By David Hobbs
Social media is a handy tool for expanding your target audience. And if you wish to do that fast, then social media advertisements are the way to go. It appears that it is becoming increasingly difficult to achieve organic reach and increase your following. Therefore, it has become necessary to resort to new techniques and develop fresh tactics for targeting your social media audience.
However, unlike creating optimized content and just hoping for it to become viral, social media advertising involves real money. For that reason, everything must be done right. Businesses want to make sure that they get the best possible Return on Investment. This means that they need to target their social media audience the right way. And if they manage to do that, the results will follow.
What is social media audience targeting?
Audience targeting is exactly what it sounds like and resembles market segmentation. It involves segmenting the consumers according to their demographics or interests using the acquired data. The aim is to detect the right people on the right platform at the right time. Then, you will increase your chances to reach the consumers who are interested in your services or products. You will also be able to create the relevant message that you can then get across to them. Essentially, targeting your social media audience will significantly reduce the possibility of the money you have invested going down the drain.
Ride or die strategies for targeting your social media audience
Once you have acquired the necessary data to help you detect your target audience, you should focus on audience targeting strategies that have proved to give results.
Take advantage of retargeting features on Facebook
Facebook should still be your favorite platform for targeting your social media audience.
With almost 3 billion users, Facebook is still the number one social media platform for marketing activities. Moreover, its advanced targeting features continue to increase its popularity among marketing experts. Facebook allows marketers to target audiences based on their likes, dislikes, preferences, and other metrics. This enables businesses to reach the most relevant users. At the same time, users also see only the ads most likely to be attractive to them. It significantly increases the chances of conversion.
Besides that, Facebook allows you to implement retargeting marketing strategy. It provides you with insight into how your campaigns are performing. Based on that data regarding click-through rates, cost-per-click, and conversion rates, you can continue to optimize your ads so that they reach more audiences.
Use Google Ads’ In-Market Audience to expand your reach
This feature gives businesses an opportunity to target people searching for similar products or services to the ones they offer. Our web crawling history, browsing behavior, and keyword activity show what we’ve been interested in. The in-market audiences are people who are already searching, comparing, and possibly planning to buy. So, although these people have no direct interaction with your business, as they would have on social media, they demonstrate a high level of purchase intent. Thus, by creating an ad that would target their pain points, you can quickly convert these leads into buyers.
LinkedIn can be an excellent source of keywords
Social media platforms have excellent audience targeting capacities. Marketers can use these capacities and transfer them to search engines that don’t have the same features. For example, one of the efficient tactics for targeting your social media audience is translating job title targeting to keyword research. By looking at the profiles of people whose job titles you want to target, you can scrape the content you find there and create a list of keywords. This list can further help you develop a more prominent campaign.
Targeting your social media audience is done best by prioritizing SEO
Probably the best audience targeting strategy is organic SEO, and to apply it you must understand the basics of SEO. Once users search for the products or services you offer, you should be right there in front of them. Thus, the goal is to rank high for the specific terms relevant to your business. That way, you will target anyone who is actively looking for what you have to offer.
Whichever strategy you decide to implement, never disregard SEO.
As we have already mentioned, searching for particular products or services already suggests buying intent. That is something you should take advantage of. Targeting ads to suit certain demographic data simply means reaching potentially interested audiences and hoping to convert them sometime in the future. On the other hand, when people type in specific keywords, it already shows they are ready to buy.
Keep an eye on the new strategies
If there is anything we can always rely on, it’s that technology is continually and rapidly changing. While some tactics may be beneficial today, things can change tomorrow. So, always be on the lookout for new strategies that will help you expand your reach. For instance, voice search is a useful tactic. Therefore, to ensure you stay in the game, start posting audio and video content on your social media channels. When you introduce a new product or service, post a video explaining it in more detail, rather than writing blocks of text.
Pay attention to Generation Z
Those born in the late 90s and early 2000s are the first generations to live their whole lives with social media. They are more likely to be influenced by what they see on their social media channels and are reaching adulthood. Also, their buying power will only increase. So, appealing to this target group will do your business a world of good. Therefore, watch which social media platforms they have been using the most. Learn to use the type of language they use. To reach this group, you will probably have to switch from Facebook to Instagram or Snapchat. Pay close attention to where they go and monitor their behavior, as their importance will only continue to grow.
Always keep an eye on where new generations are going.
Conclusion
Tactics for targeting your social media audience are constantly evolving, and it’s essential to always stay in the loop and know the latest trends. One thing is for sure, the importance of social media in marketing is here to stay. Thus, it would be best to learn as time goes by and adapt to your target audiences’ changes in behaviors.
Author’s Bio:
David Hobbs is a programmer with a keen interest in digital marketing. His day job is working on the MoversTech CRM, but his paying hobby is content writing. His primary focus is on technology and the digital world. He plays the guitar and spends his free time composing music.
