How to Define Your Target Audience
There are billions of users on the most popular social media platforms, so one thing is for sure: you can’t post hoping to reach just anyone.
As the saying goes, “if you’re talking to everyone, you’re talking to no one,” and that’s exactly what happens when we post on social media without understanding who we’re aiming to reach.
All people have different social media usership habits, different motivations for being on social media, and different styles of branding that they connect with, just to name a few examples.
So, if we can tap into these preferences and motivations, we can create content that truly connects with the right people on social media, rather than speaking generally into the void.
Keep in mind that you may have a few different target audiences you’re aiming to reach, and that’s okay. Once you understand those various categories — perhaps donors, constituents, and corporate partners if you are a nonprofit organization — you can create a strategy as to how you’ll reach each of those audiences on social media.
Audience Personas
An audience persona is a character you create that represents your target audience. By personifying your target audience, you’ll be able to better define who you want to reach and most importantly, how you can effectively reach them.
Audience personas can be based on an individual you know in real life, but will often be a summation of several individuals with similar, but varying, characteristics.
The goal with creating an audience persona is to get specific enough that you have a clear understanding of who they are and what motivates them.
Creating Audience Personas
When setting out to create your audience personas, start with a maximum of 3-5 audience categories to avoid a feeling of overwhelm. Prioritize which ones you know are most important to reach on social media.
Let’s walk through an exercise to create your audience personas:
First, pick an audience category. Then, close your eyes and try imagining a person who would represent that category in your head. Picture them on their phone, scrolling on Instagram, and seeing your post. What picture comes to mind?
Once you have that picture in mind you can start defining characteristics about the person.
Where do they live? What’s their family like? What’s their age range? Hobbies? Occupation? Life goals?
Get as specific as possible in the areas that are most important to you.
For example: if your organization serves health care workers with mental health support, specifying their occupation would be important. In other cases, getting that specific might not be as relevant or helpful.
Repeat this exercise as many times as needed to define your various target audiences.
Reaching Your Target Audiences
Now that you have defined your target audiences, you can understand how you will go about reaching and engaging them on social media.
In this step, think about their habits when spending time on social media.
Some things to think about include:
What social media platforms are they most active on?
What type of content do they like to consume?
Do they spend a lot of time bingeing content, or are they usually on social media for short stints?
Are they looking to be entertained? Educated? Inspired?
Finding the answers to these questions may require doing some research. Spend some time looking through your followers on various platforms to see if you can find trends in the types of people who follow you.
Then, do the same with your content: see if you can notice trends on who tends to interact most with your different types of content on each platform.
Once you have answered these questions, you will understand how to most effectively reach your target audience on social media. Keep this in mind when you are planning and creating social media content.
Always remember that these audience personas can be fluid. Once you have defined your target audiences, pay close attention over time to who is following you and engaging with your content in order to refine your personas.
Ready to take defining your target audience to the next level? Purchase our Define Your Target Audience Workbook!
