Identifying posts in a social networking system for presentation to one or more user demographic groups

A computer system comprising:

• a processor;
• memory coupled to the processor, the memory having encoded thereon instructions that, when executed by the processor, cause the processor to:
• receive from a content provider at a social networking system an indication of an page in the social networking system to be promoted;
• select a set of candidate posts from a plurality of posts associated with the page based on the candidate posts having more than a threshold amount of interaction by users with the candidate posts indicating popularity of the candidate posts;
• identify, by a processor, for each candidate post, demographic characteristics of the users who interacted with the candidate posts;
• define, for each candidate post, a plurality of user demographic groups into which the users are grouped based on the demographic characteristics of the users who interacted with the candidate posts, wherein the identified demographic characteristics associated with each user demographic group for the candidate post are demographic characteristics identified as being common to at least a threshold number of users who performed the threshold amount of interaction with the candidate post;
• measure a promotion efficacy of each candidate post for each of the plurality of user demographic groups defined for the candidate post by:
• present the candidate post to a test set of users in one of the user demographic groups that have not previously interacted with the page in the social networking system;
• and
• compute a measure of user interaction with the candidate posts by users in the test set of users that have not previously interacted with the page in the social networking system;
• identify one or more additional users in each of the plurality of user demographic groups;
• select a candidate post from the set of candidate posts for presentation to the one or more additional users in each of the user demographic groups based at least in part on the measured promotion efficacy the candidate posts for the test set of users from a same demographic group;
• and
• provide, for display by the processor, a user interface for each of the one or more additional users, the user interface comprising a newsfeed including the selected candidate post amongst a plurality of stories describing actions performed by other users connected to the additional user.

A computer program product comprising a non-transitory computer-readable storage medium including instructions that, when executed by a processor, cause the processor to:

• receive from a content provider at a social networking system an indication of an page in the social networking system to be promoted;
• select a set of candidate posts from a plurality of posts associated with the page based on the candidate posts having more than a threshold amount of interaction by users with the candidate posts indicating popularity of the candidate posts;
• identify, by a processor, for each candidate post, demographic characteristics of the users who interacted with the candidate posts;
• define, by a processor, for each candidate post, a plurality of user demographic groups into which the users are grouped based on the demographic characteristics of the users who interacted with the candidate posts, wherein the identified demographic characteristics associated with each user demographic group for the candidate post are demographic characteristics identified as being common to at least a threshold number of users who performed the threshold amount of interaction with the candidate post;
• measure a promotion efficacy of each candidate post for each of the plurality of user demographic groups defined for the candidate post by:
• present the candidate post to a test set of users in one of the user demographic groups that have not previously interacted with the page in the social networking system;
• and
• compute a measure of user interaction with the candidate posts by users in the test set of users that have not previously interacted with the page in the social networking system;
• identify one or more additional users in each of the plurality of user demographic groups;
• select a candidate post from the set of candidate posts for presentation to the one or more additional users in each of the user demographic groups based at least in part on the measured promotion efficacy of the candidate posts for the test set of users from a same demographic group;
• and
• provide, for display by the processor, a user interface for each of the one or more additional users, the user interface comprising a newsfeed including the selected candidate post amongst a plurality of stories describing actions performed by other users connected to the additional user.