Facebook has announced a new category called ‘Topic Targeting’ for social ads and sponsored stories to reach the target audience in a more effective way. Targeting by topic helps advertisers connect with a larger number of people who might be interested in the product.
How does ‘Topic targeting’ work?
‘Topic targeting’ offers a range of words, preceded by a hash tag (#), related to the main keyword, as identified by the advertisers. So apart from taking into account the fans of the official fan page of a brand or product, it also registers the fans that ‘Like’ any other variation of the keyword or topic e.g. unofficial fan pages of brands, product and celebrities. This helps in identifying a larger audience who are interested in the topic and therefore makes it easy for the social ads and sponsored stories to reach the people who might be interested.
The drawback of the existing categories of ‘Precise Interest’ and ‘Broad Category’ targeting was that advertisers could not take into account those fans who ‘Like’ an unofficial or private fan page of a particular brand or product.
‘Topic targeting’ addresses this drawback by providing a range of versions associated with the main keyword, making available to the advertisers different combinations and related words as options from which they can choose. E.g. #Coffee, when entered as topic, will provide a list of brand1coffee,brand2coffee,coffee(fun),coffee(date)….. etc.
‘Topic Targeting’ also helps new and lesser experienced advertisers since resources can be directed towards identifying only the main keywords instead of managing a long list of targeted age, location and interests. By identifying the keywords correctly and selecting different versions of the same, the social ads can be more successful.
Use of ‘Topic Targeting’
- This should be used by lesser experienced advertisers, who can choose from a range of related hash tag (#) topics, to reach a large target audience.
- ‘Topic targeting’ should not be used by brands and products who have a precisely defined target group as it will weaken the focus and social ads will be made available to a larger target audience thereby, becoming less effective.
The new ‘Topic Targeting’ option will help advertisers correctly identify a larger audience and increase the reach of their ads beyond that identified by ‘Precise Interest’ targeting and ‘Broad Category’ targeting.
