Defining your target audience for today and tomorrow.
Unless you’ve been living under a rock, there isn’t any need to point out that social media is an essential part of every business. But do you realise just how important?
The latest figures are staggering:
- More than half of the world, that’s 4.76 billion people, now uses social media (59%)
- 137 million new users have come online within the last 12 months.
- The average daily time spent using social media is 2h 31m.
- 55% of consumers learn about new brands on social media.
Looking at future forecasts this trajectory shows no sign of slowing down.
Fortunately, the majority of businesses now see socials as a vehicle for business growth which is why 91% of executives will increase social media marketing budgets in the next 3 years.
These budgets aren’t just increasing slightly, they’re getting a major bump.
Over half of the executives surveyed (sproutsocial) anticipate that their social marketing budgets will increase by over 50% by 2024.
Think of it like this: If you have a car but don’t put petrol in it, it won’t take you anywhere.
Businesses won’t necessarily see a return on their social investments overnight. But if you plant the seeds now, nurture your strategy with data and give your social team the tools to harvest the fruits of their labor, you can reap long-term dividends.
How do you know where to plant the seeds?
By identifying your audience. A targeted audience on social media is a group of people defined by specific behaviors and demographics. Brands offer content curated to their audience’s needs, and in turn, individuals feel more connected to the brand.
To determine your target audience, you must spend time analysing the data you receive from consumer engagements, evaluating current buyers and purchase trends and optimising as new information is revealed.
Then you need to find out where your audience hangs out online and narrow that audience down into unique groups. This allows you to provide the most relevant content possible and connect with the people who want to know what you have to offer.
You have to grow with your audience.
Social media’s popularity among today’s kids will have an enormous impact on tomorrow’s consumers’ interests, expectations, and ultimately what will make them tick.
Gen Alpha will likely place more importance on the creative and audio aspects of campaigns and expect highly relevant content that resonates with them.
According to TikTok, close to 7 in 10 users say they remember the brand better if it features a song they like in the video. It’s also likely they won’t have the patience to go through an ad the same way their parents are used to doing on traditional TV.
As Forbes put it, “The fact that TikTok measures each user’s behavior every few seconds and tracks exponentially more content than any other platform, makes the algorithm better and better at serving up what users will like”.
For a brand, living up to this standard won’t be an easy feat, but THE FEED are already focused in on this.
We crunch the numbers, follow the feeds and root ourselves in the subcultures so we can provide our partners with the winning formulas for years to come.
