Each weekend was packed with conferences, seminars, and keynote addresses by prominent figures in the field.
The objective was to network with peers, teachers, and experts in the field to speculate about the future of digital communication.
Public relations was the subject of one of the Los Angeles immersions. One thing that stuck with me from a talk I heard by a fantastic guest speaker on business publics was this: “If you don’t explicitly include someone, you implicitly exclude them.”
That idea should be kept in mind when you study the demographics of social media users.
If you want to successfully communicate with your target audience on social media, you must first define, identify, and comprehend that demographic.
Identifying your social media audience is the focus of this section.
Audience in Mind for Social Media
You might think of the people you’re trying to reach on social media as your target audience. This may be done on the basis of socioeconomic factors including age, occupation, income, education, geography, or behavior. People who are most likely to be interested in what you’re selling make up your social media target audience.
Typically, identifying your social media target group is similar to creating your company’s customer personas and will help you develop brand guidelines.
Issues like, “What content will your audience relate to?” will need answers. Furthermore, “What tone or voice should you use?”
This is crucial so that you can communicate effectively with your target market on social media, inspire brand loyalty, and ultimately increase sales.
The same advice given to us by our immersion weekend’s guest speaker holds true for social media: narrow down your target audience as much as possible. That manner, you can ensure that no potential customers are unintentionally excluded.
In the end, knowing who you’re marketing to on social media will help you sell more of your wares.
We’ve covered what a social media target audience is and why it’s useful; now let’s get into how to locate one.
Where to Look for Your Ideal Followers on Social Media
The process of identifying your ideal customers should be data-driven. We’ve laid down a basic five-step plan for you below:
First, you should locate or develop buyer personas.
The social media audience for your company might be based on your existing buyer profiles.
But if you don’t, consider your current clientele. What exactly do they do? Age? Income?
You may learn a lot about your audience’s demographics by examining your analytics. Take a look at your social media analytics and keep tabs on any active initiatives. Using this data, you can expand upon your current understanding of your target demographic.
Next, fill in the blanks for those demographics. Provide solutions to issues like, “What problems does my product solve?” and “What pain points does my audience experience?”
Think about factors like their financial stability, their buying habits, and their age range. A customer’s social media activity, preferences, and spending habits are all interconnected.
You may wind up with multiple identities. It’s reasonable, for instance, to have distinct personalities if you sell more than one product.
Find out where your target demographic spends their time online.
Find out where your target demographic regularly spends time online after you’ve defined who they are.
To begin, you must determine which social media platforms your target audience actually uses.
For instance, over the past four years, there has been an uptick in Facebook usage among the senior population. The percentage of the Silent generation that uses Facebook has increased dramatically.
Twitter, on the other hand, is popular among the young. In fact, while 38% of Twitter users are under the age of 29, 26% are between the ages of 30 and 49.
35% of Instagram users are between the ages of 25 and 34, while 30% are between the ages of 18 and 24.
Identifying your target demographic is crucial for deciding which social media channels to invest in.
After that, you can make changes as needed. If a particular post does well on one network but not the other, for instance, you can modify it accordingly. Or, if the folks you’re pitching to aren’t interested, you might shift your focus to a different demographic.
Consider the alternatives offered by other businesses.
Consider your competitors’ social media followings as a starting point for building your own. I can’t place the tone of their voice. In what way are they hoping to reach their target audience?
You can tell who their most engaged followers are by seeing who comments on and interacts with their posts. Take note of the platforms they frequent, the types of content they share, the demographics of their audience, and the hashtags they employ.
You may also research your competition by searching for keywords related to your industry in social media apps.
In addition, you may use information gleaned from your own statistics to see what other sites your readers enjoy.
Four, do a client survey.
There will be a lot of data at your disposal, but it never hurts to check in with current clients.
Finding out who your true clients are and which social media platforms they prefer may be accomplished with the use of surveys.
You might inquire as to what they read, the social media platforms they frequent, and the accounts they follow.
Search Facebook Groups.
If your audience is predominantly using Facebook, it’s a smart idea to discover them in Facebook groups. More and more people are joining Facebook groups, making them a great resource for understanding your target demographic.
To what are they posting? In what manner do they speak? You can develop your own community while gaining insight into effective methods of communicating with your target demographic.
Successful marketing initiatives begin with a well-defined target demographic, which may be developed using social media. In addition, you may zero in on the most productive channels and content to share online. Connecting with and learning more about your target audience can be accomplished in large part through their use of social media.
