Do you want to “go viral?”

How about improving your ad effectiveness through sharpened targeting?

You’re in luck! Facebook has released 2 features that can help you accomplish both!

1. Viral shares are now added to a page’s People Talking About This (PTAT)
2. You can now pick your ad placement, and target either desktop/laptop users, mobile phone users, or both with sponsored ads!

Do you know how to use these tools to increase your social effectiveness?

Read on to learn how these 2 new Facebook tools for business can impact both your online presence and ad targeting…

Viral Shares

You may have noticed that your People Talking About This (PTAT) number has recently increased – some by a little, and some by LOTS!

Why did this happen?
Because, Facebook has added a new metric to your PTAT number – viral shares.

What does this mean?
Previously, anytime a friend shared a post of yours, any subsequent interactions by their network of friends on that post were not counted in your PTAT.

Now, when fans share your page’s posts, any new comments, Likes, or re-shares from their network will be factored into your PTAT.

According to a source close to Facebook:

“…if you post on your page and Jane reshares that post, any likes, comments, or shares resulting from Jane’s reshare will be counted into your page’s PTAT level. For this reason, you may notice that your page’s PTAT number increases.”

This new calculation is meant to strengthen page insights and be more indicative of the actual number of people talking about your page!

Sponsored Ads

Who are your customers?

Ad Placement Locations

Want to target only those with mobile phones? What about only those with personal computers?

Do you want to advertise via the Newsfeed or on the right-hand-side? And did you know you can now even advertise on the logout screen? Wild!

Through Facebook’s Ads API or power editor, marketers can sponsor stories via 6 different ad-placement options:

1. All placements (desktop and mobile news feeds, right-hand-side ads)
2. All desktop placements (newsfeed and right-hand-side ads on PCs only)
3. Both desktop and mobile news feeds
4. Desktop news feed only
5. Mobile news feed only
6. Logout screen

On the addition of these offerings for advertisers, Facebook said:

“Facebook is always looking for ways to improve products and has responded to requests from marketers to control the placement of their sponsored stories. As companies are promoting services more frequently on mobile, this option gives them the opportunity to focus on specific placements that will impact [those companies] most directly.”

Okay, okay. So that makes sense and is a quality effort on Facebook’s part to help advertisers.

But the Logout Screen??

Businesses will now be able to advertise on the logout screen so users remember to stay in touch with those brands they like, according to Mike Hoefflinger, Facebook’s Director of Global Marketing.

Readers, what do you think? Will advertising on the logout screen be more effective or annoying?

Meet David A. George

David A. George I'm a UX + Growth Marketer passionate about people, music, intelligent UX, Android, and breathing underwater. I'd love to connect with you on LinkedIn, Twitter, and on my website.