Defining Your Audience

I love social media. Where else can you build a relationship with potential customers and build your brand so quickly and easily – not just locally but globally as well.

However, whilst most businesses these day are engaging in social media, unfortunately a lot of businesses don’t seem to have a social media strategy. They just seem to post content without any cohesive plan. They hope that by posting on social media, that their audience will find them instead of them actively finding their target audience. This lack of planning and strategy is costly, not only financially but in time as well. To be successful in social media the first thing you need to do is understand who your target audience is. Who your ideal audience? When I am working with companies and small businesses, the first thing I focus on with them, is to help them define who their ideal audience is. And by the way, it is not everyone. By trying to communicate with everyone, you are actually heard by no one. Your message will not reach your target and be lost in the noise. I would recommend putting together a profile of your ideal audience – what is their age, their gender, their location and other important demographics like income. Imagine a police officer has come to your door and has asked you to provide a description of you ideal client so they can find them in a crowd. You must be able to do this before you even consider marketing in any form. If you have several audience segments, write a profile for each of them and give each profile a name. By really understanding who your ideal audience is, you can start to structure your social media strategy plan:

• What keeps my audience awake at night with worry? What problems cause your audience pain. How can you help them go from their place of pain to overcoming that pain? Write down a list of their questions and pain points and answer them with your social media content.

• What content does your audience best relate to? Does your audience like video, images, blog posts, contests, group interaction, industry news, or short quick information?

• What social media platforms can you best communicate with my target audience? Knowing who your ideal customer is and what type of content they like to consume, will help you determine which social media platforms are best to communicate with them through. I would recommend choosing one or two social media platforms and really focus on building your tribe on them.

By building your social media strategy on a strong foundation. will allow you to achieve more success and build a tribe of more engaged followers.