Whether you are just joining the social media marketing revolution or not – there is no better time to begin amplifying your digital marketing efforts than today. Now, social media marketing has rapidly changed of the course of the past few years. With this in mind, it has lead us to some strong conclusions. When it comes to social media marketing, before a business should really do anything – they should take the time to do some custom persona development.
This is a marketing ideology that companies use to establish who precisely a company should be marketing and communicating to. In this, their entire communications strategy follows suit. Now, what if you don’t have a target audience in mind or spent the time creating one? Better yet, what if you don’t know how to? Lucky for you, we have a very simple 3-step method on finding your target audience on social media. Are you ready to dive in?
STEP ONE: DEMOGRAPHICS
Now, it’s very tempting to jump to conclusions when creating a target audience, which is why it’s pertinent to leave all biases aside. Moving forward, we highly suggest writing all of the information or creating a document to share and save all of this information.
The first step in creating a target audience has to do with establishing a clear demographic. You need to understand the most primitive characteristics of your consumers. Now, to do there, there are many different questions you need to ask yourself and answer. For example:
- Where is your target audience located?
- Is your target audience male or female?
- How old is your target audience?
- Are they married/single?
- Does the target audience have a family?
- What type of work does the target audience do?
- How much money does the target audience make?
These are just a few questions that can really help get the momentum rolling. Now, before you can move on to the next step, you should understand precisely the consumer’s age, gender, location, how much money they make, and even their marital status. Understanding who your consumer is, as far as demographics, can truly help provide some great direction when creating content or advertising.
STEP TWO: WHO IS YOUR CONSUMER?
The demographics of your target audience is sort-of like the setting to the entire scene. By now, you should have a basic understanding a consumer’s background. From here, the next step of the process is to really fill in WHO your consumer is, aside from their demographics. For example, this step is all about diving into the personality and individual aside from their background. To best understand your target consumer, begin by answering these questions:
- What does your target consumer typically like?
- What does your target consumer dislike?
- Do they hold any strong morals or values?
- What are their personal hobbies?
- What are their favorite television shows or movies?
- What is an average day in the life of your target consumer?
This is, without question, the most important stage of the entire process. It’s here that you can learn precisely how to communicate effectively and relate with your target audience.
Helpful Hints and Tips
If this is your first time establishing a target audience, it may be difficult to get it right on the first try, and that’s okay. Now, one tip and tactic that most business owners will do is observe their competition and their social media marketing efforts. In fact, through taking the time to see how competitors are communicating with their customers could shine light as to who your target audience may be.
Additionally, for the purpose of visually understanding who your target audience may be, we suggest creating multiple personas. In this, find images of people who represent your target consumer. This way, when creating social media marketing campaigns, you can target that specific target consumer.
STEP THREE: PICKING THE RIGHT NETWORK
Out of the three steps that were are sharing today in creating a custom target audience, the easiest yet often the one most misunderstood is picking out the right social media network. When it comes to social media marketing, it’s critical that you understand precisely where your target is. Every single social media platform is different, attracting different users, offering different marketing tactics and tools. With that being said, we created a small and short guide to help what platform you should be on.
- Facebook: Facebook is best for businesses that are planning on selling consumer goods at cost-friendly prices. Now, this is not to mention that name brands won’t perform well; however, Facebook is NOT the best social media market for companies that classify their brand as “luxury”. The primary portion of users are under 29 and female.
- Instagram: Instagram is a visual-based social media platform. This is best for companies that are selling an image, like art, clothing or food. According to Hootsuite, there are more women than men on Instagram, ranging primarily between the ages of 18-29.
- Pinterest: Today, many people tend to discount Pinterest as a social media; however, it has proven to be one of the most beneficial means of driving organic traffic and leads. This is a great way to connect on food, drinks, and other blog related content. According to Business Insider over 81% of users are females.
- Twitter: Twitter is a great source for businesses to stay connected with their target audience. The platform is primarily for news-related users who are seeking updates or changes. If you are curious, over 24% of all audience members are male, and only 21% are female.
STEP FOUR: MARKETING
At this stage in the process, you should have a much more defined understanding of who your target audience is. This is strictly based on the demographics of your target consumer and much of their personality traits and habits. Once you are able to figure out what social media platform matches your company – you can then begin to move forward with an effective marketing technique. You will note that, when marketing for the first time to your target audience, you may need to adjust your audience slightly, depending on the data and analytics.
