Reaching the right people at the right time in the right place can sometimes be a guessing game on social media platforms like Facebook.
Will my primary buyer persona see my posts? The sad fact is that they probably won’t. Research has shown that in 2014, businesses’ organic reach dropped from 12% to 6% and this number is just going to decrease further as algorithms prioritise content from a user’s family and friends rather than the companies they follow.
So what can you do to make sure your posts land in front of your primary target audience?
The first step to targeting your primary buyer persona on Facebook is to make sure they’re actually on the platform. If you have a disengaged audience or few likes on your Facebook Page, this could be a sign that the platform is not the right fit for your business and that you might find more success on another platform like LinkedIn or Twitter.
If you can identify that the person you want to target is on Facebook, then it’s time to get segmenting!
Location
Depending on where your audience is, you may want to target local customers or you may want to promote your business on an international or global scale.
You can choose from the following options when it comes to choosing a location:
- Everyone in this location
- People who live in this location
- People recently in this location
- People travelling in this location
Age & Gender
If your buyer persona is within a certain age range or takes on a specific gender, you may want to target your audience this way. However, in order to abide by the Facebook Ad policies, you must ensure your ads don’t participate in discriminatory practices.
Adverts must not engage in predatory advertising practices or contain content that discriminates against, harasses, provokes or disparages people who use Facebook or Instagram.
Demographics
Are you a B2B company that wants to target people who work in a certain industry? Or perhaps you’re B2C and need to focus on people who are in relationships or have children of a certain age? Demographics targeting will allow you to hone in on your customers.
Interests
Facebook has the option to target your audience based on interests. This is extremely helpful if you have defined your buyer personas and can identify specific interests that differentiate them from everyone else.
A few examples you can choose from are fitness and wellness such as running or weight training, food and drink like cooking or going out to restaurants or even entertainment like going to festivals or playing online games.
Behaviours
If you can identify that your buyer personas use a certain mobile device or are frequent travellers, you may want to look at targeting behaviours to define your audience.
B2B companies can benefit from the ‘Facebook Page Admins’ option found in ‘Digital Activities’, which will allow you to target people who are admins of business pages, allowing you to reach out to business owners or employees.
Lookalike Audiences
You can create lookalike audiences in Ads Manager which will allow you to reach new people on Facebook that are similar to your existing page followers. If your current page audience is extremely engaged and active, then let Facebook do the hard work for you by finding you new customers that closely resemble your current audience.
Custom Audience
Creating custom audiences is a great way to reach out to users who are already aware of your business. You can create a list of people who have interacted with your business offline or those who have engaged with content on your Facebook or Instagram.
Alternatively, if you have Facebook Pixel set up on your website, you can target people who have visited previously and have performed specific actions like downloaded a PDF or added a product to their cart. If you receive a lot of website traffic, you can define this audience further by implementing interests or demographic targeting, as mentioned beforehand.
There are many ways to define your audience but it’s important to remember that your targeting must not be too specific or too general as your ad will not be as effective in the long run.
