Better Targeting for your Facebook Fan Page

It seems there is always something to talk about with regards to Facebook!  This week it is a quick overview on two ways to better target your Facebook Fan page updates. (If you are still unsure whether to have a fan page or a group, check out our difference between a Facebook Fan Page and a Facebook Group.)

A Brief Side Note of Caution:  In case you missed it, Facebook has changed their rules on contests and promotions.  If you run promotions on Facebook, then please stop and take a minute to read the revised guidelines; you could be subject to financial penalties (fees!) if you run contests on Facebook.

Friends of Connections Advertising

If  you are using Facebook advertising to promote your Facebook fan page, then you’ll love the new ad targeting feature called Friends of Connections.  If you choose to use it, Facebook will show the friends of your connections advertisements that look something like this:

Joe’s Carribean Trout Fishing Tours. [page image] Andy Hayes is a fan of this page.

It is a very direct way to expand your network with “social proof,” namely that the person’s friend is already a fan of your page.  You’ll find the new option under inside the ad targeting page:

For more information about advertising on Facebook, visit Facebook’s official advertising page.

Location-Based Targeting of Wall Updates

You can now target your wall updates to users in specific locations (even down to provides/states or cities!).  On your Fan Page wall, each time you send out updates you can customize the target.  Start by clicking on the mysterious-looking icon next to the Share button:

Then you can choose who should be targeted with this update:

Pirate English?  Well, if that’s your target audience…

You can choose multiple locations and multiple languages, but don’t go overboard – if there isn’t a need to target, then don’t worry about it.

It’s not clear whether this will help overcome updates being lost in the recent Facebook Feed changes but it is worth trying.  Also, the settings can’t be saved, so you need to do this everytime.  (Though I suspect this is a ‘known feature’ and they’ll fix it later on.)

Tagged as: Facebook