Meet Angela. She has hundreds of likes on every selfie she posts on LinkedIn but her revenue from the platform is $0.
She wonders why nobody buys from her or makes inquiries about her product. Success stories on LinkedIn also intimidate her.
Angela’s story is similar to most people on social media. And one of the major causes of this frustrating situation is targeting the wrong audience. Building a solid social media presence is already tough enough for you to be reaching the wrong eyes.
This guide applies to you regardless of your social network, whether LinkedIn, Facebook, TikTok or Instagram. Here, I’ll detail how you can find your target audience for effective social selling.
What is a target audience?
A target audience is a group of people with specific behavioral patterns and characteristics with a high likelihood of purchasing your product. You can segment your target audience by location, gender, age, employment, interests, income, education, marital status and other characteristics.
Using these demographics will help you get a clearer picture of who you’re targeting and also help you structure your offering to suit their needs. Instead of building aimlessly, a target audience helps you streamline your effort to those who truly need it.
Why should you define your target audience?
You have no business selling to everybody, even on social media, where there’s a level ground for all. Your aim is to drive sales and not win a popularity contest. If popularity comes with it, that’s a great addition, but you must keep your eyes on the dollars because you’re running a business.
Katelyn Bourgoin, in a LinkedIn post says growing followers may be a good ego boost and it won’t feed your family. Instead, she advices you to build an audience of future buyers to boost success.
Targeting a specific audience will save you trouble and money because you’ll tailor all your social selling skills toward those who fit your ideal client profile. Also, having a targeted audience will help you create suitable content that will spark their interest and help them solve their everyday problems.
7 steps to defining your target audience on social media to drive sales
The biggest challenge with social selling is that people don’t have the patience or time to do it right. It is not an overnight success. It takes work but that work pays off tenfold when you do it right. – Mandy McEwen, CEO Luminetics.io
“Just start” is not the right advice to sell on social media. Before you start building rapport and engaging, ensure you find your target audience so your efforts can properly position you to close sales. Here are some steps to follow:
Know the problems you solve
Every business worth its weight in dollars has specific problems it solves for its target audience. If you’re working in the sales department, you should make inquiries from your marketing team to fully understand the problems you tackle.
This way, you can explicitly address these problems and interact with your target audience to build authentic relationships.
For example, Ojehs. helps SMEs leverage industry-leading marketing strategies executed by a dedicated marketing team.
This singular focus determines the trajectory of our social selling capabilities to close more new clients.
Identify your ideal audience
Target audience research is unarguably one of the most crucial aspects of finding your target audience on social media. If your business already has buyer personas, you can rely on that information to identify who you should be reaching out to on social media.
Answer these questions to determine your ideal audience:
- Who are they?
- What do they do?
- Why do they buy?
- When do they buy?
- What motivates them to buy?
- What do they expect from your service?
For example, if you’re selling a B2B marketing tool, your target audience could be CMOs, CEOs, content marketers and CFOs who might be key decision-makers in assigning budgets. Identifying your ideal audience will help you know how to present your offer on social media and reach even the busiest clients.
Research your current audience
If you already have a social media account you’ve been using, you need to research your current audience. Your ideal audience is not your friends, family or loved ones, and if those are the people you’re reaching on social media, you might never make a dime. Although they wish you well and support you, they are unlikely to use your services.
Create a survey or an interesting offer for your current audience to extract the necessary data from your current audience so you can determine the effectiveness of your previous social selling efforts. Remember, your offer must be enticing enough for them to drop their information.
Interpret your research results
After gathering the necessary results, segment them by location, age, industry, gender and other demographics to understand your current audience later. Once you’re done, compare the research results with the goals you’ve set for yourself on social media to see if you’re on track.
If not, redirect your efforts toward your ideal audience and start building from scratch. Sometimes, you’ll have to stop following certain people who don’t fit into your ideal audience, especially when they hardly engage with your content.
Sparktoro offers insights into websites, podcasts, and even social media accounts for quickening your audience research process.
Find the right social listening tools
Social listening tools are great for placing your ears on the ground to hear what interests your target audience. This way, you can find what works while selling on social media to double down your efforts on what resonates with them.
The fastest way to gain insights about your audience is to leverage the social media analytics that comes with platforms like LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram and TikTok. However, if you want more advanced insights, you can use a tool like Sprout Social, Hootsuite or Buffer. Using Google Analytics is another way to gain insights.
Tailor content to your target audience
The people making the most money online are not necessarily the people with the most followers. It is the people who have a defined specific audience, understand the problems the audience faces and are good at making content that fully communicates how their paid solutions solve the problems of that target audience. – Thomas Strider, Business Coach
Selling effectively on social media requires a content strategy tailored to the specific audience. If not, you’ll attract those uninterested in your products or services, and these people will never pay.
Social listening tools will help you reach your target audience faster by hanging out in the spaces that truly interest them. You can even adopt an ideal tone of voice that’s already working and incorporate your target audience’s language into your selling efforts on social media.
Talking about the everyday challenges of your audience and providing resources to help them solve these problems is also an effective way to connect on social media.
Conclusion
Being super specific about those you’ll love to connect and interact with is crucial for every business to thrive. If you’re concerned about boosting sales, driving revenue, closing deals and even representing your company properly, you must streamline your sales efforts to your ideal client.
Effective social selling is not always in a massive following; it is about the number of people eager to pay for your products or services based on your social proof. Show the right people your results and quicken your process of gaining new leads.