A guest post by Jamie Bell. 

Facebook has over two billion active users per day. It is by far the most popular social media website and I don’t see that changing anytime soon.

The rise in social media has revolutionised marketing and Facebook has been at the front of it. But one area where many businesses struggle is actually using Facebook to successfully target their Audience.

Facebook is incredibly useful for running advertising campaigns and marketing your products and services to people. But how effective will any ad campaigns be if you can’t successfully target your audience? If you can’t target your audience successfully then a huge and versatile resource is going to waste.

This post will help you by outlining the various ways to target your audience with Facebook.

Get to know your audience

First of all, you really need to know your audience. This isn’t always easy; audiences today are much more complex than people usually think. Before you start thinking about how to use Facebook ads, you need to think about who your key audience is and how to appeal to them.

It’s not just millennials or the newly rising generation Z that use Facebook. All ages are connecting with each other and this is constantly on the rise. Even if your key demographic is an older audience, Facebook is still a valuable tool to use.

An example of this comes from online store Airsoft Deals. They were targeting a younger generation aged between 18 to 24 for their outdoor sports products. However, they quickly realised there was much more success targeting people aged 30 to 40, which increased their sales by 30%.

Connecting with your local audience

Local audiences are an incredibly valuable resource for all sizes of business and shouldn’t be ignored.

A local awareness advert can quickly target anyone nearby browsing on their smartphone. Facebook Ads Manager sets your search demographics for age and gender, so your local ads only reach men or women of a certain age.

Another advantage is it doesn’t just target people who live close to your business, but also people who are passing through. If you live in a popular tourist spot, this can be a great way to target people on holiday.

Look at the time

There are many ways to sort out audiences, and one of Facebook’s most effective ways is by using time. Many businesses often don’t bother to find out when their key audience is active online.

Facebook Ads can be set to display at certain hours of the day. This helps you to successfully target your audience in many ways. For example, if you want to target your business to teachers, then you could opt to display your Adverts during after school hours and during lunch time.

A real life example is our company targeted Directors for our Glasgow SEO Service, We ensured that they lived in the area and set a time for adverts to display one hour before and after the standard working day. We also displayed ads from 8pm to 10pm as this was when they mostly used social media.

Reduce how often your adverts are seen

Doing this might not seem to be a successful way to use Facebook to target your audience. However, it’s not a good idea to bombard your audience with adverts. Advertising is all about balance, and if you bombard people with your adverts, they’re unlikely to want to use your services.

To counteract this, you can use the Daily Unique Reach bidding method. This is where you can add your own restrictions to how frequently your adverts show on a person’s device.

E-cig store Smoke Guru had trouble with repeat business. They misunderstood their Facebook page users, and over promoted their products to them. They later found out their Facebook page was only ‘liked’ for its content, and not the products they sold.

Speaking your audience’s language

If you want to appeal to certain demographics, then your Facebook posts and ads need to appeal to them. Apple successfully captured younger demographics and tech lovers by presenting a modern and futuristic ad campaign.

However, the language you use is also important. If you use the same words as your audience, they will be able to relate more to your business. Make sure your content and adverts use keywords that appeal to the appropriate demographic.

Tailoring your language can make your message more appealing to different audiences. Experiment by creating multiple adverts within the same ad campaign, with each one edited to match its target audience.

How old are you?

Age is a key demographic to target your audience with. This is especially true for Facebook advertisements. Since Facebook has over 2 billion users, people of all ages use it. The stereotype “only young people use social media” isn’t true and the facts back that up.

However, many businesses who use Facebook adverts think too narrowly about age. For example, if you want to target university students, you might set your adverts to only show to people who are aged 18 to 21.

While that’s the usual age for university students, you could be missing out on potential customers. People can go to university earlier or later as mature students. Changing your age range to 16 to 25 means you can reach a larger audience with much more success using Facebook to target your audience.

Do you use Facebook to target your audience?

Let me know via the comment box below about your experiences. Also if you have any tips you would like to pass on about how to target your audience, I’m sure my readers would love to read them.

About the author:

Jamie Bell is an internet marketing specialist and owner of Keep SEO Simple. He enjoys helping others by sharing his marketing knowledge online, which includes offering simple SEO tips.

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