Facebook Targeted Posts For The Small Business Owner:

Facebook is rolling out a slew of new targeted posting options for your business page.   TechCrunch reports that the advanced post targeting is already starting to roll out to select Pages, with all Pages slated to receive the ability in the coming weeks.

What will Facebook targeted post options allow you to do?  You will be able to target what newsfeeds your posts will appear in by:

  • Age
  • Gender
  • Interested in
  • Relationship status
  • Language
  • Education
  • Workplace
  • Location (country, state, city)

Facebook says “This will allow advertisers to more efficiently reach the right fans and increase the relevancy for people when they see page posts in their news feed, which overall leads to increases in engagement rates for page posts.”

This is nothing new to social media as it’s much like ‘circles’ features that business owners have with Google Plus.  This image demonstrates how it will appear when making Facebook targeted posts:

Photo Credit: Tech Crunch

 

What does Facebook Targeted Posts Mean To You:

What does it mean for most small businesses Facebook strategy? Not much.  Most small businesses don’t have a large enough ‘like’ base to look at fragmenting your posts by making a specific post to a section of their base.  Fragmentation is not always a good thing for the small business owner.

There will be that rare time or that niche business that this will help.  We have a client that in their retail business sells products that you have to be 21 to purchase, so being able to make more posts regarding those products to their over 21 base will be helpful to be able to include more posts with that product.

While the post can be defined and sent to demographic groups it will still be on your wall for anyone to see.

Facebook Targeted Posts Summary:

I can’t see this as being real ground breaking stuff for the small business owner.  For those with under 10k likes to their page then the more who see your posts the better.  That most people that like your page, like it because they like you and want to see what is going on with your business, that they don’t want to feel left out.  If you did create posts for specific people to see would the rest of your audience feel left out?

About the Author:

Mike Frey

Before co-founding Paradux Media Group, Mike spent more than 15 years in the world of marketing and advertising. While working with hundreds of locally owned businesses, he developed an appreciation for minimizing clients’ dollars while maximizing tangible results for those clients.

Learn More

Quacktastic Reviews:

1 Comment

  1. amy swanson on August 6, 2012 at 1:32 pm

    I heard that Facebook was going to implement this, but I had no idea what exactly it would entail. Now I know 🙂 Your example of the retail business makes sense and I could see how it would be beneficial. Whereas before you weren’t able to share products that were intended for those 21 and older because of your underage fans, now you can share with strictly the 21 and older demographic. In that situation it would be great idea! You can increase business and sales by promoting products you were never able to before. However, for most small businesses segmenting your audience too much could mean that nobody ends up seeing your post. That would definitely be where the company I work for falls under, and many other companies I “like” on there. Good in theory, but certainly not meant for everyone to follow.

    Great post, Mike! Thanks for the head’s up!

Leave a Comment