Developing Your Avatar - How to Avoid the Brick Wall

Knowing who you're talking to online is imperative to genuine engagement. I'm currently reviewing my own audience and working on whether my content is working for them (and for you!)

Following on from my last post, I thought I'd look at this area a little more. We have looked at how to create your Avatar, Buying Persona or Customer Profile, but where can we find the details to support this research?

OK, this is where your analytics tools come in. Checking in regularly on the backend of your social channels is key to knowing your audience. I know when I started, my stats were showing me a slightly different demographic than my presumed audience. Without regular observations I would never have known who my true audience was!

1. For Facebook - do a weekly check of your Insights page. If you're starting out, concentrate on your Overview, Posts and People tabs. In each of these you'll be able to see when people are online, what posts are gaining most traction and who is enjoying your content

2. On Instagram, I use Iconosquare. Sign yourself up (it's free) and you'll be able to see when you audience is online, the popularity of your hashtag usage, which filters are favourited and lots more.

3. Pinterest is another favourite channel of mine - did you know they have analytics too? If you are set up with Pinterest for Business, the data will show you what interests your audience has, which pins have created the best engagement, your most popular boards and most importantly where your audience is located.

Of course there are many other avenues of discovery and these social channels are just my top platforms that I use for my business. Writing content without a clear picture of your audience is as good as talking to a brick wall. And we all know how effective that is...

Why not check your insights and track how you're doing right now? I'm off to do some homework of my own now. Always evolving, always changing. Have a great weekend