Facebook now has a feature called Facebook Audience Optimization which is currently rolling out to English-language pages in select categories. With this new feature, you can specify the audiences most likely to engage with each of your Facebook Business Page posts based on interests. You can also restrict who sees your post by age, gender, location, and language under Audience Restrictions.
Theoretically (complicated algorithms determine this), posts on Facebook appear on the newsfeed of 5% of your fans at random, many who may or may not be interested in that topic. Now, with Facebook Audience Optimization, you can narrow down who sees your posts, making that 5% of your audience more likely to interact with your posts because it aligns with their interests. This would ideally result in increased engagement. You can visit your Facebook Business Page Insights to learn how exactly these specified audiences are engaging with your posts as well.
This is huge in the fact that it allows you to determine the right audience for your posts! One important thing to note: Facebook Audience Optimization does not increase the organic reach of your posts; it simply increases the probability of higher engagement. The feature also has a snowball effect meaning the more your specified audience engages with your posts based on their interests, the more likely your future posts will appear on their newsfeed.
Multibrain’s Take: For small business owners and companies, the ability to target consumers that you want to reach on every post, not just boosted posts, is game-changing. Not only are you more likely to reach the ideal audience that you desire, but you open the door for communication and potentially lead generation due to this increased engagement. We highly recommend deeply analyzing who your targeted consumer is and then formulate your messaging and social media targeting strategy based on your ideal consumer’s interests, demographic, lifestyle, and behaviors.
For more information on this new feature, check out this article: http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/facebook-audience-optimization-what-marketers-need-to-know/