Social media is here to stay. It has proven itself to be a catalyst for bringing people and communities together, as well as driving awareness and trends. New Jersey is a top U.S. market for social media usage, and Facebook is the #1 social website or app used by New Jersey adults, age 18+. Facebook offers an engaged audience that presents a great opportunity for Garden State businesses large and small to tap into the marketing and audience targeting potential the platform can deliver.

The saying “give the thumbs up” has more meaning these days than it ever has. On Facebook the “thumbs up” or “Like” button is the “new word of mouth”. You are telling your Facebook friends you support their posts. The same thing happens with ads or promotions on Facebook. When you give ads and promotions the thumbs up or like them, you become a part of a database of potential targets for advertisers to reach with their message.

There’s a lot that goes into determining who sees which ads on Facebook. Facebook’s ad system boosts ads and evaluates billions of pairings of individual people and individual ads each day, looking for the right mix of message relevancy and potential business value. The Facebook ad auction system also contributes in determining the best ad to show a person at a given point in time.

As a marketing platform, Facebook offers three key audience targeting options:

  • Core Audience – Allows you to reach people based on their demographics, location, interests and behaviors.
  • Custom Audience – Allows you to reach people you already know or have been connected to: customers, site visitors and mobile users
  • Lookalike Audience – Allows you to connect with people who are similar to your current customers.

To help you connect with these audiences, Facebook targets users by gathering intelligence from posts or comments they make and looking at activity such as likes to a page, a post or clicking on ads users see. A user’s Facebook account holds intelligence such as email address, age, gender, location and even the device they are using to access Facebook. An advertiser, or marketing partner like NJ Advance Media, can also provide supplemental information such as purchase history, activity on other websites/apps or other data to enhance their capabilities to target potential audiences.

NJ Advance Media partners with three of the world’s largest data providers to provide advertisers expanded targeting options for their social campaigns. This data is collected in numerous ways including credit card purchases, warranty cards, surveys, and more. The data gets matched to a Facebook user based on email, name, address, phone number, etc.

Tim Porosky, Manager of Social Media at NJ Advance Media shares this example,  “Let’s say you purchase a watch using your credit card. Your email associated with that credit card is the same email on your Facebook account. We can then match the Facebook user with the person who purchased the watch with their credit card. Now, we can layer that supplemental data in with the Facebook data, and tell the whole story of someone”.

Managing a social media marketing effort can be a daunting task without adequate resources. Facebook helps advertisers in a number of ways:

  • Offers advertisers tips on how to create competitive ads that have a high probability of being delivered to users.
  • Introduces new insights in their Ads Manager tool to help advertisers understand how their ads are performing in the ad auction and how they can be optimized to perform better.

The insight tools offered by Facebook are useful, but many companies still struggle to keep up with not only building an ad campaign but monitoring and optimizing for the greatest outcome. “People may ask, can’t I do social ads myself?”, notes Porosky, “Sure, but, it’s like trying to cut your own hair; better to have gone to a salon.” NJ Advance Media has immense experience in managing effective social marketing campaigns and optimizing them to be extremely efficient with ad dollars and not waste money.

Whether you are new to social media advertising or need additional support for your campaigns, NJ Advance Media can help guide your efforts. Our wealth of marketing research, 3rd party data, experience and expertise set us apart. Our potential to reach desired target audiences provides optimal strategies effectively communicating your ad messages. Contact us today.

Source: 2017 Release 1 Nielsen Scarborough Report. Multi-Market & New York & Philadelphia Mix Study.

Written by: Nancy Starzynski, Marketing Research Analyst – NJ Advance Media