The 5 Ws of Content Generation: Who

In 2017, 81% of the population in the United States had some kind of social media account compared to 24% in 2008. It is hard to ignore the power of social media marketing when there are roughly 2.34 billion social media users worldwide and it is expected to grow to 2.95 billion by 2020. Since social media is busy, learning how to captivate the attention of your audience and producing shareable content is key. Over the next 5 weeks, we will dive into the Who, Why, What, Where and When of content generation to directly reach those interested in your product and ultimately put more money in your pocket.

W #1: WHO-

When coming up with ideas to share on your social media platforms, I believe that the first step should be determining who is your target audience. A target or market audience is a group of people that are most likely to be interested in your product or services. For example, if you own a lawn care business, you would most likely target home or business owners in your marketing plan. Think about the specific needs your products or services fulfill. Defining this group will greatly vary depending on your products or services and where you choose to offer them.

Here are some questions to ponder:

What age group do your services cater to? As people mature, so do their likes and dislikes. The entertainment industry specializes in using age to determine a target audience. They choose certain programs to show at certain times, depending on who is most likely to watch. Similarly, the toy industries advertise their products during Saturday morning cartoons. Why? Because their target audience is watching.

Where does it make sense to market your services? For example, Subaru brand of cars does very well in Colorado. They capitalize on marketing their safety and ability to perform well in snowy and icy conditions – which there are a lot of in the Rocky Mountains. When using the influence of geography in your market research, make sure that your product will appeal to many different types of consumers and is not too specific. A car is something that is attainable for anyone that has a license, which is a large group that also encompasses other marketing demographics.

Do you believe your product caters to a specific gender? For example, the makeup industry markets almost entirely to females. Make sure you do your research before marketing using only this approach because you can alienate an entire gender group lessening the chance they will buy your product.

All these strategies will work well by themselves, but what you really want to do is combine them to create a comprehensive target market profile. For example, the beer industry has determined that most of the beer drinkers are heterosexual males, who are also sports fans. So, they use attractive women to market their beer during sporting events. It seems catty, but it works. Once you figure out who you are marketing to, the content will quickly follow. Tune in next week to understand why consumers share information on social media, and how to capitalize on it.

Be sure to remember the essentials of an effective social media strategy. You can visit our past blog post on the topic here .

Sincerely,

The Maiden

www.socialmediamaiden.com/content-generation-who/