HOW TO USE THE FACEBOOK LOCAL INSIGHTS TAB TO GROW YOUR BUSINESS

NEW ‘LOCAL’ INSIGHTS TAB ON FACEBOOK

Much to my surprise and delight, I discovered a new tab on my Facebook Pages’ insights. It’s called ‘local’ and gives some great new data about your local Facebook Page!

After doing a bit of digging, I found out this new feature was announced back in November 2015, but I only discovered it on my local pages this week.

Here is what Facebook has to say about this new feature:

Better insights about your potential customers

When businesses want to understand more about the people visiting their Page, they go to Page Insights. And now Page Insights has a new tab with information for local businesses who want to understand more about the groups of people near their store. Local insights tell businesses the aggregate demographics and trends associated with the people nearby, so they can better understand and cater to the needs of the people in the area.

Businesses can discover the neighborhood’s busiest days of the week and times of day, so they know when people are most likely to visit their store. And they can see aggregate demographics of the people nearby, including age, gender, tourist and local residents. So, if their business serves tourists or people of a certain age group, they know when they have the best opportunity to connect with those people. Insights of this kind empower businesses to tailor their marketing to the people nearby and drive more people to their store.

WHO HAS THE NEW ‘LOCAL’ INSIGHTS TAB?

Any business who has picked the ‘local business’ option in their page settings, and thus is listed as a local business with their address, has this (or will soon) rolled out to them.

If you do not see it on your page do the following

• check your settings to make sure your page is listed as a ‘local business’
• find out if this feature is rolled out in your country
• wait patiently for this feature to roll out to you once you have the right setting on your page

WHAT DATA DOES IT REVEAL ABOUT LOCALS ON FACEBOOK?

Data given in this tab include

✓ people nearby
✓ busiest time (hour of the day + day of the week)
✓ ad performance
✓ demographics

all which are going to be very valuable to any local business owner who is looking to increase their walk-in traffic!

NOTE: Data for these insights are pulled from Facebook users who have ‘location Services enabled.

HOW WILL NEW LOCAL INSIGHTS BOOST LOCAL BUSINESSES?

Using the local insights tab and its data, Facebook page admins will now be able to better target people who are in the vicinity of their business. This will allow for

• very specific gender targeted posts
• age targeted (and age appropriate) posts
• timed targeted posts (hour and day of the week)

By timing their Facebook posts to go out right before or during ‘high foot traffic’ time, they can increase the likelihood that not only their posts will be seen, be also be actedon! Therefore it’s imperative for Facebook Page admins to add a call-to-action to these highly targeted posts.

Let me show you some examples of how this would work for Facebook Pages I admin.

3 EXAMPLES OF HOW TO BOOST YOUR BUSINESS USING FACEBOOK LOCAL INSIGHTS

Business A: 

For one of my local businesses the data look like this.

The BIG surprise is that 7 AM on a Monday morning is when traffic near their business is the highest!

From the additional information, we learn that those nearby on Mondays at 7 AM are mostly men, ages 35-44 and they are locals, not traveling.

All this makes complete sense as the business is located in an industrial park on a busy road. People are on the road, but stuck in Monday morning traffic, and their location services setting on Facebook is enabled. 

This Facebook Page might do well (get increased engagement) with an early Monday morning motivational post!

An image of a steaming cup of coffee, a motivational quote about how to get this work week started or a great (industry-related) tip.

Another tactic would be to suggest a favorite lunch place nearby (collaborate with another business on this) or to talk about an upcoming after-hours event!

Business B: 

For the second example of one of my local businesses, the data look like this.

This is a retail store, with peak hours (at least this past month) between 12-3 PM.

As this is a retail store, located within a tourist shopping mall, this data doesn’t give us too many surprise, except the fact that the average age is younger than I expected.

A tactic that would be great to use here, would be to highlight a nearby restaurant to eat at, or give local attractions tips and suggestions for ‘an afternoon of fun’ as many of the people nearby are not locals, but out-of-town visitors on vacation.

For this business, it is important to keep a close eye on these stats as the peek time in summer will be most likely shift from 12-3 PM to 8-11PM as this store is located in a beach town and in summer, most of this type of shopping happens after people leave the beach and have had dinner. 

As the data shifts for this business as they head towards summer, so should the tactics!

Business C:

For the third example of one of my local businesses, the data look like this.

This local business serves lunch, so it’s great to see nearby traffic peek between 12-1 PM!

From this data we gather that most people nearby are women (but there are quite a few men nearby as well), some are traveling and many are there at lunch time. 

This business is located in a plaza with several other businesses who serve lunch.

Competition for customers is steep!

One tactic to use is to consistently post mouth-watering pictures of lunch specials, right before peak time! Add a boosted post, or local Facebook advertising, and now there’s a real chance people will choose this establishment over any of the others nearby.

This business might also benefit from a large sign outside their door, proclaiming they offer free Wifi or maybe a coupon for people who ‘check in’ on Facebook!

INTERPRET DATA AND KEEP UPDATING TACTICS FOR LOCAL FACEBOOK PAGES

Here is the round up on how to get the most our of your local Facebook Pages

• check your local insights often
• check data around weekends, holidays and with the change of the season (tourist towns!)
• adjust proven tactics to include new found data
• adjust content to specific gender at certain times
• adjust content to specific age at certain times
• always include a call-to-action on these highly targeted posts
• try out local Facebook advertising
• incentivize current customers to check-in on Facebook (that keeps their location services ON)
• offer free WiFi if possible

How will you be using this data to grow your local business?