How to Use Social Media to Learn More About Your Target Audience

This week I’m starting a 3 part series on ways you can learn more about your target audience.  Over the last few weeks, I’ve been spending a lot of time learning more about my audience and I’ve gained a lot of new info.

I’ve used multiple ways to learn about my audience from surveys, 1 on 1 interviews, and social media which is what I’m going to cover in this week’s article.

Side Note: Before I start I’m currently running my Side Hustle Academy 2016 survey.   This is my annual survey that I run to help me stay up to date with my audience.  The survey is 8 questions in total, takes roughly 5 to 10 minutes, and you’ll also get a 50% discount on my first product when I launch it early next year.   Take the survey by clicking here now.

So in this week’s article, I’m going to share the 3 exact social media strategies I use to learn more about my target audience.  With sites like Facebook and Twitter, you literally have an unlimited number of people you can tap into to learn about your target audience.

So if you are someone who’s just getting started with their side hustle or you’ve been around for a while this strategy will definitely help you.

#1 Use Twitter #HashTags

The great thing about Twitter is that you can see what people are saying on practically any topic at any moment in real time.  Now this doesn’t mean that you can do a search and all the information you need will pop up in front of you.

I wish that’s the way it worked.

You’ll have to do a little digging to find the info you want but what you’ll be looking for is the questions people are asking about you niche.   To do this I’ll share a simple search I did in Twitter to show you how this works.

First sign into your Twitter account and do a search for whatever your topic is.  In my case I did a search for the word Side Hustle.

After a little digging I found relevant questions people were asking were asking.  The question below is asking whether a side hustle is right for you.

Another tweet ask the question how to make more time for your side hustle, so obviously this is a problem people are dealing with as well.  Also notice how many people have hit hearts on this tweet.  This gives a signal that people are struggling with this problem which is a good sign.

Once you’ve started to see some of these questions take some time to write these down.  The more you do this the more questions you begin to see and over time you’ll begin to see patterns as to the typical problems people are dealing with.

#2 Join Facebook Groups

Facebook groups are another place to learn more about your target audience.

Side Note:  I’m not talking about Facebook Pages, those are entirely different form groups.  Facebook groups are more like communities people go to talk about a specific topic.

Facebook groups have been hugely valuable to me over the years, in fact I’m a member of several groups some of which I even paid to join.  They’ve allowed me to ask questions and get answers to the struggles I’m facing.

To do this do a search for groups that you are interested in your topic.  For example if your topic is all about the Vegan diet just do a search for Vegan, and here’s what I got.

Now not all of these are Facebook groups.  Some are websites, businesses, and even non profit organizations.  Like Twitter you’ll need to do a little digging.  After about 5 minutes of searching I found this group, Vegan Connections.

This group has over 6300 members who love Vegan and friendship and the best part is you can join this group and start to talk to people in this group and learn about their struggles.

I should also mention that their are two types of groups in Facebook.  The first is public groups and the second is closed groups.  When your joining a group I recommend joining closed groups.  Closed groups are run by people who care about the community and strive to keep the spam out.

On top of that you have to be approved to join the group which means the people in the group are truly there to discuss the topic.

#3 Start a Private Facebook Group of Your Own

The final strategy you can use to learn more about your audience is to start your own closed Facebook Group.  This is something I recently did to further my relationship with my audience.  So I start Side Hustle Mastermind a closed Facebook group for people who want to start and grow their own side hustle.

What’s great about this group is that we can ask questions, share information, and build more intimate relationships.  What’s also great is that most people are already on Facebook so joining is just a matter of clicking a button.

Have You Tried These Strategies

Well have you tried any of these strategies using social media to learn more about your target audience.  More than that have you tried these strategies to see what struggles and problems the people in your target market are dealing with.

If you have feel free to share you results in the comments below, and if you have not give 1 or 2 of these strategies a try and share what you’ve learned.

In next weeks article I’m going to show you another way to learn about your target audience using surveys, so be sure to check that out.

Cheers!