Just like in normal, everyday conversation, you always want to know who you’re talking to. This gives you a feel of how you’re going to approach the person, what to say and what not to say, and ideas that would appeal to them. As you converse with this person, on a small scale you are creating a strategy in your head as to how to capture this person’s interest.
It’s the same way with social media marketing. Social Media is primarily a tool of a four way conversation – You create content, your audience receives the content, and your audience reacts to the content. You either respond verbally to this reaction or respond with a positive action. Your audience’s reaction to your content or product is largely determined by how you craft your message. And if you don’t even know who your audience is, it is hard to determine how to reach them. What should you include in your Facebook updates? How should you tweet? What kind of keyword strategy should you use? What type of videos should you upload on YouTube?
All these questions can be answered by knowing your audience. These are the questions you should ask in order to create a realistic and accurate audience profile:
- Who are they? Are they customers, product reviewers, content creators or suppliers?
- What is their basic demographic? (Gender, Age, Location) This is one free tool that you can use to get an idea as to approximate demographic that searches for keywords related to your business online. http://adlab.msn.com/Demographics-Prediction/
- What can your audience do and how do they behave? Do they just lurk around your website? Do they contribute via feedback or comments? Do they gather your information and share it?
- Are they mostly web or mobile users?
- What sites do they frequent?
- What content do they look for? For this question you can use the Google Keyword Tool to see which keywords are popular. You can also use Google Insight to see latest search trends.
These are just some starting questions that can help you determine the profile of your audience. Know your audience and be able to create social media messages that appeal most of them, pique their interest and make them want to know more about your product. They say that knowledge is power and knowing is half the battle. In Social Media Marketing, knowing your audience IS half the battle.
