Inman

How to think about your Facebook marketing today for long-term viability

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CHICAGO — Soon there will be 73 million millennials in the market, making up the largest generation of individuals since the baby boomers, which was 70 million. This is also the generation that has grown up with the Internet making digital marketing — and, more importantly, mobile marketing — a must.

Yesterday, Scott Shapiro with Facebook told attendees at Inman Connect On the Road Chicago that marketing today must be personal, local and relatable.

Personal, local, relatable

First and foremost, mobile marketing starts and ends with people. When we discuss products and tools, they must be relevant and easy to use.

He asked the audience to think about their business seven, eight, 10 years ago. During this time, smartphones were just introduced to the market. No one was marketing with their Motorola Razr flip phone.

You’re now able to reach anyone and everyone with a device. But that also means your competitor can reach these same individuals.

The personalized content that you put up has to resonate. “It has to be about people,” Shapiro said. With custom target marketing, you can reach your exact audience based on their web presence.

Shapiro said 44 percent of smartphone users used their phones to research real estate in the last year, and one out of five minutes on mobile is spent on Facebook and Instagram.\

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Market to your target audience

There are three major types of audiences to reach, Shapiro said: core, custom and lookalike audiences.

Lookalike audiences are individuals with similar traits to the clients you have already worked with, or others who are likely to buy soon.

There are also “life stage” audiences — life stages help you target people who have recently been engaged or married, for example.

Targeting an audience can be as specific as you want it to be, helping to close deals in record time.

To help manage your Facebook marketing, Shapiro noted that insights.fb.com is a free tool that is available to everyone online.

Email Kimberly Manning