Keeping up with your social media audience is essential to making a social media campaign successful. Find out what your audience wants and post about it.
Why should I target a specific audience with social media marketing?
Modern ad space is expensive. And, honestly, it’s even expensive to just create the ad. Unsurprisingly in a world of smartphones and Google, marketing has become an everyday activity for almost all of us.
Enjoyed that article? Why not share it on Facebook? Your friend posted a witty tweet; retweet it. You absolutely have to visit that beach in the Bahamas that you saw on Pinterest? We market products with every share, like, click, favourite, retweet, pin, and +1.
Opting into audience-aware social media marketing allows you to harness this almost subconscious desire we have to share the titbits we’ve found with our friends, loved ones, and social media connections.
Finding your target audience is easier than you think
Most social media platforms (with the exception of some smaller, niche networks) have a form of analytics that tracks what you post, when you post it, and how well each post performs.
Identify your influencers
By finding out which posts are the most popular, you can track who has been sharing your posts – and once you’ve tracked down who is fuelling your social media marketing campaign, you can start stalking them.
(Okay – but not creepy stalking though).
Generally members of your audience who engage with your posts and cause a domino effect of sharing, liking, pinning, etc. are considered influencers within your network. Finding out what these influencers like, when they’re online, how they respond, and what will benefit them, will give you a fast-track into a cycle of successful social media marketing.
Catering for the social element
This is not to say that your influencers are the only part of your audience you should target. Unless you’re engaging personally with your influencers and striking up a “I’ll scratch yours if you scratch mine” deal (giving influencers a relevant product from your range and receiving free promotion in return, if they like it, is a common example of this) your influencers are likely to change.
Now is the time to pay attention to demographics. We know that the majority of Facebook and Pinterest users and female, and the majority of Twitter and Google+ users are male. We also know that, while the 50 – 65 age group are (probably) getting their kids and grandkids to whip them into tech-savvy shape, the majority of social media users are between 18 and 30. While we can generalise all we want (general stats are handy), your social media audience may be very specialised.
Pay attention to the breakdown of your audience demographics on each particular platform’s analytics – they’re a gateway into the viral spiral.
How do I keep up with my social media audience?
Posting times are possibly as important as what you post and who you post for. While your influencers are fairly easy to track, you’ll need to take a squiz at your analytics to get an idea of when your general audience is online.
There are a number of general timing rules to stick to, but a more fine-tuned posting schedule will be dependent on your audience.
Still not sure how to find your audience? Get in touch with us and we’ll run you through it.
