Report: Only 15% of Small Business Facebook Fans Are Actually Local

A new study released today by Roost, a technology company that helps companies with social media, determined that:

“…only 15 percent of the average local business’ fans are actually in the city where the business is located.”

This data was uncovered using proprietary scorecards that analyzes audience distributions and other SMB business metrics. The report was generated over the past month with Facebook data from “hundreds of non-Roost and Roost users.”

This data may be a surprise for many marketers especially seeing that Facebook is the most popular site to market on for local business owners. Another report late July backed this up showing that 54.2% of SMBs have a Facebook page. This new data would lend all local business owners to believe that their true local reach is only a fraction of what was previously believed. No additional information is given about the average distance from fan to business or general proximity for local users.

Of course Facebook allows for local marketing outside of just page “likes,” and set up Facebook For Businesses last week to help companies market more effectively on Facebook. Head to Roost for more information on the report.