Struggling To Find Your Social Media Audience?
It’s a fact, social media is key to reach a large audience with a single message. However, you shouldn’t post something without first having given careful thought to the specifics of your target audience. Firstly, you need to know who that audience is!
Marketing and social media go hand in hand
Social media is now part of all marketing campaigns set up by organisations. The most important factor for such campaigns is to be very familiar with your audience. Do you want to reach fashion trendy young women? mothers at home? golf fans? startup entrepreneurs?
Social media strategies intended for everybody are bound to fail. For a successful campaign, you must find time and energy to research your public’s demographics.
Which social networks is your public on?
Using social media for marketing purposes requires an understanding of your target customers, mainly regarding the way they interact and the type of websites they spend most of their time on.
If you’ve been doing business for a while, you probably already have a solid grasp of your audience’s needs, interests, frustrations and favourite sites. If not, conduct a short fun survey! Are they on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn? Make a note of where they are, what they say and what they share. What can you provide that’s useful to THEM? How can you influence their purchasing behaviour?
When is your audience most active?
As you study your potential customers’ online behaviour, you will start to notice patterns. You will quickly see the day of the week they are the most active, the time of the day they use social media most. Don’t forget the specific times where social media use is at its peak: Christmas Holidays, Valentine’s Day, beginning of the school year, days off, others.
Once you’ve collected this vital information, plan your campaign around it. You will only reach your target clients on social media after you’ve understood who they are and what they catch on.
Take advantage of audience targeting tools
To use paid advertisement efficiently on social media, you must first understand the ad options available, such as frequency, size, multimedia, video, keywords in order to target the right people, i.e., those who will want to lurch at your product or service.
For instance, when you place an ad on Facebook, you get to chose your desired audience’s location, age, gender, interests, language, etc. Get insight from your current users’ statistical information handy graph form on a Facebook Page under the Insights button.
Strategic monitoring: keep an eye on your competitors
It’s crucial that you pay attention to your competitors’ social media use. Keep an eye on their strategies and look for messages that generate the most reactions - and those that generate the least. There is a lot to be learned from watching what competing businesses in your field do on social media. You might even find inspiration for your future campaigns. Seek out your sector’s influencers online and find what concerns them by reading through relevant industry blogs.
Having a solid grasp of your industry’s trends and hot news to include in your social media campaign is essential to your success. Make sure you make time for this and you will be rewarded.
How do you engage your public?
Here’s the best way to engage your potential clients through social media: work on original content - carefully pick topics and pictures that will resonate with them, that will prompt them to take action and post them when they are the most active.
While still the social media King, Facebook can no longer be the sole platform on which to invest your marketing efforts. You must be well-versed in the way your market operates, as well as in your target public’s behaviour on each social network.
Article by Philippe Sigouin, Presence Gatineau CEO
Do you want to boost your brand appeal on social media?