Think about this for a moment. If a subject is on Facebook, and it's got an ad, it's likely a viable subject for research. Are there any groups? Fans? Often you can find out exactly how many Facebook fans a strong group or website in your niche actually has.

You can also see what people are actually interested in; how passionate they are about the subject; and what age group, gender, education background and more its members display in their profile.

That's instant targeting! No more fumbling around in Alexa, trying to figure out what the actual human demographic is likely to be. Right there on Facebook you can see:

* What the fans are talking about

* If the niche is actively "hot"

* If it is growing

Niche Targeting With Facebook

You can also get an idea of ​​its size from the number of fans. Fans in the millions? It may be too broad for your purposes. Only 6 fans? Watch that niche to see if it grows – maybe even join the Facebook Group, if it's something you're particularly passionate about.

Once you've found a reasonably niche on Facebook, set up a profile page for yourself using highly specific keywords. Pay attention to the ads served up to you and you're spying on your competition. Click on their ads, visit their sites, view their source pages and see what keywords they use in their META tags (if any).

Is Facebook Appropriate For Your Business?

Using Facebook for market research is one of the best ways to see if a niche is really on fire! If you are one that uses blogging for affiliate advertising you can create additional sites based on your market research. Using particular tools to optimize your site and a domain name relative to your search results should be able to create multiple blogs running almost on autopilot. Over the coming months I will update this post with results of my own research. If any body has anything to contribute on Facebook Ads please leave a comment on the original article. The original also is an expanded version of this article.