Are You There, Audience? It’s Me, Facebook.

Your Facebook page may be keeping a big secret­­ from you, and we’re here to help.

In actuality, your page audience may not be made up of your actual customers. Yes, it’s startling to hear. We know. In fact, many pages have fans that look significantly different than their customer profile.

Think about all the content you’ve written and ads you’ve created with your customers in mind. You know who buys your product or who volunteers at your organization—often personally—but if they aren’t seeing your content, who is? The reality is your page has accumulated people over the months and years through various methods like giveaways or Page Like ads that you’ve executed. While these people liked your page at the time because they were itching for free stuff or they were apt to like pages like yours, it doesn’t mean they were your actual customers.

Ideally, your marketing messaging will be written to your target audience made up of current customers and those who have the potential to care about your products and/or services. These are the people who are most receptive to your messaging. Identifying your target audience involves finesse, but it can be done.

IDENTIFY

Through Audience Insights, Facebook’s tool to help businesses identify target audiences, you have easy access to see who your Facebook audience is and what they like. This free tool provides insights on who is following and engaging with your page on Facebook. But remember, this is only one piece to consider.

Once you’ve identified your Facebook audience, you should compare it against your database of customers to see if the people you’re marketing to are actually the kind of people buying your products. Audience Insights allows you to upload your customer databases to see the full demographic profile of your customers. Compare your Facebook page fans to your customer database, and you’ll likely see differences in demographic information and purchasing behavior.

You should also compare your findings from Audience Insights to the data found in Google Analytics. Google Analytics will show you data about your website visitors and their behavior on your website. All three—your Facebook audience, your customer database and your web visitors—provide a picture of who your target audience is.

UNDERSTAND AND ENGAGE

You’ve identified your target audience, now dig into the insights provided by Audience Insights and Google Analytics. These tools aggregate information anonymously and give a detailed look into who is interested in your business without seeing their identities. You’ll find detailed information about your audience’s age, gender, education, lifestyles, interests, income, other pages they like, cities where they live, what they purchase and more.

Both platforms provide information about your audience that allows you to leverage your messaging to raise awareness, increase engagement and create an authentic connection with your audience. They are a treasure chest of information to help guide your marketing messaging and connect you with your perfect target audience.