been flailing with what to do about promotion; as you all know, there's nothing I like better than blowing my own horn, and as you also know, I can sometimes be sarcastic.

I hate asking people to buy our books; but I want people to read them, and read future books, and the future books won't happen if people don't buy the present ones, so--there you go. Don't let anyone tell you there's such a thing as the perfect job.

Anyway, now I'm wondering exactly what this extra advertising does. Just put my post up with the same algorithms more often? (And what the heck is an algorithm? Sounds like math.) Do the same people just see it more? Do people on my friends list who don't usually see my posts get a look at them? Do people not on my list see it? What exactly happens?

I dunno.

I'll have to see if I get any kind of response before deciding to budget my own advertising dollars toward future efforts. But, worry as I might about spamming my friends, I do have to make those future efforts.

What kind of luck have you had with selling online, and is there a platform that's worked better when it comes to promotion? I've been thinking of doing some advertising on Amazon, not that they need my money.

 Always be closing.

*Ahem--yes, I could have written this without throwing in those links, but I try to think of them as an opportunity rather than an annoyance.