In the early 2000s, the main goal of social media was to connect people, but recently, these platforms have evolved into some of the most powerful digital marketing tools for brands. The social media advertising market in Asia is projected to grow by 4.20% between 2024-2028 to $113.3bn in 2028, and with 76% of social media users saying they’ve purchased something they saw on social media, it stands to reason that these platforms can significantly boost your bottom line. By successfully utilising popular social media platforms such as TikTok, Facebook, X (née Twitter) and Instagram, you can grow your audiences, build brand awareness, increase visibility, foster your community, instil brand loyalty and even use it as another revenue stream for promoting key products and services. Social media can also help you gain a competitive advantage by establishing your brand as an expert in the field. So, in a world where first impressions increasingly matter, taking the time to cultivate a strong social media presence is a game changer that has the potential to level the playing fields between smaller and bigger brands.
But how do you go about finding your ideal audience? John Edmonds Kozma, CEO of Bang Productions, explains that although it might seem like an arduous task at first, it’s all about collecting data, analysing the data and using your findings to create content that meets the needs of your buyer personas, not the industry as a whole. “Through my experiences in the entertainment business, I met multiple types of people, giving me different insights into their sensibilities and how they live their lives. When I understood the entertainment business model, I was able to reverse-engineer some processes within the industry and started using content, eliminating unconscious bias, which is the juggernaut of the universe.” He continues, “Many industries, have lost sight of who their paying customers are. Instead of prioritising their audience, they focus only on pleasing the industry. I find this approach to be outdated and ineffective in finding or creating the perfect customer or fan. Instead, it's crucial to understand human behaviour.”
Establish your buyer persona
Understanding your target market is essential to building a robust social media presence, so you need to start by creating your social media buyer persona. Once you have this, you can leverage this information to identify qualified target customers on your social media platforms and prioritise prospects within your sales funnel. A buyer persona can also be key in helping you align your tone of voice, content themes and messaging across different channels. So, firstly you need to ascertain your ideal audience’s demographics (like gender, age, occupation, location, religion, ethnicity, income and education) and then identify their psychographics, (such as activities, interests and opinions).
Your ideal audience may have a range of people from different demographics, so it’s important to remember that each group may engage with social media platforms in a different way. For instance, research shows that Millennials (25- 34 years old) are the most reactive and responsive group online, and, in this demographic, men actually purchase more online than women do. Other age groups and genders may not be so eager to interact on social media, so you may need to tailor your strategies if you’re looking to engage with older audiences. And remember, the timing, quality and quantity of responses to social posts can be a great indicator of the effectiveness of the content and whether it resonates with your ideal audience.
Alongside information gathered from your customer relationship management (CRM) tools and Google Analytics, social media’s native audience insights tools can tell you a lot about your ideal audience. From these platforms, you can check your content’s reach, impressions, engagement rate, amplification rate, audience growth rate and even your net promoter score (NPS), which tells you who is likely to promote your content. These statistics all offer valuable insights into your audience’s psychographics, and what they like and don’t like. For example, are your social media users signing up to your email lists? Reading your blog posts, sharing your product giveaways with friends? Utilising this data can help you improve the success of your social media campaigns, bolster your brand’s reputation and ultimately increase your follower base and sales.
Encourage open, two-way conversations
Social media platforms are not just great tools for keeping in touch with friends and family, when used correctly, they can also be a great way to communicate and connect with your ideal audiences. The advent of social media has made it easier for brands to access direct, unfiltered feedback, and customers are increasingly expecting their favourite brands to be more responsive when it comes to getting back in touch with them on social media, whether that’s in the comment sections or direct messages. But instead of seeing this communication process as additional admin, see it as an opportunity to open two-way communications that will help you glean vital insight into your ideal audience and customer sentiment.
All successful brands have one thing in common when it comes to their marketing efforts: their communication is personable, relatable and above all – human. Audiences want authentic, human conversations with brands, not stilted, robotic chatbot scripts. One quick and easy way of making your messages more personable is by simply using the customer’s name in the replies. It’s also important to remember that the type of channel you’re using dictates how the message should be communicated. For instance, a reply to a tweet should be short, pithy and informative, as the word count is restricted. If it’s a direct message on Instagram you can give lengthier advice and add more of your brand’s personality. Jessica Wong, Founder of Valux Digital, also stresses, “Every social media interaction, whether it is a detailed reply to a complaint or a thank-you message following a favourable review, must serve to reinforce a positive brand image. And remember, any misstep is public and can be detrimental to the brand’s reputation.”
One brand that’s had great success with two-way communication across their social media platforms is action camera company, GoPro. Harnessing the power of social media, GoPro fosters a real sense of community by putting their ideal audiences front and centre across every communication touchpoint. They often run user-generated content campaigns, where the brand invites audiences to share their GoPro shots in branded hashtags, which automatically sparks positive conversations between customers and the brand. Alongside being very responsive to comments and direct messages, they also hold virtual events and webinars to share helpful tips and resources, which all aim to bolster that sense of belonging. Bernard May, CEO of National Positions says that this mutually beneficial exchange “has helped the brand create a solid, tight-knit community. The brand has been positioning itself as a camera for “creators,” and it is walking the walk via this built-in drive to share content.” Polling tools and incentivised feedback surveys are also a great way of sparking conversations with your engaged audiences.
Observe what your competitors are doing well, and do it better
As mentioned above, some companies are better at building communities than others, but this doesn’t mean it isn’t achievable. Aside from connecting with your customers, social media platforms are a great resource when comes to conducting a competitor analysis. Content marketers can learn a great deal about how to attract their ideal audiences from observing the social marketing campaigns of brands who have mastered the art and science behind it. Keeping a close eye on dominant brands in your industry will help you; identify gaps in your social media strategy; benchmark your social KPIs against the competition and even identify possible social threats to your brand. Some of the most important data points to consider when conducting your analysis are by taking a look at your competitor’s follower metrics, engagement, posting frequency and timing, content, sentiment and response times to customers. Once you’ve analysed this data, you should be able to identify emerging trends, patterns and correlations of what has worked well for the competitor, and what their problem areas are, and only then can you incorporate these findings into your own social media strategy.
Rebecca Kowalewicz, Vice President of Digital at Clearbridge Branding Agency, believes that “Using social media data for competitive analysis is a powerful approach to staying ahead in today's dynamic business environment. By systematically analysing the right social media metrics, you can draw valuable insights into your competitor's strategies, capitalise on their weaknesses and learn from their strengths. Remember, the key to competitive analysis is not to copy but to learn, adapt and innovate for your unique context and audience.”
So, there you have it… By analysing the content you make and taking a deeper dive into data insights from your social media platforms, you can gain invaluable information that can help you attract your ideal audience. If you take the time to systematically analyse how your followers are interacting with your brand on social media, you will start to see patterns and trends emerging and understand how your audiences are likely to respond in the future, which in turn, helps you to create content that’s inspiring, educational, entertaining and relatable to the ideal buyer persona you wish to attract. So do the hard work in establishing your buyer persona from the get-go, don’t be afraid to open two-way conversations with followers and always keep an eye on what your competitors are doing –as this all helps to turn average followers into dedicated fans and active advocates for your brand.