Almost every human being on earth has heard the name — Facebook. It’s no secret that Facebook is one of the most (if not the most) powerful social media platforms in existence.

What many people fail to realize is that business owners, both large and small, regard Facebook as a highly effective advertising tool that can be utilized in order to accurately target a massive audience. Furthermore, what many people don’t understand is that creating ads is one thing, but the real challenge lies in creating effective ads.

Here’s how some basic human psychology can help you hit your target audience:

1. Understanding Your Facebook Audience

In order to construct a solid foundation for your ads, it is imperative that you understand how social media users think. Obviously not all social media users think alike; however, there are specific traits that stand out amongst the rest, including:

  • Extroversion
  • Openness
  • Neuroticism
  • Agreeableness
  • Conscientiousness

By thoroughly understanding each trait, you can then tweak your ads to suit and attract a specific audience, connecting with them on a personal level.

So, let’s break them down:

Extroversion: These guys tend to be the biggest posters and updates on the platform. Extroverts are often very outgoing, love attention and despise solitude. They are often described as “the life of the party” and are extremely talkative and positive. Facebook seems to have been developed specifically for them as they can use it as a means of keeping the conversation going, even when they are at home alone — a dream for extroverts.

Openness: Just like the extroverts, these people also tend to post content and update their status regularly. This trait allows them to feel a strong urge to learn and explore topics that are not normally discussed through general socializing.

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Neuroticism: Common traits include low self-esteem and paranoia. You will see them often, posting highly personal status updates in a desperate attempt to seek attention and affirmation from their peers. As neuroticism is related to threat sensitivity and anxiety, you may see these people posting long, often uncomfortable rants.

Agreeableness: These people do their best to avoid conflict. They prefer their online world to be peaceful and accepting of everyone. They are often very quick to give advice or to lend a hand to someone in need. They tend to use Facebook as a way of building and maintain close relationships. Not for badmouthing and arguing, which is sadly, quite commonplace nowadays.

Conscientiousness: These people tend to be highly motivated with a strong work ethic. They are often described as organized, responsible, and efficient. As they keep fairly busy, they don’t use Facebook as frequently as others, but when they do, you can find them engaged in open debate and robust conversation.

Understanding Which Traits Reflect Your Audience And How To Emotionally Target Them, In order to target and place an advertisement that caters to a specific trait, there are a few things you can do:

  • Study your previous ad history: which ones drew the most attention from your audience and Facebook followers?
  • Ask highly specific questions on Facebook and monitor the responses: do any of them elicit quick and heightened response times?
  • Interact with your audience: are they willing to answer a few questions? How often do they share your content?
  • Is an ad doing well? Monitor them via likes, comments, and shares. Keep the same premise but expand on it in the future and experiment.
  • What traits does your business exhibit? Is your audience similar? If not, try and make some necessary adjustments and see what happens.
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2. Target These Traits To Create Better Ads

Keeping these different personality traits in mind when creating your ads can be highly beneficial. The following are a few ways that you can use them to your advantage:

 

Tap into their anger. Provoking anger is a way to elicit attention. Try creating controversial ads that will lure any lurking online activists. Look around and see what people are arguing about and tap into that.

Tap Into their fear. Fear is another big attention-getter. Fear insights strong feelings of urgency coupled with anxiety and will get your audience talking.

Words and subjects, including death, disease, and terror never fail to gain a strong response. Keep in mind; to avoid mass hysteria, you have to go about this in a specific manner. Reassure your audience that everything will be fine and use their fear tastefully. Advertise products that are anti-terror and anti-disease — for example, facemasks for COVID-19.

Use feelings of sadness and happiness. Regarding advertising, these two go hand-in-hand. Advertisers have been using these two emotions since the dawn of advertising.

It’s simple: first, create a tear-jerking premise (envision animal cruelty ads); secondly, give the audience hope that they have the ability to change the sad circumstance. Make them feel like they alone are making a difference. This will make your audience feel better about themselves and more likely to be responsive to your advertisements.

Can Creating Ads That Trigger Negative Emotions Backfire?

Depending on the audience it can. For this reason, you need to provide a promising and uplifting conclusion at the end of your advert. Failing to do so, and just being nasty and provocative for the sake of being nasty and provocative, will only lead to a damaged reputation.

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Remember: if you’re trying to cater to emotion like anger, there are people out there who may feel strongly about your chosen subject. If you are both on separate pages regarding the issue, this could cause them to become very aggressive toward your brand.

If you select to use anger as a marketing tool, you’ll want to target conscientious, open, and agreeable people. If you choose to select fear as your marketing tool, you need to be sure to protect vulnerable people. Be sure not to target people who display neurotic traits, as it could be easily overwhelming.

You need to use negative emotions as a marketing strategy only with groups who can see what you’re getting at and view it from a logical standing. Target extroverted and agreeable people, as they will be the most logically responsive to this tactic.

3. Use Powerful imagery 

Powerful images are a great way to really elicit an emotional response. Try to select photos that capture the emotion of your words. Don’t use vulgar or graphic images, as this will only turn your audience against you. Instead, try using photos that are relatable and get your point across without causing revulsion.

Again, picture the hundreds of adverts and commercials surrounding animal cruelty. The text and/or words combined make for powerful, emotional adverts.

In conclusion, Facebook is not only a social media platform; it also doubles as a powerful marketing tool for e-commerce. Use what you’ve learned from this article to experiment with your ads and drive some serious targeted advertising.