When your business goals align with your social goals you unlock social’s potential as a true driver for business growth.

We have all been there before at one time or another. You pour hours and hours of your time into writing a great piece of content in the hope that it will drive scores of traffic to check out your site, and maybe become new customers. Then, for some reason, it falls flat. Few people read it, and even those who do, do not seem terribly interested in engaging with your business. What's wrong? What happened?

More often than not, the problem is a disconnect between you the content creator, and your audience. When any other form of creative content fails to resonate, it's usually because it's not what the audience was looking for. This is a fundamental part of marketing your business - before you can deliver a marketing message effectively, you need to know who you're delivering it to and why.

So, let’s look at why understanding your audience is important to achieving your marketing goals.

1. 56% of marketers use social data to understand their target audience.

While it can be tempting to cast a wide net in an attempt to reach the scores of people that are online, the best brands rely on their target audience to drive business success. Sprout Social found that 56% of marketers use social data to understand their target audience, but still, the number one challenge they face is identifying and reaching that audience. There’s a huge opportunity for marketers to do more with the data at their disposal.

Your Focus: Social data from analytics, social listening and industry standards reports help paint a clear picture of who your customers are, how they use social media and what types of content hold their attention. Use these insights to develop more effective campaigns that speak to your core audience and lead to a greater return on your investments on social.

2. 69% percent of social marketers say increasing brand awareness is their number one priority.

The social media landscape is evolving every day, but some things don’t change. According to the 2020 Sprout Social Index™, the top priority for social media practitioners is increasing brand awareness, a ranking that matches findings from our 2019 survey.

However, there is some disconnect between practitioners and their marketing leaders. While awareness is important to everyone, marketing leaders are 36% more likely than practitioners to say growing their audience is a primary goal, followed by increasing community engagement. This disconnect points to an opportunity for social practitioners to better communicate and align with their bosses.

Your Focus: Social marketers have the skills and data to visibly influence an organization’s goals and growth but they need visibility into their business’s top priorities to maximise that impact. To ensure social practitioners, marketing leaders and the heads of other departments are on the same page, set aside time to discuss each team’s goals in length and where social can make the greatest impact.

Before you can find success with content marketing, you need to start from the beginning. That means understanding your audience.

In other words:

• Develop a sense of empathy for the people you're writing to. What are they passionate about, and how can you address it?
• Conduct thorough market research and learn everything you can about your demographics. Leave no stone unturned.
• Remember all social platforms have a different demographic, check out our social demographics analysis to understand where your target audience is hanging out.
• Try to build an emotional connection with your readers. This is the first step toward putting together a community.
• Listen, study your analytics, and adapt to your audiences’ needs.