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Getting to Know your Social Media Audience

 

One of the most important steps even before you decide on starting a social media account for your nonprofit is identifying your social media audience. Let’s face it- in order to be successful on social media, you have to know your audience.

Imagine you’re playing a concert. You’re on stage, in front of hundreds of people, but you have no idea what kind of music they like. How do you decide what to play? If you knew what music they liked, and who some of their favorite bands were, you’d be much better prepared to adjust your set list for your audience. It’s the same with social media. In order to connect with your audience, you have to get to know them.

 

Step 1: Identifying your Nonprofit's Goals

What are you hoping social media will do for your organizing? Social media is more than just the number of followers; it’s a huge proponent in establishing a community of meaningful connections with real people who care about what you do. What a mouthful! But in all seriousness, don’t focus on just getting 100K followers; focus on relationships, engagement, and community.

Now that we’ve addressed that elephant, what is your objective for social media? Are you looking to acquire new sponsors or partners? Or maybe you want to retain the followers you have, and further connect with your current audience? Are you trying to build up your organization and gain wider exposure? Whatever the goal is, identify it and create your social media plan around achieving that goal. Otherwise, your organization may have no direction, and you won’t be using social media to its fullest.

 

Step 2: Identifying your Target Audience

After you’ve identified your nonprofit’s social media goals, the next step is to identify your target audience. Start with demographics first: What do they look like? How old are they? Where do they shop? What channels are they on? How do they absorb content? Once you have researched this data, you will begin to formulate a solid character of your target audience. One thing to note- identifying your current target audience, does not exclude you from expanding that audience in the future. 

 

Step 3: Identifying the Best Platform to Connect with your Audience

Once you’ve identified your audience demographics and trends, it’s time to look into what platforms they use. It’s equally important to identify the content you have, and find a happy marriage between where you audience spends their time, and what channel matches your content.

For example: Does your nonprofit have a ton of photos? Instagram and Facebook are a fantastic choice for you! Or maybe you have a lot of videos. Then consider starting a Youtube Channel. Use social media to boost your nonprofit’s strengths. I saw this Infogrpahic, and thought it did a terrific job of explaining the difference between each of the most popular social media channels. Take a look, and see if you can identify two or three channels that your organization immediately connects with:

 

 
  Via New Age Media  
     

 

Remember, goals first, audience second, and platform third. Have your goals set, your target market identified, and your tactics ready to go.

Check out my next post on Part 2: Measuring and Analyzing your Social Media Presence. We’ll be discussing the importance of analytics in social media, and listing free tools that help you measure and analyze your followers.

 

I hope you find this post useful!

 

All my love,

 

Blondie