How To Use Facebook Targeting To Optimize Your Audience

Why do we spend so much time researching target audiences? Because we want to make sure our messages reach the right people. Sometimes, though, social media makes it hard to reach just the people you want to talk to. On Facebook, however, there's an underused feature called audience targeting that makes this possible. Facebook audience optimization allows you to customize which users will see your content, so that it's more specific to that audience. In return, this will increase engagement for your Facebook posts with targeted audiences. And targeting the right audience is crucial for success. One of the biggest mistakes marketers make today is trying to appeal to everyone. You have to get the right content in front of the right people in order to convert. And that's why we're excited to introduce Facebook Targeting for CoSchedule.

What Is Facebook Targeting?

Getting to know your audience is a crucial step for successful Facebook targeting. The overall idea of targeting is having more people engage with your posts because the content matches their interests. These posts would start to appear in their news feeds more often due to their engagement. So it could result in a boost in organic reach over time. CoSchedule, your all-in-one content calendar and social media toolset, now includes audience targeting for business Facebook pages. Within CoSchedule, we made sharing content with your audience more specific. You can now target any piece of Facebook content to an audience that YOU define. You can define your audience in nine ways: Each of these nine categories will help you create a more clear-cut audience to ensure your content is seen by people who care. So the big questions is: How can you create a target audience with these categories?  We've put together a list of real-life situations where these categories could apply to your audience. Let's take a look.

1. Age

Within the Age category, the ages range from 13 to 65+ Depending on what your business is, individuals under the age of 18 aren't going to need to see your content. With Age you can select which age range you want your audience to be. At CoSchedule, we select ages 25-45 because we believe those are the ages of people most likely to use content marketing editorial software.

Use Case: 21+ Events

Are you hosting an event that's being catered with food and alcohol? Events that are strictly for individuals who are over the age of 21 are extremely popular because of the drinking age. Because of this, people under the age of 21 do not need to see posts promoting 21+ events. With Facebook Targeting from CoSchedule, you can hand-pick ages 21 and over. This way you are promoting to the people you want to attend your event, and not promoting to those that won't.

2. Gender

Within the Gender category, you can select All, Male, or Female.

Use Case: Promotions

To make your posts feel more personable, you can target specifically to men or women. This becomes especially important during holidays. For example, a flower shop could create a post targeted towards men with the caption, "Valentine's Day is coming up. Did you remember to get her flowers?" This approach makes the reader feel like it was directed towards them. Take a look at this Facebook post directed towards women:   Take this approach with anything that you are promoting. You could create two different posts with the same graphic, but write one message targeted towards men and one targeted towards women to make it feel more personable.

3. Relationship Status

Within the Relationship category, there are several options to choose from including Single, In a relationship, and Married. 

Use Case 1: Wedding Content

For instance, a bridal gown shop could target their posts towards people that are engaged or in a relationship. Along with photographers who are trying to promote their business or specials such as this Facebook post:

Use Case 2: Giveaways

Facebook contests and giveaways are becoming increasingly popular. To make sure you're giving something away to someone who is generally interested, you can use Facebook Targeting. Cruise ships and resorts can use Facebook Targeting towards couples who are married for anniversary trip giveaways. If you're not familiar with how Facebook contests and giveaways work, ThriveHive put together a guide to help you get started.

4. Interested In

Within the Interested In category, you can select All, Men, or Women.

Use Case: Dating Apps

Mixer events and dating apps can use Facebook Targeting to create posts with images directed towards people interested in men or women to make the post more personable. Along with sharing posts that are directly related to being single, in a relationship, etc. This example ad could be targeted towards single women:

5. Location

Within the Location category, you can type in the city, state, or region. You are able to select many locations of your choosing.

Use Case 1: Local Promotions

If you're having an event or promotion that's specific to a certain city, then you can use Facebook Targeting to only target people that live in the city where the event or promotion is happening. You are less likely to upset audience members who do not live in this location who will not receive the discount/promotion. Let's say your store or business location in a specific city is having a marathon in town. You can create a Facebook post saying, "Everyone who participated in the marathon this week will receive 30% off their purchase!" This discount will only work for people living in that city. The same goes for events. Maybe your company is hosting a benefit dinner in a specific town. You can define your audience by targeting people living in that town for higher attendance rate.

Use Case 2: Holidays

You can also target to specific countries. For example, holidays are different in every country. If you are a business located in the United States and you want to create a 4th of July post, then you can target audience members only located in the United States. If you are a business located in Canada and you want to create a National Boxing Day post, then you can target audience members only located in Canada.

6. Language

Within the Language category, you can type in the desired language(s) you wish to reach.

Use Case: Customer Service

If you are a business that creates content and posts in a certain language, then you can use Facebook Targeting to target that specific language. If your business has a a product or service that is exclusively in English then you can target your posts to the English language. Here at CoSchedule we have a customer success team who responds to our customers in English. Because of this, we try to direct most of our posts to English-speaking countries such as the United States, Canada, Australia, the United Kingdom.

7. Education Level

Within the Education Level category, there are several options such as Bachelor's Degree, High school grad, and Alum.  Depending on what type of content you produce, you may need an audience with a higher education level. If you are selling a in-depth product or service, it's best to target to high school and college graduates. If a company’s main customer base typically has a certain level of education, that might help them narrow their post’s targeting.

Use Case 1: College Discounts

With a college ID, the discounts are endless. If your business has a college discount program, you can promote to audience members that have graduated high school and are now in college. This way audience members that don't have a college ID won't be annoyed by seeing these posts.

Use Case 2: College Recruitment

Colleges can use Facebook targeting to help enroll students in their university. Targeting to kids who are in high school, recent grads, or even adults who have been out of school for a while but want to continue their education can be targeted. This not only helps colleges increase their enrollment, but also helps those wanting to further their education the chance at their fingertips.

8. College Graduation Years

Within the College Graduation Years category, you can type in X amount of years an individual has been out of college.

Use Case: Graduation Year Promotions

The purpose of Facebook Targeting is to make an audience member reading the Facebook post to feel like it was specialized for them. College graduation years are a good way of specifically targeting your audience members. For example a realtor company can create a post stating, "It's been 5 years since you graduated college. Don't you think it's time to buy a house?" This way the reader will think it was created just for them and they'll think "Wow, I DID graduate 5 years ago. I really need to buy a house!"

9. Interests

Within the Interests category, you can type in different interests you want to reach. The possibilities of interests are endless.

Use Case: Targeting People With Any and Every Interest

I'm not kidding when I say the possibilities are endless when it comes to targeting interests. For example a car company can target their body kit by targeting people that are interested in cars and 'do it yourself' projects.

10. Restrictions

Finally, there are some options for Audience Restrictions. Here you can select which Age, Location, and Language you want to restrict. You can mix and match any of these categories to create the ultimate audience for your post. If you want a 25-year-old English speaking man that lives in the United States (who also happens to be interested in do-it-yourself car kits) then you can do just that with Facebook Targeting!

Start Fine-Tuning Your Audience Today

With Facebook Targeting from CoSchedule, you can choose the audience who’ll see your Facebook business page's posts and keep testing different targeting options to find your sweet spot. After you've created the perfect target audience, you can save all your hard work in the Audience Presets. Save as many audiences as you want, give it a name (such as our Standard Curation) and use these presets for later!

Now It's Your Turn To Use Facebook Targeting

Implement these Facebook audience targeting examples into your own content strategy and watch your organic reach skyrocket. Discover what combinations of targeting works best for you and start sharing with the right audience -- the one that wants to see your content.