Facebook’s Page Post Targeting

Ever since Facebook made its Wall Street debut, the company has been fine tuning its massive potential as an Internet advertising platform. Advanced marketing features like sponsored stories ended up adding too much noise to the members’ news feeds, but the new Page Post Targeting option actually cuts down on the noise by allowing marketers to easily create targeted campaigns.

By targeting content distribution to segmented Facebook audiences, marketing efforts become less disruptive and more effective. This is important for law firms and solo practitioners who offer more than one field of practice. A divorce lawyer in New York may wish to send out a post about the second anniversary of the no-fault dissolution of marriage law but without having to include all followers. In this case, the attorney may wish to target only those community members who indicate a certain relationship status instead of burdening followers who might not be interested in such a post.

Page Post Targeting is easy. Administrators can craft a new post and choose from targeting options like age, language, relationship status, gender and more. The date and time the targeted posts will go out can be scheduled, and administrators also have the choice to pin their posts to the Timeline so that they will not be pushed down by future posts or status updates.

The immediate advantage to Page Post Targeting is that it lightens the message load in members’ news feeds. Targeting also has the potential to make posts more effective in terms of interest and engagement. One drawback for lawyers, however, is that Page Post Targeting is currently only available to those Timelines that have 5,000 or more followers. This should act an incentive for legal professionals to expand their social network and make more friends — that way, when this 5,000 figure lowers, they will be closer to the newer threshold.

Social Media Mondays is a CaseDetails.com series covering different topics in the social media world on a weekly basis. Check back every Monday for more news on social media and useful information on how law firms can use social platforms to their advantage.