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Social Media: Why Knowing Your Audience Matters

Social Media: Why Knowing Your Audience Matters

Through social media marketing, businesses have the opportunity to build relationships with their customers, increase brand awareness, and drive sales. Social media networks can function much like a megaphone for your business, amplifying your voice to reach a broader audience. To achieve true success, though, it’s crucial to make sure that your voice is being broadcast to the people who truly want to listen.

Knowing your audience is critical to developing any marketing strategy, but this is especially true on social media. In order to create real connections, and generate real results, it’s important to speak directly and authentically with the audience that matters most to you.

Define Your Audience

  • Currently, 81% of the US population has a social media profile.

With so many people using social media, many brands and businesses use social platforms to connect with new customers. Having the ability to tap into such a massive audience may lead to the temptation to try and reach as many people as possible. However, the most successful brands on social media are the ones who truly know their audience and speak directly to that audience through their content.

One of the easiest ways to define your audience is by creating a persona. A persona is a fictional character that represents the key traits of your ideal customer, and helps you better understand their needs, goals, and motivations. Generally, your persona should include:

  • Demographic Information such as age, income, and geographic location
  • Goals and Challenges that your customer might have, and how you can help them achieve their goals or overcome their challenges
  • Obstacles that may stand between them and a purchase decision, such as concerns about cost or misconceptions about your product or industry

To be as specific as possible, you may need to break your target audience into various segments based on where they are at in the buying process. If your customers typically take awhile to make a purchase decision, you’ll want to take that into consideration. For example, as you create an audience of people who are likely to purchase from you, you may find it necessary to target:

  • Past purchasers who have done business with you in the past, and may make another purchase from you in the future
  • People who have shown interest by subscribing to your newsletter or visiting your website, but may not have made a purchase
  • Individuals who are very similar to your core customers, but may not have heard of your business yet

Tailor Your Messaging

  • Once you have identified exactly who you are trying to reach, it becomes a lot easier to figure out how to start a conversation with them.

The key is to create content that appeals to your audience while staying true to your company’s beliefs and values. As you develop your social media content, focus on why you started your business and what problems you are able to solve for your customers.

To refine your messaging even further, think about any audience segments you may have created and develop messages for each of them, one at a time. Prospective customers may need a more general introduction to your business and how you can solve their problems, while past customers may prefer receiving updates about new products. The personas you created are a great resource to use when you’re crafting your marketing messages.

Maximize Your Budget

  • Focusing on a defined audience will not only make it easier to develop your messaging, but it will also enable you to market yourself more cost-effectively.

Rather than use your time, money, and other resources trying to reach a wide audience that may not be interested, you can focus your efforts on the people who are most likely to take action.

By taking the time to identify your audience, you’ll discover how easy it can be to build relationships with them on social media. Sharing authentic, tailored content will keep your valuable core audience engaged and invested in your brand. If you need help creating a digital presence for your business, contact Triton Commerce! We’ll provide you with a free Digital Marketing Plan that analyzes your existing marketing efforts, examines your competition, and outlines exactly what you should be doing online for maximum results.