Facebook recently released a really interesting tool for business pages that may help you appeal to your next potential clients. We’ll show you how to set it up and make your Facebook more focused than ever.
This new tool is called Preferred Page Audience. It allows you to tell Facebook which of your followers are most important to you and your business. Followers who fall into your specified group are more likely to see your future posts and connect with you. In Facebook’s own words:
“Edit your preferred Page audience to reflect who you’d most like to connect with. Anyone can find your Page, but we’ll do our best to put it in front of the people who matter to you most.”
First of all, let’s see if you have access to this new tool because not every business page does. To see if you have access to this tool, follow these steps:
1. Go to your business page
2. Click Settings
3. Look at the list on the left side and see if “Preferred Page Audience” is there. If so, you have access! If not, looks like you still have to wait awhile until Facebook deems you worthy. In all seriousness, don’t worry, it likely won’t be long before Facebook makes this tool available to all business pages.
Once you’ve confirmed that Facebook has blessed you with early access to the Preferred Audience tool, let’s set it up! Here is the menu you’ll be met with after clicking “Set Preferred Page Audience”:
Those of you who have some intermediate experience with a Facebook business page may notice that this is very similar to the Boost Post menu. When calibrating these settings, keep in mind that you should be using this tool to designate your target market. For example, if your 18-year old son has Liked your business page, that’s great, the more Likes the better. That said, you probably don’t want to include him in your Preferred Page Audience (sorry son!). The reason being, if you post a listing on Facebook, you’d definitely rather have users over 30 see that listing instead of your son’s demographic as they’re more likely to be buying or selling a home. Location, Age, and Gender should be easy, but Interests are a little more complicated…
Interests will allow you to further target Facebook users beyond simple demographics. Take some time and explore the options under Interests and see what fits with your target market. Quick tip: If you include “Real Estate” under Interests, you’re likely just going to end up targeting other agents who have Liked your page. The average user, even if they are in the market, would not have indicated to Facebook that they’re interested in Real Estate.
When you’re happy with your Preferred Audience settings, click Save and be confident that your posts are reaching your most relevant followers.