Social Media and finding your Target Market
In this digital era, social media platform is where your target market (or target audience) at. However, there are a variety of social media platforms that are personalised towards different demographics. Hence, finding the right platform to represent your business is quite a challenge. However, proper research about your market and a basic understanding of how social media works will give you a solid pointer as to where you should look.
Social media platforms are, without a doubt, a very effective medium for businesses to represent themselves. Various statistical data and surveys can back up this statement. Asset Digital Communications has put together a neat article around all the interesting facts about social media and business you should care about.
So, let’s talk more about how you can choose the right social media platform and concentrate on finding your target market efficiently.
Understand your Target Market
It all begins with having a proper understanding of your target market. This starts with understanding what kind of business you are running and the kind of industry you are in. This will help you define the right audience for your business. The clearer it is, the better. Once you define your audience, you can get a basic idea as to where you can find such people. For example, if you are a B2B business, It is obvious that you will be finding your target market on a professional social media platform.
Research is the key to finding you target market thoroughly. This will make it easy for you to define which social media platform would be effective for your business.
Define your Goals – Plan a Strategy
Of course, identify the right target audience is just the first step – and probably the easiest one. If you are planning to create and maintain your social media presence, you will need a good strategy. Start by defining your goals for your target market. Understand how you can appeal to your audience, how you can deliver better customer service for them. You can define goals such as – improve your brand recognition and engagement, drive traffic to your website, improve sales and/or conversion rate, and so on.
A plan will help you with defining your social media precisely, which leaves little room for inconsistencies. Providing useful content for your target audience, connected and resolving their queries and grievances are some ways to attract more traffic to your social media.
Defining and acting on your goals and strategies shows that you are taking your business seriously. This will attract more customers to your business as the presence grows.
Understand the right Social Media Platform for your Target Market
So, you have defined your audience and your goals. Now, it is finally time to find the right social media platform that has a huge potential target userbase. Each and every platform out there, even if it seems like it is open for everyone, has a dominant demographic group. Understand what kind of audience you have and research your target audience’s needs and wants. Each social media platform has some particular traits and so does the userbase. The right knowledge will give you the advantage to influence more and more from your target market.
Each social media platform has its own uniqueness. Research and understand a variety of social platforms that are out there and choose the one that suits your business and has an audience.
Related: Small Businesses and Social Media | Is it really effective?
Best Social Media platforms to find your Target Market in South Africa
1. WhatsApp
WhatsApp is a widely popular mobile messaging app all over the world and is on #1 ranking in South Africa according to Statista. Originally built as a messaging app for family and friends, WhatsApp soon started allowing businesses to make their business accounts.
The majority of the business in South Africa is done through WhatsApp. This is especially great and very cost-effective (practically no costs involved) for small businesses. To get started on WhatsApp, all you need is a business account and you are good to go. For small businesses, you can simply download the WhatsApp Business app and register yourself. For medium and larger businesses, you can get a WhatsApp Business API.
2. Facebook
Facebook (and Facebook Messenger) is the second most popular and most used social media platform in South Africa according to Statista. Also, it is the world’s most popular social media platform with a user count exceeding 2.30 billion.
Facebook is where the young audience hangs out the most. It is an informal place for family and friends, and a great place for businesses with a young target market. If your business has a young target market, then Facebook ads will be really effective for you. The platform has a very intuitive and constantly evolving ad algorithm that is on par with Google’s ad algorithm. With a separate business suit with a variety of tools, you can easily define your target audience, set up, and launch ad campaigns at ease – all this at an affordable price.
3. Instagram
Instagram is an image and video dominant social media platform. If you must choose this platform, allow yourself to be creative with the images and videos. This social media platform is especially famous amongst those who use visual forms of multimedia to express themselves.
How to understand whether this platform is right for you? The audience at Instagram expects and loves creativity. Such content takes no time to go viral on Instagram. This is a great platform if your business is into selling creative or trendy products. And that also means that you will majorly find your target market here.
Instagram is owned by Facebook, and so is their marketing platform. That means you get all the benefits of Facebook advertising here as well.
4. Twitter
Twitter is where the trends are set; and where small businesses get more recognition than any other platform. Twitter is social media site for news and trends, politics, sports, and more. It puts a huge emphasis on real-time information.
Another unique characteristic of Twitter is you have limited characters for expressing yourself. The normal limit is 280 characters per tweet, however, it is 140 if the tweet is in Chinese, Japanese, or Korean.
Twitter is famous for small businesses, where small businesses get supported the most. It is where a business can set the trend and go famous too. This platform is often observed to be effective for customer support related questions and resolutions. They also have customer service-oriented tools, which can enhance the overall customer service experience for both businesses and customers.
Twitter is not as famous as the social media platforms mentioned above, but all sorts of people hang out on Twitter, making it an excellent platform to find your target market.
5. LinkedIn
LinkedIn is a corporate social media platform where people are often looking for a job, or offering a job. Given its corporate and formal nature, LinkedIn makes one of the best platforms for B2B businesses out there. LinkedIn is where businesses find employees or employers. If you are in a recruitment or HR business, this site is the most ideal social media platform out there.
LinkedIn also has an intuitive advertising platform that works similarly to other advertising platforms. You can boost your content, personalize your ads for inbox advertising, or display ads in the feed or on the sidebar.
Conclusion
Social media is a powerful medium for businesses to find their target market. Research about your target demographic and various social media channels. This will help you in finding your target market effectively. Leverage social media to promote your business, improve brand recognition, provide excellent customer service, and more. Just make sure you understand the type of social media market you are in and represent yourself accordingly.
Digital Lime Green can help you with managing your social media account effectively and at affordable costs. We are a website design and digital marketing agency in Cape Town, South Africa. Please feel free to connect with us today to know more about our services. If you just need to know about our social media management package, please click here instead.
We wish you all the luck in the world for your business!