I LOVE Facebook’s Graph Search! Facebook has made, and is making, plenty of changes that physicians and healthcare marketers should be excited about – from improved ad targeting to greater engagement options, to the infamous Graph Search. Facebook’s new functionality allows for anyone, with the newly rolled out feature, to search not only their own Friends for similar interests, but allows Page owners to search Fans for specific demographic aspects which can be used to improve posts and advertising. Let me explain…
The REAL Advantage of Facebook Graph Search for Physicians
While many, many tech and marketing bloggers are focusing on optimizing business pages for the Graph Search, we at Quaintise are focusing on what the Graph Search can offer your business in terms of understanding your audience. If we’ve said it once, we have said it a million times – one of the most important aspects of social media marketing is understanding your audience. If you can supremely understand your audience, you can supremely target your posts and advertisements to increase engagement and build brand awareness.
Yes, it’s important to have your Facebook Business Page optimized for the Graph Search should a potential patient use it to seek you out, but, more importantly, this tool should be utilized for understanding your target audience.
In healthcare marketing, many physicians get tied up in the numbers. They have a set goal of how many Fans they need to have on their Facebook Page, ultimately losing sight of the quality of these Fans. One successfully targeted Fan who shares your content and engages with your brand is worth 1,000 silent Facebook Fans who don’t much care for your business.
So how do you gain insight into best practices for attracting those brand advocates? You use Graph Search:
How To Use Graph Search
If you have been given the capability to use Facebook’s Graph Search, it’s time to get moving. If you still don’t have access, give it time, it’s currently being rolled out to every Facebook user.
No matter what type of business you want to research for audience demographics, type into the Graph Search Bar “Fans of (name of business).” We recommend running this search on your competition and your own business page. This will show you how your audience stacks up against your closest competitor.
On the right-hand-side you’ll notice an array of refinement options. This is where the true research into your industries demographic, and your audience, begins. We recommend searching “More Pages They Liked.” This option will give you wonderful insight into their interests. Do you see more sports pages? Parenting pages? Shopping pages? Cooking pages? Specific TV shows or magazines? Do you notice any trends, any patterns with their interests?
If you want to know exactly which of your Fans, or your competitors Fans, have liked both pages, or perhaps have liked a specific magazine or business, simply type into the Graph Search Box “people who like (insert interest) and who like (insert interest or business).” The possibilities are endless.
We’ll jump into what to do with all of this information in terms of targeting, posts and advertising in our next blog. If you’re confused by Facebook’s Graph Search and understanding your target demographic, give Quaintise a call!