Facebook advertising allows you to target specific interests, hobbies, locations, genders and ages. This means you can ‘generally’ target your demographic right down to the very specifics which can be an extremely useful tool considering the low cost of Facebook ads. However have you ever wondered why you’re not getting much engagement from your posts but your competitors are? Here’s how to find out what they are using as a target audience.
Why am I seeing this?
When on facebook and you see a ‘sponsored’ post (you’ll see it’s sponsored by the word being underneath their page name) – you can click on the three dots of the post in the top right hand corner. There is an option to click ‘Why am I seeing this?’ and it will come up with a box showing you the demographic to which you have fallen under.
Sometimes it can be as simple as location, which isn’t determined by your location in bio but by a number of posts relating to your location. For example, you could have your bio down as London but you live in Northamptonshire. As you most likely interact with Northamptonshire people, pages and cookies will be tracked – it will know your location by these options.
It can often be your age, gender or down to specific interests. You can even ask Facebook to target page admins which can be useful to people targeting B2B pages.
Should I copy my competitors?
Just because a competition has a lot of engagement, doesn’t always mean that the target audience will work exactly the same for yourself. Take the ‘why am I seeing this’ as an idea, and expand on it. Look at what you’re doing, are you targeting a category that is too specific. For example if you sold cars, don’t just aim at people who like cars – at some point, 90% of people will be looking for a new car so you can go fairly broad with that. If you aim it to people who like Mercedes and you’re selling a Fiat, you’re clearly going to be missing the audience no matter how you entice them in.
Think about what they’re using and build on it. Make sure your imagery is perfect, use of emojis and a great caption. The rest should sell itself!
Want more help on designing and creating a Facebook ad strategy? Speak to us today! We have helped numerous Northamptonshire businesses excel in their social media and get a fantastic reach across the county.
