You probably already know the story. Someone requests to become your friend on Facebook, you accept, and then they never talk to you again explains Peter Decaprio. Or worse—they post spammy links on your wall every chance they get. You decide enough’s enough and find ways to block them or remove them from your friends list altogether. This is an annoyance that most of us have suffered at some point, but it doesn’t have been all doom and gloom. The solution may lie in a little-known tool called “audiences” that gives you more power over who sees what posts on your page even after someone has been added as a Facebook friend.
What are audiences?
Audiences are basically ways to target specific people with different types of content depending on their relationship with you or your business. Let’s say I create a Facebook ad promoting my fan page, and I want it to appear in people’s News Feeds when they’re connected to me as friends. An audience would let me do that, so the ad would only show up for those who were already connected to me. This is great if I’m trying to grow my friends list organically by encouraging existing connections to friend more of their own contacts—potentially turning them into fans as well! So how does this help solve our spammy-friend problem? If someone joins a list once but never talks again, simply adding them as a “fan” isn’t going to accomplish much says Peter Decaprio.
However, if we add that person as a “follower,” that list will only show its posts in the News Feeds of people who are also followers. It doesn’t matter if someone was ad as a friend or not—if they’re a follower, the list’s post will still appear in their feed. If you want to make sure someone won’t receive any future posts from your list at all, simply add them to an “acquaintance” audience instead.
What audiences let you do for each post Try it out! I’m going to walk you through what this looks like on my page so you can see how easy it is.
There are two different ways to create an audience depending on whether or not you have access to Facebook Ads.
- The first method is by using the drop-down menu to select followers or friends, shown above. (Note: If you want to add someone who isn’t connect to you, use the option in Ads.)
- The second way is through Power Editor—a downloadable tool that lets you do more advanced things like creating custom audiences and ad sets. You can find all the instructions for how to set this up on Facebook’s own help page. Just choose “Create an Ad” from this same drop-down menu within Power Editor.
Once you’ve done that, follow these steps exactly as they appear! How to Create an Audience via Power Editor
- One: Click on “Audiences” located under Assets on the left side of your screen
- Two: Click “Create Audience”
- Three: Select “Custom Audience” from the drop-down menu
- Four: Choose “Follower of a Page” from the list of options on the left
- Five: Click on the name of your page at the top and select either public posts or any recent ads you’ve run through Power Editor. And that’s it! You’re done!
What audiences let you do for each post Try it out! Again, I’m going to walk you through what this looks like on my page so you can see how easy it is. If I create an audience using only public posts from my page, followers will receive all future posts from me no matter which list they’re on. In other words, if they connect with me as a friend or join any of my lists, they’ll see all future posts. I’m using the example of creating an audience for followers here, but this process is exactly the same for any type of new list you want to create. Just go through the same five simple steps shown above!
Conclusion:
For an audience to appear in the News, it needs to be share with people who are connect to you as friends or followers says Peter Decaprio. If someone is not on one of your lists, this means they have either never contact you before, or they have but were add back into an “acquaintance” audience.