An engaged audience is critical to a thriving influencer business. Think of it this way: your page isn’t just a stage for your performance; you’re also forming a community.
Defining your target audience helps you create content to not only attract your ideal followers but also serve their needs, therefore creating value that keeps them engaged. It’ll help you create a consistent theme for your page that quickly communicates your brand, making it easier for new visitors to decide whether to click that subscribe button or not.
Who are you reaching out to?
To define your target audience, think about who’d enjoy your content and who you’d like to interact with regularly. This community should be one you authentically fit in with and want to help.
For example, a food influencer specializing in a diverse, colorful variety of healthy dishes may set a broader category of “healthy food lovers.” That’s a lot of people spanning a wide range of demographics and psychographics!
Let’s zoom into groups within that category. If most of your dishes are quick to prepare, you should consider targeting “people who like healthy food but don’t have a lot of time to cook.”
Where are these people located? If your ingredients come from every corner of the world, your audience will generally be living in more multicultural, urban cities where they’re likely to have access to exotic ingredients.
If you’re looking to target an international audience, you might want to use easily accessible and common ingredients and write your captions in multiple languages. If you think a chunk of your audience may have particular food preferences such as being vegan, remember to create content tailored to their needs.
Now let's talk about the psychographics: Psychographics are the personal characteristics of your audience. They include the interests and challenges your community faces.
People who are interested in healthy eating are also typically interested in exercise and other ways to stay healthy, so occasionally posting a video of you doing 25 push-ups with a dog on your back won't be too off-brand. People interested in diverse entrees may be interested in the history behind them, so your kheer (Indian rice pudding) recipe could briefly summarize the ancient history behind the 1500-year-old dish.
You see how defining your audience can help you refine your content, inspire new content, and therefore help define your overall brand?
What do they want? How do they want it?
Now that you’ve defined your target audience (urban, cultured, healthy, and busy in this example), you need to understand them beyond your assumptions. Research to make sure you’ve got all the smaller details covered.
A great way to do so is through social listening. Look at accounts, both influencers, and brands, who seem to cater to similar audiences. What are they looking for that they aren’t getting from these accounts? What are their motivations and aspirations? What requests are they making, and what criticisms do they have? What are their pain points?
Seeing what delights your target audience and what irritates them will help you gain insight on creating valuable content.
Do you see how understanding your audience can help you build a strong and loyal community? You'll have a better understanding of how to refine your messages to best resonate with them without changing their initial meanings.
If you need any help with this, don't hesitate to reach out to us at info@irosesocial.com! We'll schedule a complimentary consultation to help you reach your social media business goals together and land the brand deals of your dreams!
Images by our in-house photographer Sharon
