#ad: Finding an Audience with Social Media

The same apps that you’re using to post selfies and litter hashtags are being by more than 25 million businesses to run operations and close sales every day.

Researchers have gone as far as to create rules of thumb for businesses to effectively display content. When should I post on LinkedIn? How long should my YouTube promo be? What makes social media marketing more advanced than others is the ability to sift through the general public and target people who have a higher chance of becoming leads for a business. To effectively utilize social media opportunities, it is beneficial to use avenues that will most directly get ads in front of people who may actually do business with the company, making all this work worthwhile.

Friend Me

Instead of popping up in front of every person they can get their hands on, companies may, in a way, pick-and-choose the people to which they want to market. These ideal buyer personas are used so that every decision the company makes may be based upon the ideal person that they want in their client pool. These personas are given names and qualities to make them feel like real, everyday people. Businesses on Facebook, for instance, have the ability to find users based on their demographics. They have the ability to filter for common demographics, such as age and gender. However, Facebook also provides the ability to target other, more abstract, qualities. For instance, education helps companies understand the level of writing and language they can use for proper understanding. Based on someone's relationship status, they may see Facebook ads for childcare services or dating apps. Facebook also has the ability for companies to filter for specific interests and hobbies, so you are less likely to see a Foster Farms ad if you indicate interest in vegetarianism.

If businesses are selective about who they reach, instead of throwing their net as wide as possible, they can effectively monitor their Cost Per Thousand Impression. The numbers summarizing those who clicked on the ad are much more reliable since ads are not being thrown in front of 1,000 random people.

Not only does targeting personas save the business time and money, but there are several ways in which having a narrowed-down list of potential leads is better, even though it may not be as long as a list which is comprehensive. When a business generates a Lookalike Audience, Facebook provides them with a list of people who own personal profiles that are quite similar to the profiles of those who are already engaging with the company. The current audience is “replicated” into a list of new, unknown people, who have a similar chance of engaging with the business and completing another conversion because of the identifiers to which Facebook gets access.

Pay Me

The value of your company having paid social all boils down to being able to understand and target your company’s analytics. Paying for social media services enables businesses to send out their ads to those who they deem potential leads instead of hoping the general public becomes interested in what they have to say. Based on the demographics and responses they’ve marketed to before, they can customize who they want to reach next. On Facebook, these specific audiences are composed in three specific ways: Lookalike Audiences, Custom Audiences, and Core Audiences.

Lookalike Audiences, as mentioned before, are created solely by the audiences who have previously engaged with the company. If the audience list is refined, having several 'lookalikes' is powerful. Custom Audiences are created through the company’s current data summarizing leads and customers. Companies can look at the data they have on hand, between site visitors, app users, and contact lists, and decide who they should reach o2ut to with advertising campaigns. Core Audiences are built around specific demographics. Where is your business coming from? Do you want to market to younger or older people? Although these options cost money, they all provide companies with valuable information to refine marketing practices for the future.

Cater To Me

Having control over audiences is crucial to business’ identities because they need to market to people who need them, specifically. The American market is based around expert approval and specialization. Americans seek a certain degree of homogeneity in the product that businesses provide. For example, in 2017, Starbucks ended their “Evening Program”, when Starbucks employees provided table service and served upscale food and wine to their customers. There is a reason to believe that Americans like going to specific restaurants for things like steak, cheesecake, and coffee because they believe restaurants are experts in their niche. When services stretch too far beyond their original purpose, people do not trust them.

In the realm of technology, apps shouldn’t be able to cater to every need, either.

Although the Instagram Stories feature is popular, upon its release, Snapchat still remained culturally relevant. Even though there is an alternative app to serve both Instagram-type and Snapchat-type needs in one stop, people kept using Snapchat. Why? People think SnapChat is the best for that kind of messaging. If there’s an app whose sole purpose is to provide car service, it must be the best. If there’s an app that specializes in finding soulmates, they must be really successful.

With the Chinese-based serve-all app, WeChat, there’s a question of where their specialties lie. Are they a messaging app that also sells movie tickets? That’s strange. Are they a messaging app that will also order a car service for me? That’s sketchy. It’s difficult for people to understand with whom, exactly, they’re doing business. In the American market, when you use Fandango, you know you’re going to get, and if you use Uber, you have a schema for your experience as well. Why mess with it?

As I was writing this blog post, I attempted to download the WeChat app for myself. However, I was unable to make it past the security verification. This app has a degree of security that most American-based apps lack. This exclusivity may be attractive to American-based users. It would be interesting to see this feature implemented in future social media.