Connecting with the target audience on social media is something that most marketers struggle with. In most cases they end up thinking that the posting strategy is wrong. In reality, the big problem in most situations is that the target audience is not actually properly identified.
The really common approach is to analyze some pages that represent the competition and then do a minor research about the audience. This is not actually enough. You want to do all that you can in order to properly identify the audience. That is what we will talk about below.
Establishing Social Media Goals
Identifying the target audience starts with establishing social media goals. For instance, let’s say that you want to promote an Yoga studio. The audience will vary based on the goals that you have. If you want to get new clients, you will want to focus on a specific demographic. If you want to simply increase likes without caring about conversions, your audience will be much wider and the posting strategy will be different.
Identifying The Target Market
Remember that most businesses do not actually know what their target market is. If you want to be sure that the target market is properly identified, you will want to think about the following:
- Ideal customer profile.
- Demographic profile of the market.
- Buyer persona.
- The job that the ideal customer currently has.
- Facts that motivate an individual to make a purchase.
- Behavior process when making purchase decisions.
Conducting The Research
Identifying the target audience is all about understanding how the potential and existing customer uses social media. This is a vital part of developing a social media strategy that is effective. Nowadays, information about how a group of people use social networks is widely available. Achieving social media goals is all about understanding who is targeted, the social media platforms that are preferred and the type of content that is shared, posted and consumed.
The two steps that you want to always take when conducting the research include:
- Checking out activity present on social media profiles of the competition – Stay focused on the type of content that people engage with.
- Conducting a keyword research that is unique for each platform – What works on one platform might not be effective on another one.
Identifying When To Engage And Listening To Followers
We all need to understand that timing is vital in social media. The truth is that you will do a lot more listening than talking on social media. This practically means that you analyze what happens on the internet and you realize when people are more likely to interact with content of the type you will use. The difference between posting at the right time and posting at the wrong time can be the same difference between a post going viral and a post not being seen, no matter how appropriate it is.
Always make sure that you learn all that you can about the social media target audience you have. The more information you have, the higher the possibility that good results are going to appear.
