9 Tips for Successfully Targeting Your Facebook Audience

The demographic of Facebook users is similar to that of the general internet population— so if your target customers are online, they’re on Facebook too. But how do you reach the right Facebook users? And how can you ensure that clicks from users turn into actual engagement with their brands? Marin Software’s newest Facebook white paper provides helpful ideas and practical advice for audience targeting.

Thankfully, Facebook makes it easy to target the customers you want by providing a wealth of user information and a plethora of targeting options. You can now reach the right users, at the right time, with an appropriately engaging message.

9 Best Practice Tips:

1. Keep your strategy and objectives in mind.
2. Draw on experience from other channels for Facebook targeting ideas. Analyze best performing keywords and best performing placements. This information can provide key insights into what audiences will likely perform best on Facebook.
3. Mine the demographics of your existing fan base, and look for appropriate targeting criteria for future ad campaigns.
4. Analyze your existing fans’ likes and interests. If existing fans are interested in “healthy eating,” then it makes sense to explore other lifestyle terms such as “healthy foods.”
5. Try a visual thesaurus, such as Visuwords, to provide inspiration for additional areas of interest to explore.
6. Focus on themes rather than individual words. For example, use “flowers” rather than “roses.”
7. Make use of the social nature of Facebook by taking advantage of social endorsements. People are more likely to click on ads for brands that are liked by their friends.
8. Make sure your audience reach is not too big or too small.
9. Don’t forget to save your audience templates for future use.

Facebook provides an incredible amount of user information, so make sure to analyze it and explore related areas of interest. Keep things in perspective by also remembering what targeting works outside of Facebook. All of these data points will help you successfully target and reach your audience.

Next Week: Stay tuned for more Facebook best practices! Next week we’ll discuss how to get the most out of your Facebook creative. If you would like to read more on how to drive ROI from Facebook advertising, click here to download our newest white paper, “The Marketers’ Guide to Driving ROI from Facebook Advertising.”