Who is Your Audience?

If you’ve been reading this blog any length of time, you know that I’ve written much about target marketing – know your audience.  Although a lot of your social media branding strategy is going to be about attracting the kind of followers and, ultimately, customers that you want to attract, it’s also important to think about what your audience wants.
If you can figure out more about their lives, you’ll be able to tweak your brand in a way that really appeals to them. If you’re stuck figuring out your voice, and what makes you different from other companies, this could give you some powerful ideas!
Some key things to know about their audience:

• Where they live,
• How old they are,
• Their gender,
• Their level of education,
• What they struggle with in life (and how you can help),
• What their biggest questions are,
• Which social networks they enjoy the most,
• How they tend to access social media.

Interpreting Data From Your Existing Audience

You probably already have some sort of following, whether that’s a base of customers, an email list or an existing social media following. Here are some ways to find out more about them:

• Conduct a survey,
• Make notes on which products they prefer,
• Note which emails get the highest open rates,
• In your emails, invite them to reply and see what they ask about most often.

Choosing the Right Social Media Platforms for Your Audience

Knowing your audience will also help you choose the right social media platforms. Although you might want to be active on “all” the social media platforms, the truth is that it’s better to master one than to do ten badly! Different platforms have different demographics. Here’s a brief overview:

• Facebook: Has the biggest user base of all the social media platforms.
• Pinterest: More applicable to visual/ practical niches, used more by women than men.
• Google+: Most popular network for students and techies, more popular with men than women.
• Twitter: Very mainstream, but more popular with city dwellers.

You can also use additional sites like LinkedIn, Instagram, Vine and YouTube as part of your social media strategy; and by cross sharing them on sites like Facebook and Twitter.

Every time you post, remember this: For people to even start following you on social media, you need to be relevant to their lives in some way.

Here is an interesting video I found about Knowing Your Audience in the context of public speaking. Watch the video and let me know what your take is on it. Can the same principles applied to Social Media Branding, when it comes to your audience?

Coming up next will be:  Social Media Branding Rule #4: Make the Right First Impression

Share this article with these Tweetables:
• The third rule of branding in social media – Click to Tweet
• How well does your brand know its audience? – Click to Tweet
• Don’t go blind in social media – how to KNOW your audience – Click to Tweet
• @SusanGilbert gives you several key components to knowing your audience – Click to Tweet