Targeting your Market

You’re excited to start your social media strategy – so you start off targeting anyone and everyone. Someone has to bite, right?

Wrong. Not choosing a target market hurts your marketing strategy more than any other mistake. What pull do you have for your audience? What reasons do you give them to like your posts, learn about your offers, and make a purchase? Would you market dog leashes to someone that doesn’t own a dog? That would be silly, right? That’s the equivalent of marketing to everyone and is why you must target your market.

Beyond pulling in the right customers, targeting your market helps in many other ways. We’ll discuss the reasons and then show you how to do it below.

Who is your Target Market?

First, you must define your target market. Get as specific as you can here. You’ll see why later, but for now, truly get to know who wants or needs your products and services. If you can’t get super specific right away, that’s okay, but narrow it down somewhat.

For example, if your product is for adults, what demographics does it suit the most? Is it for men, women, or both? Is it for married people or singles? Who is it better suited for professionals or stay-at-home parents?

These are just a few ideas to get you started, but you get the idea. Narrow down your market as much as you can.

If it helps – create a fictional character that personifies your target audience. Figure out everything there is to know about this person including:

• Family size – Is he/she single or married? Does he/she have kids? Is he/she divorced?

• Work – Does your target audience work? Do they work full-time or part-time? Do they work in the office or from home?

• Likes/dislikes – What do they do in their free time? What do they love? What do they hate?

Reasons to Choose a Target Market

Now that you’ve narrowed down your target market, do you feel like you squeezed out potential clients? It may feel that way, but here’s why narrowing it down helps:

• Get to know your target market intimately. You know their problems and how they feel. You can then develop your campaigns (and maybe even your products) to solve those problems. When your campaigns specifically address a problem your audience has, they’re more likely to be drawn to you than if you advertised to the masses.

• You can find out where your target audience hangs out the most. When you don’t have a narrow audience, you’re all over the place on social media. With a narrower market, you can follow your audience and see where they spend time. Is it on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, or Tik Tok? Focus your energies on where they spend their time.

• You can create social media posts that your audience relates to and makes them want to know more. Why waste your time creating posts, scheduling them, and following up when no one interacts with them?

How to Find your Target Market on Social Media

Your target market may differ slightly on social media than it does in your stores or even online. It requires a little creativity to find out who’s reading your posts.

Search Hashtags

You’ve likely done your keyword research for your industry already if you have an online presence. A website without SEO is like a store with no doors. No one will know you exist without SEO.

Using those keywords, search the hashtags. You’ll find your target audience easily this way. The words may not lead you to consumers looking at your social media sites, but those of your competitors. Use your sleuthing skills to see what they say.

What are people saying? What problems do they have? Do they use hashtags or who do they share the posts without them? Use all of this information to narrow down your social media target audience.

Ask your Customers

This sounds crazy, but go ahead and ask your customers where they hang out. If you already have an email list, send out a survey using Google Forms or Survey Monkey – it’s incredibly easy and provides you with a wealth of information. If most of your customers are in your store, ask them to complete a quick survey after they make a purchase. 

Ask your audience specific questions and not just which social media sites they use. Ask where they get their information and where do they spend their time. For example, some people prefer video content and spend time on YouTube while others love digesting blog posts. Know the medium your customers prefer.

Check your Competitors

Don’t be afraid to see what your competitors do. You don’t have to copy them, but you can use their success as your mentor. Look at you their audience engages with them. Do they engage at all? What do they ask or say? Is there a need your competitors aren’t filling?

What do they do that sets them apart? How can you do things differently and fill the void your audience needs that will get them away from your competitors?

Create Content they Want

Once you think you’ve found your audience, it’s time to engage with them. You do this by creating the content they value. This doesn’t mean promotions. Don’t scare your audience off by bombarding them with promos.

Instead, provide a combination of curated content and your original content. The key is to provide your audience with value. The key with social media isn’t to gain another sale (that will come naturally); it’s to provide value so your audience wants to share with their audience. The idea is to keep this ball rolling, so you get a larger audience, and then naturally make more sales.

Create Facebook Groups

If your audience is on Facebook, consider Facebook Groups. There is something more intimate about the groups rather than just a page. This doesn’t mean ditch the standard Facebook page, you still need that, but invite select audience members to join your group for more interaction.

You’ll get your serious audience members in the group, which gives you easier access to them. Again, you’re not actively trying to sell them something. You want to create a relationship so they look to you when they need your product or service.

Be Authentic

The bottom line is you must be authentic when looking for your target audience. Just targeting anyone and everyone is greedy and doesn’t have the right results. Sure, you may get a slew of sales right away, but they won’t last. People stick with companies that ‘get them’ and give them what they need that they aren’t getting elsewhere.

Pay close attention to your audience’s pain points and watch how they change. What they need today may not be the same thing they need tomorrow. Over the course of a few years, your audience may even change slightly, especially if you have a product that grows with people. If you target 20 somethings today, in 10 years, your advertising and social media posts may be better targeted toward 30 somethings.

Be flexible, stay aware, and always research your audience and their needs. Don’t put your guard down and assume you’ve got it covered. Just like Google algorithms change often, so do social media algorithms and needs. Stay in the loop and social media will work for you in ways no other marketing method offers.