[ad_1]
It didn't take long for Instagram's effectiveness in advertising, marketing, and sales to kick in. Many companies are now using the platform to entertain an audience and interact with individuals about their products or services.
But as a brand or business new to Instagram marketing, choosing the right audience to sell your products can be difficult. Even professionals often run into the hurdle of finding and engaging a suitable audience.
It all starts with a good understanding of your target audience. It's a crucial aspect of any successful marketing strategy, not just on Instagram.
The idea is to learn how to locate your target audience and the best targeting strategy you can use to reach them. With this knowledge, you can also create high converting Instagram ads.
If done correctly, Instagram ads can increase your brand's popularity, drive traffic to your page, create sales, and retain your audience. Doing all of this will be easy if you know the guidelines to follow.
Note: This is an update to our blog post 2019 – Rock-solid Ways to Reach Your Target Audience on Instagram.
Get insights into your competitors' audience
You can learn a lot about your target audience just by looking at your competition's market share. As you know, competition is an integral part of any industry. And there are no exceptions on this platform.
Take a look at the type of followers they have and the type of content they post to keep their followers active. This information can help you focus more on areas of your marketing that you might be missing. Also, you will get some initiative on how your Instagram target audience should look like.
To help you find your competitors, you can use popular analysis tools like Phlanx and Social Blade. You can discover crucial data like location of followers, number of active followers, and engagement rates.
To add, you can try following your competitor's Instagram profile. Following them will increase your search scope tremendously and benefit the way they relate to their audience.
Use your existing GI data
Existing data from the Instagram analytics tool can tell you a lot about the type of people who visit your page the most.
Depending on the type of analytics tool you are using, there should be a section where you can find statistics on your existing subscribers. Things like their gender, location, and age range.
For example, let's say you operate a cosmetics brand on Instagram and the analysis tells you that most of your followers are women between the ages of 18 and 24. Your future posts, advertisements and content should be focused on young female audiences.
By combining this data with your buyer personality and the audience research information of your competitors, you should be able to have a clear view of your target Instagram audience.
What are you selling? What group of people would like it?
Obviously, your offering – whether it is a product, a service, or a combination of the two – is a critical factor to consider when identifying your target audience. The type of products or services your business offers says a lot about the type of customers and viewers you should be trying to attract.
There are different types of audiences in any form of business, unique to each one. Take, for example, the sports industry. It is well known that most of the audience is made up of men. If you can rank your brand and its offerings correctly, identifying the right audience on Instagram shouldn't be difficult.
Join or start social conversations related to your brand and industry
You can collect a lot of information about your Instagram target audience through social listening. Once you understand what your potential and existing customers are thinking, it will be easy for you to target and engage them.
Like any other popular social platform, Instagram is always full of 24/7 chatters. There are different topics and content being shared all the time, so why shouldn't you be listening or starting social conversations?
Social listening can give you an idea of what your target audience is talking about, their views and opinions, and the influencers leading those conversations. Using social media listening tools can simplify the process, helping you find specific topics that are hot in your industry, on the platform.
If executed correctly, you can develop a good relationship with influencers who can help increase and convene your brand's message.
Don't be afraid to use Instagram polls and other interactive activities
With Instagram polls, you can post and ask important questions. These questions will help you improve your audience research and better understand it.
Ask them about what type of content they prefer, what to expect from you, and the best ways to keep them engaged. You can also create polls that solicit answers to specific questions. These are questions that ask about their hobbies, likes and dislikes, and interests. This will help create a more refined result, overall.
And if the answers you get are not favorable to your brand, you can quickly interview another group of people in your industry.
Make proper use of the search bar
While not as efficient as a search engine, the Instagram search bar is very neat. It is powerful enough to find individuals and industries available on the platform. All you need is just their profile username, company name, or hashtags.
Discover new accounts and audiences when you enter keywords for your industry in the search bar. Once you have a list of people you're ready to work with, you can chat with them privately.
For this method to be more productive, you need to learn the hashtags and keywords that are most relevant to your niche.
More points to note
-
Use accounts that are different from your brand profile to track your competition
-
Constantly create and refine your buyer persona; this will make immense help to all your marketing efforts
-
Use the right social media research tools to get accurate results and data
-
Perform adequate research on your niche (s) and your industry; matching audiences will go a long way in defining your brand's target audience
So now that you know how to select the right target audience on Instagram, converting to buyers is the next step. Here's a quick guide to growing your Instagram audience.
[ad_2]