Develop Your Social Focus: How to Determine Your Audience, Platforms, and Content
Updated: Oct 4, 2022
Play to Your Strengths! Focus on what you have to give to your audience. You can’t please everyone, so pick your content based on a target audience. Next, you need to determine where your audience is spending their time? Do they mostly use Instagram, Facebook, or something else? Getting started on social requires some strategy to determine the best way to invest in your online presence.
Determine Your Audience: Use the Insights Tab & Monitor High Performing Content:
Facebook and Instagram have great systems for reporting how well your content is performing. Be sure to review your insights tab occasionally to monitor which content does the best. Continue to post the high performers, but keep in mind that business content never performs as well as personal posts.
Our suggestion would be to post a personal picture, and ride that wave of engagement, and follow it up with a business post. By doing this, the people who interacted with your first post will now see your business content as well. Social media’s algorithms are searching for relevant content for their users, so the more your audience engages with your content, the more it will appear in their newsfeed.
For a deeper dive into your audience, check out Social Media Examiner’s article, How to Research and Locate Your Audience Using Social Media.
Choose Your Platform:
Where does your audience spend their time? Depending on your target audience, this answer can vary. Social media platforms gain popularity with different demographics over time. For example, for a business, you must be on Facebook and Google Business because most adults are using this platform. For example, if you’re a realtor, you should focus on the platforms that eligible homebuyers would be using. Don’t feel like you need to get on every new, popular social network. Take the time to research the platforms and evaluate if it is worth your time to invest in establishing a presence on that platform. You don’t have to be on every platform, but be on the ones that count for your business. To get an excellent overview of each platform’s demographics, read Sprout Social’s article, Social media demographics to inform your brand’s strategy in 2020.
Content Strategy:
The content you produce should be of high quality and serve a functional purpose. Less can be more, make sure that the content provides value to your audience. Pick a posting schedule that you can stick to consistently. Keep your audience in mind, and provide the content that you see people taking action on. We suggest using the Rule of Thirds to break your content up into manageable chunks that will not overwhelm your audience. Consistency is critical, so always stay in line with your Unique Value Proposition, and align your message with your brand’s goals.
Don’t let social media overwhelm you! Focus on what you can do well and stick with that! You do not need to be an expert on every platform, but your target audience needs to find you easily. Start focusing on improving your SEO and maintaining a robust online presence.