Once you have identified the right social media channels for your small business, you’ll need to narrow things down and define your target audience: the specific groups you want to reach. Typically, they share common characteristics, like age, gender, location, etc., and/or behavior, common interests, shopping patterns, etc.
It’s not complicated to research your social media target audience yourself. According to Hootsuite, a social media management software company, just follow these steps:
Compile data on your existing customers and social media audience. Most social media platforms have built-in analytics that allow you to track the data for your business. Facebook Audience Insights and Google Analytics are two that work great.
Use social listening to find conversations about your business. Analyze and understand the current conversations and trends your audiences have about your business. Google Trends is a free tool that allows you to track keywords related to your business.
Research which social media channels your audience uses. Having a powerful analytics tool is essential to a successful digital business presence. Google Analytics (and other tools) can help you research which social media platforms your target audience predominantly uses.
Check out the competition. Research what your competitors do, and learn from their mistakes and successes. Ask them what works for them and what doesn’t.
Understand the wants and needs of the social media audience from your channels. Survey your audience and take their input into consideration while planning and creating your social media content. Would they like to see practical advice and ideas for your products? Or view more entertaining content? Twitter allows you to conduct surveys with their built-in features, for example. Survey Monkey is another great tool.
Once you have researched and understood your audience, you can use the power of social media advertising to reach your potential audience, whom you can then transform into paying customers. Plan to revisit your target audience every so often to keep up with all the trends and their possible evolution, shifts, and/or expansion.
