How to Geotarget on Facebook: how to geotarget on facebook — Organic & Paid Strategies

Introduction

This guide on how to geotarget on Facebook is based on Reddit discussions among digital marketers and social media managers. Reddit users shared practical experiences, common problems, and workarounds for both organic posts and paid ads. Below you’ll find a synthesized summary of those community insights plus expert-level analysis and step-by-step best practices to make geotargeting work for your brand.

What Reddit Users Said: Overview & Consensus

Across the thread, people agreed on a few fundamentals:

• Paid ads are precise: Ads Manager gives granular location targeting (country, region, city, radius).
• Organic targeting is limited: Native organic posts have restrictions and often require enabling specific page settings.
• Local pages help: For multi-location businesses, creating separate location pages or using Facebook’s ‘Locations’ feature is recommended.

Common Use Cases Mentioned

• Promoting store events or local specials.
• Serving different content to different countries or languages.
• Testing messaging for regional preferences before rolling out globally.

Reddit Tips: Practical Steps Users Recommend

Redditors offered a mix of step-by-step tips, quick fixes, and strategic recommendations for both organic and paid approaches:

• Enable audience optimization for posts: Many suggested turning on “Audience Optimization” (also called “Preferred Page Audience” or “News Feed Targeting” depending on your page) in Page settings so you can target or prioritize audiences for organic posts.
• Use post targeting carefully: When posting from a Page, use the audience targeting drop-down to select locations (country, region, or city). Some users noted this is more of a prioritization tool than a hard visibility lock.
• Boost posts or create targeted ads: If precise geotargeting is essential, boost the post or run a Local Awareness/Reach ad via Ads Manager where location, radius, and exclusions are precise.
• Create location-specific Pages or store locations: For multi-location businesses, using the Locations feature or separate local Pages improves relevance and allows hyper-local posting.
• Post in local groups: If organic reach is the goal, publish in community groups for cities or neighborhoods where your audience lives.
• Use time zone-aware scheduling: Schedule locally relevant posts during peak local hours to improve engagement and distribution.

Where Reddit Users Disagreed

Not every strategy had unanimous support. The main disagreements focused on the value of organic targeting vs paid, and how restrictive Facebook’s tools actually are:

• Effectiveness of organic post targeting: Some users reported that post targeting still allowed broad visibility beyond the selected location, while others found it restrictive and damaging to reach when used incorrectly.
• Whether to run multiple Pages: A few argued separate pages for each location improve local SEO and relevance; others warned about the management overhead and brand fragmentation.
• Using demographic/location exclusions: Some marketers recommended tight exclusions to prevent budget waste; others cautioned that over-exclusion can limit scale and learning for Facebook’s delivery algorithm.

Practical Limitations & Pitfalls

Reddit users flagged a number of practical issues to watch for:

• Platform changes: Facebook frequently renames and moves settings. The terminology you see (Audience Optimization, News Feed Targeting, Preferred Page Audience) can vary.
• Organic reach decline: Targeting an organic post too narrowly can reduce distribution and engagement, hurting the post’s performance.
• Privacy and policy limits: Facebook restricts certain location targeting near protected classes; always follow ad policy and local regulations.
• Measurement gaps: Some users noted limited analytics for organic geotargeting, making performance evaluation harder compared to ads.

Step-by-Step: How Redditors Said to Enable Organic Geotargeting

Here’s a distilled workflow derived from user posts for enabling and using audience targeting on your Page for organic posts:

• Go to your Facebook Page and open Settings > General. Look for an option like “Audience Optimization for Posts” and enable it.
• When creating a post, click the audience targeting option (often in the post composer settings) and choose the location type: country, city, region, or language preferences.
• If you want a hard visibility restriction, use the “Post Targeting and Privacy” > “Restricted Audience” option (note: this will limit reach).
• Monitor post insights for location-based engagement where available; if results are poor, consider switching to a paid localized boost.

Step-by-Step: Ads Manager (The Most Accurate Geotargeting)

For precise geotargeting, Reddit users overwhelmingly recommended running ads. Use Ads Manager with these steps:

• Create a new campaign and choose an objective that matches your goal (Local Awareness, Reach, Traffic, Conversions).
• In the Ad Set, go to Locations and select the level of targeting: Country, Region/State, City, Postal Code, or a Radius around an address/coordinates.
• Use Exclude to remove nearby areas or locales that aren’t relevant. Avoid over-excluding unless necessary.
• Combine with other targeting layers (age, interests) or upload a custom audience (e.g., customers from a CRM) to create high-value local segments.
• Use location-based optimization and store visit tracking if you have offline locations to measure footfall.

Expert Insight: Best Practices Beyond Reddit

Redditors shared many practical tips, and here’s how to prioritize them with a business-focused strategy:

• Use organic targeting for relevance, ads for precision: Organic tools are great for content prioritization and local relevance but rely on Ads Manager when location precision and guaranteed delivery are required.
• Localize creative and copy: Tailor images, language, currency, and CTAs to each location. Even small cultural or seasonal tweaks can increase CTR and conversions.
• Test broad then narrow: Start with a slightly broader radius or regional audience to allow Facebook’s algorithm to learn, then narrow with exclusions once you see where high-value responses come from.
• Measure with UTM tags & conversions: Always tag links and track performance in analytics and Facebook Ads reporting. For brick-and-mortar, use store visit or offline conversion imports where possible.
• Consider geofencing & third-party tools: For highly localized campaigns (a few blocks or a conference area), use DSPs or mobile geofencing providers that can feed custom audiences into Facebook.

Expert Insight: Compliance, Privacy & Efficiency

Two critical non-technical points to apply:

• Comply with targeting rules: Facebook forbids discriminatory targeting in certain verticals (housing, employment, credit). Ensure geographic targeting doesn’t indirectly create policy violations.
• Optimize budget allocation: Use Geo-based ROAS checks. If one city consistently outperforms, allocate more budget to that area and replicate the creative elsewhere as a tested template.

Final Takeaway

How to geotarget on Facebook depends on whether you need precision or organic relevance. Reddit users concur: Ads Manager is the go-to for accurate location targeting, while organic options can help prioritize who sees your posts but come with reach trade-offs. For best results, combine organic local posts and groups with targeted boosted posts or localized ad campaigns, measure with UTMs and store visit data, and always monitor Facebook’s evolving settings.

Read the full Reddit discussion here.