Whistling up a social media audience
When it comes to finding a social media audience, let’s go to the movies.
Although it’s true that film has had to find an audience since 1895 when the Lumiere brothers went out to the back shed and knocked together the first movie camera, there’s a simpler reason why there’s a lesson from cinema about social media. When it comes to social media audiences, movies have something to say.
Put your lips together and blow
Remember the movie Wall Street when Michael Douglas’s character Gordon Gekko crowed to a large business audience that, "Greed, for lack of a better word, is good." To know why that doesn’t work for social media, first check out the movie To Have and Have Not.
In particular, sit back and enjoy the bit where Lauren Bacall’s character, Slim turns to Humphrey Bogart’s character, Steve saying, with a tone that in some circles is almost a sin, “You know how to whistle, don't you, Steve? You just put your lips together and blow.” Now here’s the rub. When it comes to social media greed isn’t good. You don’t want everybody in your audience.
Lauren Bacall
As for Becall and Boghart, well that brilliant line isn’t for everyone. It’s clearly targeting a particular audience, it's intimate, direct and delivers a clear message. Alright, it’s a bit wrong in a modern wold, but unlike the Gekko monologue, it’s short, yet it talks to every audience member on a very individual level. In that sense, it secures a target, finds its range and hits quite directly.
Getting to know your audience
Just like no movie, ever has found a universal audience, social media also targets audiences. Here’s a good working definition of what a target audience is from Christina Newberry of Hootsuite.
Gordon Gekko - Greed is good or is it?
Image source: https://www.pophistorydig.com/topics/tag/gordon-gekko-speech/
Christina makes it simple saying that your social media target audience is simply and specifically the “group of people you want to reach with your social channels.”
She says that target are the ones most likely to find your content, products or services interesting. Better still, they’re important because they have common characteristics and behaviours. That’ makes creating a two-way social media conversation with them all the more effective. It means, according to Newberry, targeting directly, accurately and with precision, means you are speaking with your potential customers.
Here are two important steps in finding your social media audiences.
Get data
Data is essential. You can start your data collection by looking at who your existing buyers are, whose following you and who reads your posts or watches your videos.
Take notice of their age, location, language, spending power and patterns, interests, challenges and life stages.
That making sure you’re watching social media analytics and other insight data like Facebook Audience Insights as well as collecting data through your own customer data base.
The value of social media data is significant as it informs the development and helps cultivate customer relationships. That means data helps with content, customer services, building trust and developing products and services.
So important is social media analytics that PRNewswire says that the social media analytics market size is expected to hit a growth rate of around 25 % by 2024 into an almost $10b US market from being around a third of that size as recently as 2019.
Use social listening more than just brand gossip
More than just gossip, Social listening uncovers conversations about your brand, business, industry, product, or similar products and services.
The trick here is to monitor relevant keywords and hashtags. The upshot is, that monitoring uncovers what conversations are happening about you and your competitors.
Reaching out in response to these social posts is a great way to find your target audience on social media, even if they’re not yet following you.
Some of the best social listening tools are:-
HubSpot Social Media Management Software
Sprout Social
Falcon.io
Do you want more on how to find a social media audience?
How do you check out the competition – any tips?
