Social Media Marketing Success Series Part 3: Define Your Target and Measure Their Participation

Here we go… Part 1, How to Measure Success in Your Social Media Marketing, and Part 2, Success in Social Media: Defining Your Business Goals and Observing… today we’re going to cover the next step in successful social media marketing — clearly define your target audience and whether YOUR audience is actually participating in social media.  This is huge.  I know solo practice owners and small businesses that invest a ton of time and energy in social media with no return, only to discover later that their audience is not participating at a level that permits full engagement with them.  The entire point of social media marketing is not to simply be there to be there.  It’s all about finding YOUR audience (ideal clients).  Listen, just because your favorite online marketing guru is in social media, doesn’t mean your audience is.

Is Your Target Audience Really Participating in Social Media?

Once you’ve determined the feasibility and possibility of using social media marketing for your business or blog marketing, don’t you think it’s a good idea to know whether your audience is actually participating in social media.  Yes, it’s likely they are at some level - especially if you’re a blogger or marketing to solo practice owners, such as coaches, online entrepreneurs and the like.  But, know this — as much as social media seems to be totally mainstream — there are plenty of population segments that have not quite gotten it yet.

Yes, they could be lurking on Facebook or conversing with friends and family on Myspace, but active participation may not be what you think it is.  You see, online entrepreneurs often times develop a fish bowl view of the online world, assuming that if they get it, everyone gets it.  Chances are greater that they don’t.  Yes, social media usage is moving forward and yes, eventually your audience will likely be fully engaged… sometime in the future.

But, think about this.  Does their current participation warrant extensive investment in social media marketing… right now.  Or, are you better suited to build a presence that matches THEIR participation and go from there?  That’s the question and one that you NEED to answer before you jump in head first.  Remember, every activity you allocate resources to (time, money, whatever) — you’re losing an opportunity to do something else… something that could generate more return on investment.

How to Measure YOUR Audience’s Participation in Social Media

Remember, in our second part of this series, we talked about observing the social media scene to better understand the possibilities for your company.  You also need to do this and more to find out where your audience is actively participating in social media.  Here’s our advice:

• Solo practice owners and small businesses should tread slowly. Start out small and don’t over do it.  Social media can be overwhelming and it’s better to perfect the little things than half-*ss a whole bunch.  It’s all about the quality of participation NOT the quantity.  We recommend starting out with the more popular social media sites, like Facebook, where you can test and participate on a more intimate level with your audience.  You’ll soon find out where they are and where they are going.
• Do your research. There are plenty of companies that provide free and minimal-cost market research on the demographics of social media.  Just like with other forms of marketing, market research still applies with social media.  Don’t make assumptions - get into the hands of a so-called social media expert and it can get very expensive with little or no return.
• Integrate social media into your existing offline and online marketing activities. Don’t use social media as a replacement.  I know you’re hearing a lot about low-cost marketing with social media and emphasis is being placed on the down-turn in the economy — but social media is NOT a total marketing replacement.  It’s another tool in your arsenal that works with your entire marketing plan.  Besides, it may take some time for your audience to fully embrace it, educating them through that process will take time.

Online Resources for Research in Finding Your Audience

Your very own Google Analytics data.  Yep, this is a great tool in figuring out information about your audience.  Not necessarily leading up to specific demographics data, but you can tell alot about your audience if you get enough traffic.  For instance, what kind of browser are they using, what countries do most of your visitors come from.  This is a bit more advanced, but there are a ton of “backdoor” ways to get to “know” your audience enough to make better social media marketing decisions.

Quantcast.com is a great site to find out, with relatively good accuracy, the demographics of most social media sites.  Some sites actively participate in sharing their data, others are estimates — either way, you’ll get a good idea of what each site’s demographics are.  Plus, it’s totally free, ya gotta love that.

Microsoft’s AdCenter Labs declares itself as the “audience intelligence” predictor.  You can enter a search string (keywords) or a web address and get their take on the demographics of your search.

Chances are you’ll be at least taking a look at Facebook.  Did you know they publish their own demographics data for potential advertisers.  Hint, so do most companies.  (Here’s a list from WikiPedia for Social Networking Sites)  We suggest subscribing to popular social media site blogs or inquiring about advertising information - the information they provide is completely relevant to decision making in participating on their sites.

Make sure to check out the Compete blog and their site analytics tools.  You can compare sites and more.  Excellent information can be gained from Compete on so many levels.

TrendPedia (Beta) is a great tool for researching keywords and other information across the social media and blogosphere — you can even compare terms in your search.

RapLeaf is a great place, occassionally through press releases (free), to get great social media demographics information and if you can afford it, they offer excellent products and services to get down to the nitty gritty of the data your looking for.

Comscore offers high level services and information by industry.  However, subscribing to their blog covers more than just demographics for social media, but much more that may apply to your audience.

Other Online Resources About Finding Your Audience in Social Media

New Media, New Influencers, and Implications for Public Relationship report from the Society for New Communications Research is a great report to review.  By-pass the technical statistics and you’ll definitely see some trends here.

Forrester’s new SocialTechnographics Report shared by Groundswell, gets you started in understanding how consumers (potentially your audience) looks at social technologies and more.  While you’re there, subscribe.  Groundswell is a super, duper place to get an excellent understanding of social media.

Net Squared shared some great places to get social media audience demographics information and more.  They’ve listed many and more of what’s been highlighted here.  You also definitely want to subscribe.

Mashable has a great post about how to find social media statistics.  Again, many and more of what we’ve listed here and use daily for our clients.  Great stuff.

What it comes down to…

Know your audience, know as much about them as possible.  Know what they are doing online and how that applies to your social media plans.  And, don’t expect the data to stare you in the face and point fingers in the right direction.  It’s going to take time and it’s better to invest the time wisely now, than to regret the investment later in a strategy that doesn’t bring the best returns for your investment.

Photo Credit:

Han S on Flickr

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• Success in Social Media: Defining Your Business Goals and Observing
• NLP Master Ron Hudson Interviewed for the Marketing Masters
• Doing Social Media Marketing Right with Nancy Marmolejo
• Social Networking Taken to the Next Profitable Level
• Beyond Social Networking to Profitable Community Empire