The actionable guide that teaches you how to target Facebook posts that drive real business results!
How to
Target Great Facebook Posts!
Facebook Basics Series
Written by Zachary ChastainHead of Community
Engagement
What is Targeting on Facebook?
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THREE TYPES OF TARGETING:
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ContentThe content was tailor-made for your ideal customer – their needs, interests, outlook, demographics or occupation.
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PostPositioning the content for a persona using the post’s body text, imagery, links and link description. This also includes choosing the appropriate News Feed audience.
THREE TYPES OF TARGETING:
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Facebook AdsCombining your great content with Facebook’s detailed ad demographics capabilities to reach your ideal customers.
THREE TYPES OF TARGETING:
Why Should I Target My Posts?
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BENEFITS OF TARGETING:
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On Time and On TargetDeliver useful content when it is needed to the right audience.
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Increase Positive InteractionsTargeted content gets more positive feedback because it’s reaching more people who need it and fewer who don’t. More positive interactions increase reach even more.
BENEFITS OF TARGETING:
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Decrease Negative InteractionsTargeted content can reduce negative feedback, which can prevent your posts from being shown in the News Feed.
BENEFITS OF TARGETING:
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Drive Qualified TrafficYou aren’t just reaching any audience, but instead building a community of ideal customers who are looking for the products and services you can offer them.
BENEFITS OF TARGETING:
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LOOK AT DEMOGRAPHICSWhat are some simple targeting parameters that will help identify them:- Gender – are they mostly one gender or spread
equally?- Age – are certain ranges excluded or more prevalent?- Location – are they regional, national, or global?- Occupation – does their job or position relate to your
offer?
13 QUICK STEPS TO START TARGETING YOUR POSTS
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GATHER KEY INTERESTSWhat are the top 3 interests and activities which relate to your product or service? Example:
• Are they child-rearing or parents?• Do they use certain technology devices?• Are they affected by certain news topics – fashion, food, or
entertainment?
23 QUICK STEPS TO START TARGETING YOUR POSTS
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LEARN WHAT OBSTACLES THEY FACEWhat are a few pain points you can address for them with your content?
For businesses, these might be related to organizational goals instead of personal obstacles.
33 QUICK STEPS TO START TARGETING YOUR POSTS
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KEY TAKEAWAYS
“Conversion rates increase by almost 4x when campaigns use demographic or category based targeting, according to MarketingLand.com
Targeting is essential to the success of your online campaigns! ”
Creating Personas That Represent Your Ideal Customer
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WHAT IS A PERSONA?
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A Fictional RepresentationA persona is a fictional representation of your ideal customer, and it helps you to make sure that your content is always created, positioned, and targeted with them in mind. It isn’t modelled on one or even a few people. It's a summary of the patterns you identify in your ideal customers.
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WHAT INFORMATION SHOULD A PERSONA CONTAIN?
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• Descriptive Name• Job Details and Title• Age range and demographics• Location – work and live• Education Level• Goals and Challenges• Interests and Passions• Value you offer them• A Background Story
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EXAMPLE PERSONA
HR Director HeatherHR Director Heather first took an interest in human resources when she worked in her father’s small business while attending high school. She was considering a career as an accountant, and was helping with her father’s bookkeeping and payroll. Like many small businesses there was no HR rep or department, so typical HR responsibilities were handled by her father. Heather quickly realized that while she didn’t enjoy accounting as much as she had expected, she was very interested in working with people, particularly in reading over resumes and helping out during job interviews…
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START WITH WHAT YOU KNOWUse data you already have from existing relationships with this ideal customer and augment with your assumptions.
Poll the thoughts from multiple team members to get different perspectives and insights.
13 QUICK STEPS TO BUILD A PERSONA
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DO ONLINE RESEARCHLook for patterns and trends related to your ideal customer. You can use websites like the following:
• MeetUp.com - active groups are very well-targeted and grouped by location.
• LinkedIn.com – offers insight into levels of education, location, career paths, personal interests, achievements, and more.
• Glassdoor.com - reviews from specific industries and job titles, showing what is most important, what challenges they face, and what goals they strive to achieve.
• Niche Websites - Depending on the demographics of your persona, there may be niche websites focused on hobbies or careers that fit.
• Google Searches - industry blogs, statistics, polls, scholarly articles, and articles by industry analysts .
23 QUICK STEPS TO BUILD A PERSONA
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INTERVIEW YOUR EXISTING CUSTOMERSTalk to your existing customers to verify your assumptions and research. Create a standard interview questionnaire that can be filled out via email or over the phone.
(There is a sample questionnaire included in the eBook.)
3 QUICK STEPS TO BUILD A PERSONA
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KEY TAKEAWAYS
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According to a case study by HubSpot of cloud automation provider Skytap, targeted personas increased North American site traffic by 210%, lifted sales leads by 124%, and increased online sales by 97%!
Personas are an excellent tool to help you create great targeted online campaigns.
Using Your Personas to Write Great
Facebook Posts
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WRITING FOR YOUR PERSONAS
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Education LevelWrite for the education level of your persona. Don’t patronize them, but if you’re covering a subject that they may not be very familiar with, be sure to explain any concepts they may not already understand.
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WRITING FOR YOUR PERSONAS
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AGE GROUPWrite for their age group. The topics, terminology, and images your content includes should appeal to the age range of the persona it was written for.
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WRITING FOR YOUR PERSONAS
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PROBLEMSMake sure your content is solving their problems. No matter how appropriately your content is targeted to the persona, if it doesn’t speak to their specific problems and show them an actionable way to solve them, then they’re not going to care.
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EXAMPLE – WHAT NOT TO DO!
Here’s a great example of what not to do! The image doesn’t match the age range.
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CHOOSE A TOPIC THAT MATTERSChoose a challenge from your persona that you can you can either write or curate a post that solves it.
For example, don’t just write a general post about how to reduce employee churn, make sure that your solutions for this problem are tailored specifically to HR Director Heather.
13 QUICK STEPS TO WRITE FOR YOUR PERSONAS
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USE YOUR PERSONA AS A CHECKLISTOnce you have your post, make sure it really does match the persona by using it as a checklist.
Look through each section of the persona and consider if the post content matches – does it have the right language for the age range, demographics or job? Does it solve their problem?
(There is a sample checklist included in the eBook.)
23 QUICK STEPS TO BUILD A PERSONA
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CREATE THE FACEBOOK POSTConstruct each piece carefully:
• Link Photo – design it to catch their eye and match the content
• Link Title – hook them into reading the content
• Link Description – add more detail while being true to the content
• Post Text – your own take on the content or a question related to it
3 QUICK STEPS TO BUILD A PERSONA
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EXAMPLE – ANATOMY OF A POST
Link Title
Link Description
Post Text
Link Photo
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KEY TAKEAWAYS
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According to Josh Swartz, Data Scientist at Chartbeat, 50% of readers bounce after only reading your headline!
How you position your content is just as important as how well you’ve written it.”
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WANT MORE? GET THE BOOK!
Download the eBook
This presentation is an excerpt from our “Facebook Basics: How to Target Great Facebook Posts” eBook.
To get all the material, including the all the checklists and examples, you can download the eBook for free. Just click the button below!
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About Zachary Chastain
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ZACHARY CHASTAINHead of [email protected]
Zachary Chastain is a metrics-driven Community Manager, using the hard data from client communities to understand what really works and develop solid communication and content plans.
Zachary loves to experiment with new ways to reach and engage social audiences, learning from and integrating the best practices from around the web.
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ABOUT THOUGHT LABS
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Creativity. Engagement. Results.
Founded in 2009, we have helped companies of all sizes integrate customers into their businesses using social technologies. We continue to evolve as the social platforms With decades of project management and software engineering experience, we create unique yet practical solutions for our clients and have the technical talent to explain how they work and why. We are recognized thought leaders on Facebook, having published a successful book 'Essential Facebook Development' for Pearson/Addison-Wesley; we also created one of the top applications on Facebook with over 4 million installed users.We deeply understand all the technologies, techniques, and metrics involved in creating successful social media strategies and pride ourselves on helping our clients do the same.
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