Tag: facebook

There’s a new reason to start cranking out quality content, folks. Facebook appears to be close to launching a brand new targeting method, one that will allow advertisers to target users who share your on-site content on Facebook.

Yesterday, Facebook advertising wunderkind Jon Loomer blogged about his experience with this new custom audience. It appeared randomly and disappeared soon thereafter:

Normal Custom Audience Options – Engagement

Jon Loomer’s Options

This means advertisers who allow site visitors to share content on Facebook through the use of on-site plugins will have the ability to target an incredibly valuable audience: brand evangelists.

According to Loomer, the feature (in its current form, at least) allows for an audience duration of up to 30 days and lets advertisers create new audiences based on people who either share a specific URL, group of URLs, or, more generally, anything from your site to Facebook. The combination of duration and ability to target users based on exactly what they shared means you can create really granular audiences (which translate to better Lookalikes).

What does this mean for your digital strategy?

For small businesses with little content or relatively sparse engagement, this feature might not seem exciting. If you’re in this camp, get motivated: let the fact that the Link Sharing feature seems to have faded into the ether (for now!) serve as a kick in the pants. Start putting a content plan together and make sure you give your audience the ability to share the valuable, engaging, entertaining resources you create with their friends.

For those of you creating and sharing incredible stuff daily, this new custom audience represents a way for you to blend your content and paid social marketing strategies in a mutually beneficial way.

Benefits to Your Facebook Ad Campaign

This is pretty obvious: you’ve got a new way to serve ads to the people who value what you say or do enough to share it with their network of followers and friends.

By creating an ad set in which you target an audience of those who share your posts to Facebook, but negate previous converters, you can market to a subset of individuals who identify with your brand but haven’t pulled the trigger.

In a broader sense, while the link share audiences will be small, the ability to create Lookalikes of the people who promote specific posts could serve as a useful strategy for introducing new prospects to your brand.

***

The addition of Link Sharing within the “Engagements on Facebook” subset of custom audience parameters adds even more incentive to create amazing content. It also represents an intersection of two major marketing channels: on-site content creation and paid social. If Facebook is experimenting with new ways for advertisers to blend thought leadership and paid efforts, who knows what else could be on the horizon…