Every entrepreneur knows by now what social media is and how important it is to your business. But how do you use social media to appeal to your target audience? If you use social media as a marketing tool, you need to be able to look at yourself critically. Think carefully about how you approach it, because it requires quite a time investment.
Research by research firm Newcom Research shows the following trends are emerging in 2018. Instagram is growing rapidly among all age groups (4.1 million users). This growth is greatest among young people up to age 19. 73% of them use Instagram. In the 20-39 age group it is 46% and for the 40-64 age group it is 22%. Among those over 65, 9% use Instagram. The interest in Facebook has declined among young people, but still has a strong position in the age category 20 and older. Especially young people up to 19 years old are increasingly abandoning Facebook. YouTube is still big, but not as big as WhatsApp.
Persona
If you decide to use social media, mapping your target audience is mega important. How do you know what social media your target audience is active on. To map your target audience, it is useful to imagine a persona, or ideal customer. A persona is a very detailed description of a user of your product or service. Create a fictional person and give them characteristics, interests and geographic data. For example, use information from Google Analytics to see what characteristics your website visitors have. You can also assign these to the persona. In this way, you gain in-depth knowledge about your target audience and you can better empathize with your audience. Based on the demographic characteristics, you can start reaching the target group on social media.
An example of a persona for Monkey Vision: Emilio is 22 years old, lives in Remote and has completed his HBO degree in Event Management. He prefers to arrange everything online such as ordering his clothes and is on social media every day. He works part-time at an event agency where he also did an internship. Ideally, he would like to see his own business in the future where he can organize his own events. Lately he has been doing some information on this via the Internet. Furthermore, he likes going out with his friends and gaming.
Interaction on social media
It is important to stop using social media as a one-way channel. Social media is a perfect way to create more engagement by engaging with your target audience. That way, (potential) customers get to see a positive image of your company. If your company is actively engaged, this ensures that your followers will continue to follow you, and be interested in the messages you post. So use social media to start the conversation. Find out what is going on in your target audience and try to respond accordingly. However, don't bombard your followers flat with your posts. In this case, quality is more important than quantity. Also think about when you publish your posts.
Want to know the best time for a social post? Then read our Tip of the Week - Best time for a social post.
Tone of voice
Think carefully about what tone of voice you use on social media. The conversational human voice, or human tone, seems to have the best effect on customer relations. It is a friendly, informal style of communicating online. Bringing out a human tone in your message can help give you more engagement and a better reputation. So it's not helpful to address your target audience with jargon or managerial language now that everyone on social media is already used to communicating in an informal tone.
Social media promotions
A win campaign can help you reach your target audience. Just make sure the message conveys enthusiasm rather than irritation. There are so many like, share and win actions nowadays. The promotion should be clear and simple. Choose relevant prizes. By researching the interests of your target audience, you know what is on their minds. Couple that information with your product or service so choose a prize.
Afterwards, highlight the winner and send all participants an e-mail with the outcome of the action. The data you collected during the contest can be put to good use. Use them for a newsletter or a retargeting campaign, for example.
Want to know which ads on Facebook you can best use to reach your target group. Read our Tip of the Week - Advertising on Facebook.
Visuele content en variatie
A popular trend in social media is the use of visual content. To generate interaction, it is better to post images rather than long stories on Facebook, for example. Just make sure the visual content is relevant and attractive. Think of product photos, infographics or, for example, team photos.
Read more about content creation in our blog Successful Online - Content.
Make sure you are varied in the content you post. If you keep posting the same thing over and over again, your target audience will get bored. Catch up on current events and ask questions of your followers. Be creative.
Reviews
Don't just use social media to push offers and promotions anymore. Social media is also incredibly important to amplify the voice of your customers. Customer reviews work mega well in social media and can convince a customer to buy a service or product.
