Know Thy Audience

Set yourself up for success on social media by learning everything you can about your audience. Take time to research what your audience needs and what they do online.

This research comes from social media listening – or monitoring what’s going on. Here’s how to start listening and building your understanding of your audience and their needs.

Define your audience.

Your audience is not everyone. It’s not all women or all men. You need to get to a much more specific definition of your audience in order to be effective.

Knowing who your audience is and what they expect on social is key to creating content that they will like, comment on, and share. You want to define demographics, motivations, common objections or issues, and the emotional needs of your audience.

Gather real-world data.

Social media analytics can also provide a ton of valuable information about who your followers are, where they live, which languages they speak, and how they interact with your brand on social.

Each platform offers metrics. There are also insightful research studies published by Pew and others. Data insights allow you to refine your strategy and better target your content to your audience.