Instagram has grown from just being a social platform widely known for its amazing pictures and videos. It is now an area where businesses can tell and engage individuals on their products. Most big businesses already understand the ways they can get to the right audience for their market.
As a start-up brand or business new to the marketing world, choosing the right audience to sell your innovations or products can be challenging. A good understanding of your target audience on Instagram is a crucial aspect of a successful marketing strategy. Hence you must discover how to locate your target audience and learn the best targeting strategy you can use to get to them. And with this knowledge, you can also produce efficient Instagram adverts.
If done correctly, Instagram ads can increase your brand’s popularity, bring traffic to your page, create sales, and keep your audience engaged. Achieving all these will be easy if you know the guidelines to follow.
Get some insights into your competitor’s audience.
One can learn a great deal about their target audience just by looking at the competitor’s own. As you know, competition is integral in any industry. And Instagram competition is no exception.
Take a look at what type of followers they have and the kind of content they post to keep their followers active. The information can help you focus more on areas of your marketing that you might be missing. Besides, you will get some initiative on how your Instagram target audience should look.
To help with the competitor research, you can use popular analyst tools like Phalanx and Social Blade. You can discover crucial data like follower location, number of active followers, and engagement rate. Also, you could try following your competitor’s Instagram profile. Following them will immensely increase your research scope and profit from how they relate to their audience.
Make use of existing data.
Existing data from your Instagram analytics tool can tell you a lot about the type of audience that visits your page the most. Depending on the type of analytics tool you are using. There should be a section where you can see statistics about your existing followers, statistics such as their gender, location, and age range.
For instance, if you operate a cosmetics brand on Instagram. And your analytics tells you that most of your followers are females between the ages of 18-24. Your next posts, ads, and content should centre on the female teen audience. Combining this data with your buyer persona and the research information on your competitors’ audience should be able to give you a clear view of your Instagram target audience.
Take note of what you are selling and which type of audience would love the product the most.
An integral factor to consider when identifying your target audience. The form of products or services your business offers tells a lot about the type of customers or viewers you get regularly.
In every form of business, there are different types of audiences unique to each of them. Like in the Sports industry, it is well-known to have most of its audience consists of males. If you can learn the type of your brand belongs. Identifying the right audience for your brand won’t be difficult.
Listen or start social conversations that relate to your brand or business.
You can learn and understand a lot about your Instagram target audience through social listening. With an adequate understanding of the audience, you will know how to engage them properly. Just like any other popular social platform, Instagram is always bustling with chatters 24/7 with different topics and content shared all the time. So why can’t you listen or start some social conversations?
Social listening can give you an idea of what your target audience is talking about, their views and opinions, and the influencers driving those conversations. Utilizing social media listening tools would help you find precise topics that are trending in your industry on Instagram.
If done well, you can develop a good relationship with these influencers who can help augment and convene your brand message.
Don’t be afraid to make use of Instagram Polls.
With Instagram polls, you can post and ask significant questions. These questions will help improve your research on the audience and understand them better. Ask them questions like what type of content they prefer, what they should expect from you, and the best way to keep them engaged.
Also, you could create polls that solicit answers to specific questions. These are questions that inquire about their hobbies, likes and dislikes, and areas of interest. It will help in creating a more refined result. If the results/answers obtained aren’t favourable for your brand, you can quickly question another set of audiences in your industry.
Make appropriate use of the search bar.
Even though it isn’t as efficient as a search engine, the Instagram search bar is very resourceful. The search bar is powerful enough to find individuals and industries available on the platform. All that is needed is just their profile username, business name, or hashtags.
Discover new accounts and audiences when you type in your industry keywords into the search bar. Once you have found people you are ready to work with, you can follow and talk to them through private messages.
For this method to be more productive, you will need to learn the hashtags and keywords that are the most relevant to your industry.
Points to note;
- Ensure you make use of accounts that differ from your brand’s profile to follow your competitors.
- Creating a buyer persona will help you greatly in your marketing.
- Make use of useful social media research tools if you want to obtain accurate results and data.
- Making adequate research on your brand’s industry and its audience will go a long way in defining your brand own.
So now that you know how to select the right target audience on Instagram, converting them into buyers is the next step.
