Know Your Audience: 3 Keys to Finding Your Target Audience
Target audience isn’t just a term used in marketing, it’s a term that anybody who is trying to get people to see something, read something or go somewhere should know too.
If you know your audience, you’re halfway to achieving your content goals. Knowing your target audience at a high-level is the first step, but there are many more levels to dive into before you really hone in on who your true audience is.
Posting content without a true vision of who you’re targeting to is like diving into the ocean to try to catch a fish, but knowing not which one the fish shop will buy. There are thousands, if not millions of species of fish, the same goes for your target audience.
Before you begin creating content and products, be sure you know your audience! Learn the wants/ needs of your target audience first and foremost!
What Is a Target Audience?
Before deciding who your target audience will be, let’s have a brief discussion on what a target audience actually is.
To put it simply your blog, your Instagram, your Facebook and whatever other platforms you may be using to push content out is aimed at somebody. To put it simply, your audience is going to be the people who will love your content most. Your target audience is the people who care about what you have to say, who will find your information useful and interesting, that’s what your target audience is.
How to Find Your Target Audience
The first level of finding your target audience is gaining a broad outlook on who they are. You need to look at putting together a persona for your ideal follower.
What are the things they’re interested in? Where might they spend most of their time? How old would they be? Get general demographics on your ideal audience member.
If you’re going to be posting content on a vape product, for example, is a 50 to 60-year-old really the right person? Or would you be targeting a younger demographic?
Here’s a short list to help with building your demographics:
- Age
- Gender
- Location
- Occupation
- Education level
- Income level
- Marital status
- Personality and behavior
- Interests and hobbies
You can even go so far as thinking about music they like, what films might be watching, what fashion sense they may have and what books they might be reading. Ask yourself these questions:
- Where do they hang out online?
- Which social networks do they use?
- How much time do they spend online each day?
- What kind of content are they sharing, posting and engaging with?
Defining your audience is vital to your online success, here’s how you might find them.
1. Find Your Social Media Twins
Spend some time trawling the web. Try to find other influencers who are performing a similar content strategy to yours. The people who follow their pages, are likely to be the people who will follow you and your content.
Consider joining a few Facebook groups, here’s where a lot of people hang out and ask questions. Many questions that you might be able to give the solution to with the content you’ll be posting.
By finding people online who do a similar content string to yours, you open up doors to potential collaborations and extended reach. The collaboration will allow you to open the door and create an online introduction to converting someone else’s followers to your own.
2. Read and Respond to Your Comments
When you start to post content and your audience starts to engage, it’s important to stay on top of their comments and what they’re saying. This is a wealth of information for you, and how to know your audience.
If they’re reacting negatively to your content, you know that you might not be targeting the right people. Or perhaps they’re asking questions, posting content ideas and truly engaging with what you’ve been posting. Now you know that you’re talking to the right people.
If you start to analyze and take stock of your audience’s comments and reactions, and then you start to build a library of who they are, the things that they like to do, what they want to see online and the type of content that they’ll find useful. In turn, you can figure out the other places online on where to find them, and how you can engage with them there.
3. Join Quora and Discussion Forums
By joining Quora and a few other discussion forums, you can focus on topics that garner your audience’s interest. Look for questions that people in your target demographic have been asking.
This is a great way to understand your audience and what people are asking in your niche. By knowing the solutions they’re seeking, you can stay ahead of your competition’s game.
Knowing your audience is not simply knowing who they are, it’s almost about making friends with them and understanding their likes and dislikes. Quora and discussion forums online can truly give you insight into this.
Know Your Audience: The Benefits
Defining your ideal audience has many benefits, here are a few key ones:
- They will help you to create better, more useful content.
- They will keep coming back, time and time again.
- They will aid in your ultimate success by being loyal to you and your content.
- They will help you find the best ideas on an ongoing basis.
Consider your growth strategy in this, and you can integrate it into growing your following.
On the Road to Success
Defining your ideal audience is paramount to your online success. Now that you’ve done that, you’re on the road.
As your online presence and your content evolve, you might need to adapt. So it’s key that you stay engaged with them, keep the focus on knowing your audience.
To know your audience is to interact with them, keep doing this, and you’re sure to succeed. If you need more help, read more here.
