Among online marketing channels, social networks prove to be the most powerful in uniting brands and their target users. It's no secret that major platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube make this happen through precise social media targeting features.
But there is a catch. With 378 billion social media users to date, it's not enough to create a social profile and wait for people, random people, to notice you and your offering. To get the most out of social platforms, you need to make use of the targeting features available, you need to find your audience and target them on their preferred platform. Defining your target audience is an essential step in an effective social media strategy.
So, what is a target audience? It is a group of people who are likely to be interested in your product or service. Your social media target audience shares common traits, such as demographics, behavior, and location. With this information, you can deliver organic and paid content that provides them value, meets their needs, and builds trust with your brand. And you can align your outreach activities with each platform they hang out on.
While you can sell to anyone on social media, it is much more efficient and affordable to focus your efforts on a specific market, that is, practice social media targeting. This section is about helping you discover and implement the steps to identify your target market.
1. Leverage marketing personas
The key to kick-starting your targeting game plan is to conduct a social media audience analysis. You can split this activity into two parts: The first is about creating a social media persona based on an existing buyer persona.
You can use current data from your marketing, sales, and support teams to update your target market image on social media. Analyze demographic details such as age, gender, education and income. Include your pain points and priorities. If you have access to your client list, be sure to analyze that as well. It would be productive to include details such as purchasing power.
Incorporate what you get from personas marketing, but don't decide if you're a Facebook persona, a Twitter persona, or something similar—yet.
2. Tap on Social Audience Tools
The second part of your social media analysis involves information collection tools like Google Analytics and native services like the Facebook or Instagram Target Audience Insights Tool.
Through Google Analytics, You can explore existing customers' preferred social platforms and the type of information they seek on them, for example, product demos or benefits.
As for the native platform tools, you can connect data from the first step and create lookalike audiences. This tactic is useful for defining, say, the target audience for your Facebook ads.
3. Take surveys to supplement personal marketing data
By now, you've probably created an image in your head of what your target social media audience looks like. But wait, conducting audience analysis on social media doesn't end with big data. You can also directly ask current customers about their thoughts and feelings through surveys and polls.
An effective tactic would be to incorporate the survey into an email marketing campaign. When sending your email, try to gather information about what type of content they search for on social media and what platforms they frequently use for this purpose.
Once the results are in, they should help you determine real needs, gaps, and the best social media platforms for business growth.
4. Use social listening
Now is the time to advance the transition from theory to practice by spending time on social media. Here, you can be specific (how to find your target audience on Facebook) versus general (how to find your target audience on social media). To have a richer target persona on social media, listen to what your type of audience is talking about.
Also, make sure you understand the nuances of each social network. For example, social listening focused on a Twitter target audience involves brand conversations around hashtags and trending topics. On the other hand, information about a YouTube target audience can be obtained from comments, likes, and subscriptions. If you're willing to partner with a social media marketing company, look for one that can help you navigate through the nuances of your target platforms.
5. Research the competition
See what your competitors are doing on social platforms. Can you identify your buyer persona or target audience on social media? What types of content are they using and what works for them?
This method is called competitor research, it allows you to do a social media comparison and is designed to give you information or inspiration. It gives you time and space to learn when and why your rivals are doing well when engaging with your social media target market. And it essentially allows you to find additional ideas for your strategy.
The steps to identifying your target market are dynamic, so you can perform most of the tactics for social media audience analysis in order or according to your needs. But a social media marketing expert would tell you that the process never reaches its peak. You have to go back to the steps several times throughout the year to keep your marketing personas, as well as the strategy, up to date.
This approach leads to sustainability and longevity, which is great to apply yourself if you have the right resources. Otherwise, it is best to take steps to identify your target market with a social media marketing company.
Social media companies like Facebook, Twitter and Instagram have established user bases, making them ideal for certain industries but not others. To achieve success, be sure to identify alignment between the social network and the personality of the target market.
In this section, you can quickly evaluate each one to determine the best social networks for business niches and industries.
Facebook
Stop feeling clueless about how to target the right audience on Facebook. With the right tools, trends, insights, and even the right social media agency, you can take advantage of the platform's broad and diverse reach and build your ideal Facebook persona.
Here are some Facebook target audience statistics and details to guide you:
• According to We Are Social, more than half of its users are between 25 and 34 years old (31,6 percent) and between 18 and 24 years old (23,8 percent).
• The majority of your Facebook target audience uses mobile to access the platform.
• Viewing photos and sharing content are the main activities of Facebook users.
• Business-to-consumer brands can greatly benefit from its targeting features, which help increase brand awareness and generate revenue on their site. This doesn't mean you shouldn't establish your presence and learn how to find your target audience on Facebook if you're a business-to-business company.
Instagram
The previous section has taught you how to target the audience on Instagram. But why use this platform to promote your brand, products or services?
In addition to its over 1 billion monthly active users, here are some facts about the visual branding app:
If there is one marketing person that fits the majority of your Instagram target audience, it would be “brand ambassadors.” The platform comprises influencers and followers, but 90 percent of all users follow at least one business account. Therefore, your social media target market is predisposed to interact with brands on the platform from the beginning.
• Adults in the United States aged 18 to 29 represent 71 percent of its users. That being said, here's how to engage your target audience on Instagram – tailor your personal marketing to the needs of this demographic.
•Your Instagram target audience may give a lot of love to branded posts. In fact, they are 10 times more likely to engage with advertising content than members of your Facebook ads' target audience.
• If you are in the fashion, beauty, skincare, or retail industry, you can easily find your audience on this platform.
• On the other hand, savvy social media marketing strategists encourage those working in real estate, education, and food service to learn how to target audiences on Instagram more effectively.
Twitter
You and your target Twitter audience can participate as equals on the platform. This makes Twitter ideal for brand management and customer service.
Twitter also has the ability to attract a unique person on social media. In addition to that, the platform stands out for the following reasons:
• About 21 percent of American adults use Twitter, making it the sixth most popular platform.
• The People are more familiar with Twitter than Instagram (92 vs. 91 percent). Meanwhile, Facebook's target audience (95 percent) leads in this regard.
• El Eighty-two percent of B2B marketers have used content marketing in the last 12 months to connect with their target Twitter audience.
• Some people who are on Twitter also have a Facebook account. That said, you can create a cross-platform strategy that takes into account the overlap between your customers' Twitter buyer persona and their Facebook persona.
•You can then take advantage of Twitter's high digital trust rating to convert the target audience for your Facebook overlay ads. Additionally, consider how a social media marketing agency can help you generate profits using this promising advertising tactic.
Youtube
If you know how to target the right audience on Facebook, you should know that social media targeting on YouTube requires a little more experience. Social media marketing experts attribute the rise of this criterion to the platform's significant growth even in difficult times.
In fact, YouTube has created and delivered more value since its inception. So, when is YouTube the best social network for business and customer relationships?
• Among major social media companies, YouTube is owned by online technology powerhouse Google. That is, it relies on sophisticated methods to force users to remain on the platform.
• You are more likely to reach older and millennial members of Generation Z on YouTube than in a TV commercial.
• Overall, 62 percent of YouTube's target audience accesses the platform daily, increasing to 92 percent weekly.
• How much is a target audience worth? YouTube users are known to spend money on in-app purchases, for example, YouTube Premium and Channel Membership.
• Your target YouTube audience will probably give an ad a chance before skipping it: say, 5,5 seconds of a 15-second ad and 7,4 seconds of a 30-second ad. Despite the barrier it creates for brands and advertisers, this habit is already proven to boost brand recall.
Other platforms that allow you to find your audience and create a marketing persona to maximize targeting features:
• LinkedIn
• Pinterest
• Snapchat
• TikTok
Keep in mind that the best social media platforms for business and brand marketing efforts do not exist in a vacuum. With the overlaps and differences of target market personas, it is up to you to do a social media comparison and choose the most suitable one for your current needs. But if your resources allow, a reliable social media agency would recommend an integrated approach to social media marketing.
The steps to find your target audience on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, etc….are just one part of social media marketing. Meanwhile, social media marketing is just one of several digital marketing channels you can implement. Therefore, we are not exaggerating when we say that social media comparison and analysis will already take up a lot of your time.
A practical step from here is to enlist the help of a social media marketing agency. It's not just about outsourcing something you need right now but don't have the bandwidth to do. It's all about finding the right social media marketing company to launch your short- or long-term social media marketing efforts.
Therefore, you should look for a social media agency that:
• Understand your urgent needs
• Design a strategy based on your goals and data
• Fill in the information gaps with extensive research
• Manage your budget and time creatively and effectively
From marketing people to loyal customers
Again, how much is a target audience worth?
This blog has shown you that it pays to learn how to target the right audience on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube and other social media companies or platforms. This fundamental task is necessary to start a sustainable and successful social media marketing campaign.
However, knowing what you know now, you may also think the task is overwhelming, especially if you've never done it before. This is where you can choose to work with a social media marketing expert. To deliver the desired results, a team of strategists and specialists can strategize, make decisions, and manage your social media accounts.
