In a move that will see them compete more directly with LinkedIn, Facebook has upped its game by allowing advertisers to target users through more advanced segmentation, including employer and job title.
By providing businesses with new options to target their one billion users worldwide, the social network giant is hoping to attract more B2B marketers and recruiting professionals. While changes to Facebook’s Ads APO program will focus on increased targeting of behaviours and interests, it is the ability to target users based on their employer and job title that will be of the greatest benefit to B2B marketers. Other additional options include; targeting specific types of education, changes to life events, specific interests and off-line activities such as website visits, purchases or device usage.
It is hoped that advanced targeting options will help advertisers narrow down their Facebook ad campaigns, and impose greater restrictions on exactly which users are seeing and engaging with their ads. The ability to merge multiple levels of segmentation with carefully chosen content can lead to extremely successful campaigns, and Facebook are hoping to capitalise on this advertising spend and win over LinkedIn’s advertisers.
Facebook’s ability to reach extremely large groups of people, combined with the vast amount of data it holds and the precision to which it can be targeted, allows for a potentially powerful and highly effective method of advertising, and while it has not typically been a favoured B2B marketing platform, only time will tell whether these updates will change the perception of Facebook in the B2B environment.