Facebook’s under pressure to improve its advertising performance. Last week it announced plans to give advertisers the ability to target by age, gender, relationship status, language and education. This move is a step in the right direction, according to brand execs, but it isn’t going to end questions about what marketer’s are getting out of the platform.
Joshua Cherfoli, online and relationship marketing manager at Porsche Cars North America
Facebook’s new enhanced post targeting will provide marketers a very simplified method to tailor content to the various segments of their fan base. This will provide a unique opportunity to increase engagement without burdening the entire fan base with very niche topics. This could start to address an ROI problem, but it will not solve it on its own, we will still need to ensure we are creating compelling content that inspire our fans to engage.
Shiv Singh, global head of digital at PepsiCo Beverages
I really love [the new targeting option]. It allows us to talk to consumers around their passion points through the lens of specific cultural groups. As soon as we are able to do that, we are able to be more personal on specific objective. This makes it easier to track the sales influence. For example, if I need to reach music lovers in Manhattan who like, lets say, Nicki Minaj, and I want to reach them to further strengthen our advertising and also because I know when I talk to them about her, they are more likely to align with the Pepsi brand or if I am giving them a special offer, they will go in and purchase. I can now slice my community by New Yorkers who love music. It becomes easier to speak more meaningfully to consumers and also show the sales impact, if I was trying to move product out of the door.
Scott Monty, social media chief at Ford
We typically judge the effectiveness of our efforts based on goals that we set, not on what features a particular platform offers. The ability to target our posts to reach a particular audience is a valuable feature for certain kinds of posts. We hope that the reporting and insights will reflect how effective we are with those efforts.
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