In the digital age, you have to be on top of social media marketing, but with so many social media platforms at stake, it can be hard to find the right way to do it. approach your target audience. This is largely due to the fact that companies do not take the time to research their target audience with the wide variety of tools available to them – such as social media.
Market Research Using Social Media
Even if you have an amazing marketing campaign, you can not launch it successfully unless you can reach your target audience with the type of media you feel comfortable with. That's why knowing how to conduct a market research to find your target audience using social media is an absolutely crucial skill that your business simply can not do without.
Definition of your target audience
The first step in market research is to define your target audience. It involves being aware of your favorite behavioral patterns, motivations, media and platforms, interests and general characteristics shared by those who are interested in what you are offering. .
Without a target audience, it's almost impossible to develop an effective marketing strategy. Preconceived ideas about your audience can often differ from reality or include surprising niches that you have not considered.
To be sure that your marketing campaigns are effective, you must be absolutely certain that they reach the people they should be.
Who is your perfect Persona audience?
How do you imagine the perfect customers? What characteristics do they have? Think about their age, where they come from, their jobs, and what types of stores they visit or the pets they own. Now make a list of the individual features you think you have.
This is your ideal customer Persona. You can use these criteria to find the social media that your ideal client might encounter. So, how do you know who uses what?
What social media platforms does your audience use?
All social media sites host a wide range of people with different personalities, but even large amounts of people who share certain characteristics. We have broken down the four biggest players in the social networking game and the recommended approaches to take with each one, below:
Facebook is used by approximately 60% of Americans – it is, without a doubt, the largest social media network today. It hosts the largest number of users, which makes it difficult to define a certain character, but it is generally accepted that it 's about fun, fun, and fun. quiet experiences and social networking
Even better, Facebook users will voluntarily give you an excessive amount of information – for free. Facebook also offers a range of tools designed to allow you to target your perfect audience, whether it's based on age, location, centers of interest or anything you can imagine. , making it one of the best platforms. . Advertising on Facebook can even help you find and suggest to your customers people with similar traits.
YouTube also hosts a wide range of characters, but YouTube visitors share the same appeal for visual media and are willing to invest time in what they're watching, unlike users from Facebook who are far away. more likely to just take a look and scroll.
Instagram is all about pictures. Everything on Instagram is about photography and static images, and Instagram users are usually interested in anything that is visually appealing. Instagram users are more likely to be aware of their appearance and interested in the products related to it. Successful Instagram ads include recommendations, engaging photographs and direct links.
LinkedIn is the most popular social media platform for professional services and networking. Here, your audience is composed almost exclusively of professionals of all levels, who do not appreciate being exposed to non-professional services and products through LinkedIn.
Twitter has a very specific culture that focuses on short, percussive messages (180 characters or less, to be exact), often resulting in a more specific use of the language, such as marking, acronyms and language, "as users try to fit more information into short sentences.
To find your ideal target audience, Twitter also offers similar audience targeting options to Facebook, such as sex, interest, follower, device, keyword, behavior and geographical labeling, among others.
Where does your audience spend their time?
Most of your audience will use more than one social media network. Find out where your target audience spends most of their time. This will make your marketing campaign much more effective because you can invest more in areas that host most of your ideal customer personalities and less or not on those who do not.
To learn more about your audience
Now that you have an idea of who should listen to, find out who is listening to and why they are. By analyzing your current data, you can see what works and what does not work and create the rest of your customers. Do not forget that you must constantly analyze the data and update your characters to better reflect your audience types. Finding out more about your audience will also help you tap into niche markets you've never thought of, as well as improve your marketing personalization for better conversion rates.
Exploitation of Social Conversations
So, how do you find what kind of content will resonate with your audience? Easy. See what they are talking about. Strategies such as viewing content with high backlinks, keyword searches, Google AdWords estimates, and evaluating publications for relevant content are essential, but nothing beats quantifying what people are really talking about. . Using a tool like a cloud of topics also gives you insight into the specific wording used, the key factors behind the conversations and the questions asked.
Fashionable Content
This one is simple. What is trendy? Sites like Facebook will actively inform you about trend topics in real time. Do not let a resource like this get lost. Make your content relevant by following trends, especially by including a lot of SEO keywords. Using social listening can also give you an edge and help you become a leader in a trendy subject, rather than being a follower. This will also allow you to search for what your audience is responding to most, and add color to your ideal user character.
Identification of influence
Sometimes you have to admit that you may not be the person that people want to listen to. So, how do you convert people you know would be interested in what you have to say? Discover the people they're already listening to. If you have a choice between two restaurants for dinner, and a friend you trust one recommends, are you more likely to dine there? It's the same with your audience. Focusing on the commitment of a single key influencer can often be the key to overcoming the barrier of engagement for a whole new audience.
Ask them
Seriously. Ask them. Give your audience an opportunity not only to receive communications from you, but to send another. You can interact with customers directly, create surveys, enable reviews, promote sharing, set up a reward system based on feedback, and generally encourage comments in one of its forms. What your customers think is one of your most valuable resources when it comes to creating compelling content. Ask your audience what they want and listen to it – it will tell you exactly what you need to do to create more appropriate and engaging content.
View similar sites
Your competitors might have the right idea. If you're wondering if you're on the right track, getting a glimpse of what similar sites are doing is usually a sure way to confirm it. Of course, doing something different does not necessarily mean you are not; some one must lead new trends, after all. However, if you feel uncertain or perhaps a little stuck, there is nothing wrong with inspiring ideas from your competitors.
Use the right tools
To help you achieve some of the goals we have outlined above, we have also put together a short list of useful tools for this purpose.
- Social Crawlytics: This tool can tell you how many times a web page has been shared on social networking pages.
- BuzzSumo: This tool will help you find popular content. You can search by topic or on a specific website.
- Heat Map: This tool will tell you exactly which part of your page has watched the most.
- Personapp: This tool helps you to map your customers quickly and easily, without the hassle of too much detail.
- Facebook Audience Insights: This tool allows you to create any type of demographic target you can imagine (well, maybe not quite, but almost!). As suggested by the name, this tool is only for Facebook.
- Followerwonk: Basically, the same as Facebook Audience Insights, but for Twitter.
Final Thoughts
That's all. You're ready. You have your to-do list and a list of useful tools to help you. The only thing left is to start. You will not regret knowing your audience.
Making mistakes on social media can sometimes make your business impersonal or detached, but with the right approach, you can show your audience that you understand them and their needs, and most importantly, that you care
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