Nowadays, we have access to a never-ending pool of information and we’re sharing a lot more than we were in the past. All of this information makes it exceptionally simple to craft distinctly accurate buyer personas for your brand. In 2020, social media is one of the most effective platforms to market your business.
In their 2020 marketing statistics report, Hubspot states that improved traffic, lead generation, and growing fan loyalty are some of the main reasons why marketers see value in employing social networks in their campaigns. With billions of people using social media globally, it’s not really that surprising.
In fact, if you’re not using social media to market your brand you’re missing out on a huge audience and we suggest you start. Right now.
Generic marketing campaigns no longer work. It’s all about finding out exactly who your audience is, building a relationship, and facilitating an honest, long-lasting conversation with them.
So how can you make sure you’re really connecting with your audience?
Enter the buyer persona.
In this article, we’ll discuss why buyer personas are an integral part of social media marketing and share some insider tips on how to design your buyer personas for social media.
Hang on – what’s a buyer persona, again?
You’ve probably heard the term thrown around a lot if you’re in the marketing business. But what exactly is a buyer persona?
Buyer personas are basically your business’s ideal customers. Backed by research, buyer personas are integral to any marketing strategy.
Buyer personas appeal to the humanistic side of marketing by allowing you to imagine your customer as a real, living, and breathing person, rather than a disembodied sales opportunity. In fact, Lisa Stone, co-founder and CEO of BlogHer summed it up when she said: “Wonder what your customer really wants? Ask. Don’t tell.”
Developing buyer personas can help your business to realize your audience’s worries, wants, and needs by allowing you to connect with the people who are likely to engage with your business and – ultimately – purchase your products.
Now you’ve brushed up on what exactly a buyer persona is, let’s discover why they’re essential to your social media marketing strategy.
Why buyer personas matter on social media.
Social media tends to play a useful role in our lives, but it also serves to transform us into statistics and reduce us to pixels.
“Customer” isn’t an identity – is it?
It’s important to understand that behind every screen is a human being, just like me or you. They might not be wearing their pink stripey pajamas (like me), but they have distinct sets of wants, needs, and problems. Social media gives businesses access to an expansive audience; use it to target your marketing efforts towards potential customers, rather than the public in general.
When you use social media platforms to connect with your audience, you’re more likely to build your brand, drive website traffic, and increase sales.
Effective social media marketing requires you to:
- Publish valuable content on your social media profiles
- Engage with and listen to your audience
- Analyze the results
- Advertise on social media
Nowadays businesses are using social media in a myriad of different ways, which means its scope is constantly expanding.
In 2020, the most popular social media platforms are Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, YouTube, and Snapchat. Most people will use more than one of these platforms in their daily lives.
Each social media platform attracts a different audience.
The average Twitter user, for example, is different from the average Pinterest user; Pinterest tends to be dominated by female users, and twitter is more commonly used by academic professionals. LinkedIn attracts an older and more professional crowd than Snapchat and Instagram. Facebook attracts a ubiquitous audience, which is why as of 2020 it remains the most popular social media platform for marketers.
Audience engagement with these platforms is constantly evolving, so, therefore, must your business. After all, understanding your audience and their behaviors will enable you to target your content, promotions, and offers to those more likely to engage with your brand.
Think about all of the social media and websites you access online in a day! In addition to physical footprints, we now leave digital footprints which say a lot about who we are, the things we like, the brands we’re interested in, where we work, and more.
Bringing these touchpoints together into a clear buyer persona, helps marketers create personalized content that has an impact across platforms.
So, are you ready to find out how to design your buyer personas for social media?
How to design your buyer personas for social media
Marketing with a range of buyer personas in mind allows you to tailor and target your content towards different segments of your audience.
Remember that social media spaces reward marketers who market and share high-quality content that audiences resonate with.
Here’s an example: Facebook’s relevance score allows you to understand how your content is performing and rewards quality and targeted content. However, if your audience isn’t as receptive as you’d hoped then you might end up incurring higher advertising costs. In this way, social media can be a double-edged sword.
On social media platforms, personalization is key.
When designing your buyer personas for social media you have access to a plethora of extra information that allows you to truly know your prospective customers.
People post a lot of information online these days, some might say too much information… but for the marketer, it’s a valuable resource. You can find out everything about somebody’s likes and dislikes, their behavior, and what stage of the buyer journey they’re at from the information they share online.
However in-depth with your buyer personas you decide to go, always remember that the main character of your brand’s story should be your customer – not your company or products. Always consider the following when designing your buyer personas for social media:
- Demographics: age, gender, location.
- Contextual data: education level, job title/role, relationship status
- What are their daily/weekly behaviors
- How do they solve problems?
- Personal and professional objectives
- How can you align your product or service with their needs
To find the answers to these questions you’ll need to research and evaluate your audience.
The strongest buyer personas are created through market research as well as insights you glean from your real-life customer base (through surveys, interviews, etc.). Few businesses have a single buyer persona. Most have at least a few, others as many as 20. Start small, you can always expand later.
Will all of this be worth it?
Of course, it will! Think about it: if you’re directing your marketing initiatives towards a detailed buyer persona(s) you’re more likely to attract high-value visitors, leads, and customers. In the end,they’re the ones who you’ll be in it for the long run.
Next steps to take with your established buyer personas
Now that you’ve gathered all the information you need to design your ideal customer, it’s time to put it into practice. The next step is to use your research to identify patterns and common themes from respondents’ answers, develop a primary persona (or more than one), and share your shiny new buyer persona with the rest of the company.
An effective social media strategy should be aligned with the interests of your ideal customers.
Flesh out your buyer personas and mesh them together with reality. With a buyer persona in mind, you can:
- Schedule your content based on audience activity and appropriate times
Take into account time zones and the time of day customers are more prone to checking their social media, this way you can optimize engagement.
- Segment your audience to influence ad strategies and your content calendar
Check out Facebook ads to create ad sets based on different buyer personas and post content that caters to your entire customer base.
- Adapt your brand voice to have engaging and authentic conversations with customers
There’s no denying how important a brand voice is to your business, but social media allows you to take it to the next level by humanizing your brand. Social media lets you develop a personality and style of your own. Make it approachable, memorable, and consistent. Whether your company is more focused on B2B or B2C marketing, customers are always more likely to buy from businesses with ideologies they can relate to.
- Align your social media content strategy with your buyer personas to strengthen your marketing campaign
Listen to your audience. Ask them questions.
Consider if the content you’re producing appeals to their motivations and offers effective solutions to their problems. Make helping them your top priority. Make sure that your social media posts, blogs, and videos are always current and engaging.
Are you ready to create your first buyer persona and embark on a new adventure in social media marketing? Download our free buyer persona template and discover all the right questions you should be asking.
