Digital Skills - Understand Audience

Create a TOV guideline document It’s time for you to start creating your TOV. Think about what your business does, and the personality that best represents it and you. Start by writing down your business’s values and personality and then think more about what these characteristics actually mean. Thinking of opposites can help here. For example: Witty NOT Slapstick Friendly NOT Stand-offish Human NOT Corporate These are the most important elements of your personality to convey when writing social media content. Once you have those written down, start to think about how you can convey these characteristic’s through your TOV – how can you apply this insight to your business’s personality on social media? Equally, what should you avoid doing? We have some examples to illustrate this below: Characteristic (value):  Enthusiastic Description:  We’re enthusiastic and passionate about our products, and our customers enjoying them Do:  Show your thought leadership a...

Be conversational Social media is conversational by nature. People don’t want long, dull corporate messages filling their feeds – they want engaging, entertaining, informative content from everyone they follow, including businesses. So be professional, but include personality. Be friendly. Invite responses. Stay relevant and be interested in what your audience are into. A good way to start your thinking is to recall times you’ve delivered great customer service, or had a really fulfilling chat with a customer. What did you do to make that a special, or fun, experience for them? Take this style of verbal conversation and apply it to your written communication. Top tip: Remember that social media is an opportunity for a casual and fun two-way conversation with your audience. Try and avoid sounding overly formal.

Encourage audience participation On social, all conversations are two-way. Your content should never be talking at your audience. In fact, the best posts often encourage interaction. To grow engagement through participation, ask your audience to comment with their thoughts underneath a post, to “like” if they agree or disagree or to leave another reaction indicating how they feel. It’s quick and easy. As long as you’re posting useful information and sharing valuable content, there’s nothing “spammy” about gently urging your followers to help grow your business awareness. For example: Jai’s regular “catch of the day” posts aren’t receiving as much attention as he’d hoped. This time he shares two very different dishes made using his catch of the day. He asks his audience to vote for the one they want to see on tonight’s menu: “Like for option one, and share for option two”. He sees a huge uptake for the second option, his Kerala Prawn Curry, and notices a few more table bookings...

Use images and video To easily capture your audience’s attention, share images and video. The more exciting and engaging they are, the more likely people are to stop and look while scrolling through their feed on their smartphone or computer. Make sure you always have your audience in mind, and constantly be asking yourself: what content would be most interesting and engaging to them? Top tip: While it’s tempting to post adorable pet photos or funny memes, if these aren’t relevant to your business they may just irritate your followers. Remember to keep your content appropriate to your business and interesting to your audience.

Show your personality It’s common for businesses to feel they need to be professional and formal when talking to customers online, but remember that your customers love what makes you unique – and that’s you. Showing your own personality, expertise and opinions creates a much more enjoyable and authentic experience, and it’s this that can help to differentiate you from your competition. For example: Jai recently shared a short video of his kitchen staff picking the “catch of the day”, and to show his funny side, he included a clip of his sous-chef, Rohit, getting nipped on the finger by a crab. Showing this “real life” humour led to an increased number of shares.

Post interesting content To really drive engagement, you need to focus on sharing interesting and relevant content. Offering your audience unique articles, videos and stories will encourage them to keep coming back for more. So, always try to go beyond simply promoting your business or products. For example: Jai owns a seafood restaurant in Goa. He often posts about changes to his menu and opening times, but was receiving very little engagement. After sharing a few pictures and short video clips of his staff picking the best lobsters and cooking up a storm in the kitchen, he began to notice a spike in activity. He also noticed that people engaged more with his informational posts when they were mixed with more personal stories. Posting content that is exciting and intriguing to your audience can lead to high levels of engagement. We’ll cover off how to create great content in much more detail over the next few lessons.

Post often is the best way to engage your audience Your followers will stay interested if they hear from you on a regular basis, and the more you post, the more likely people are to see your content. The “recommended number of posts per day” is a bit of a myth. Some marketing experts advise sharing content at least once a day and some say as often as 2-3 times per day across your social platforms. The key is to find what’s right for your business. As long as you have something worth sharing, it’s fine to post. However, you should be wary of spamming your audience, as this can create a bad user experience. Think about the social channels you’re using. One may be very fast moving and suit a business that is able to publish quick, small pieces of content. Another may be slow-paced and suit a business that is more likely to publish once or twice a week. Really think about how you can keep up with the pace of the channel you’re active on. As you post, make sure to look out for com...

How can you engage your audience? You’ve most likely already created great customer relationships and know how to capture your customers’ interest in the real world. In earlier lessons, we also explored your target audience – understanding their needs, interests and ambitions. This is a really good place to start when building your social presence, and we’ve got some great tips to help you keep your business at the top of your audience’s mind.

Why is engagement important to your business? The more engagement you have with your audience, the stronger your relationship. If users are interested in your business, and its content, they’re more likely to engage with you on social media. For example: Manish recently started using social media to attract new members to his gym. As he always tracks and reviews his engagement activity, he starts to recognize the names of people who like and comment regularly. When he runs classes, he also starts to see their names appear on his class list. His social media presence helped convert these passive readers to active participants. The more a user engages, the more likely they’ll purchase. Users that engage with you are likely to have your business front of mind, which means they’re more likely to purchase from you, and more likely to recommend your business to friends and family. For example: Deepak is looking to buy a new cricket kit. His brother recommends Kumar’s Sports Store...

Engage with other organizations Another great way to grow your social media presence is to look at the social media profiles of other relevant businesses, publications or organizations that your audience follow. Through liking and commenting on their posts, you create an opportunity for their followers to notice you. Facebook Groups is one place to give this a try. Facebook Groups allow people to come together around a common cause or activity to express opinions, post photos and share related content. For example: Sai owns a menswear store and she wants to use Facebook to increase her reach. After visiting Groups that her target audience interact with (e.g. “Men’s Fashion Mumbai”), Sai begins to get involved in the public discussion around the latest seasonal trends, making sure to post from her business account. Her posts highlight her keen eye for style and quickly inspire people to click through to her Page. The more she engages in public conversations on relevant topics, t...

Regularly post engaging and relevant content Sharing great content is an effective way to organically grow your social following. When a post resonates with a user, they are more likely to explore your profile to find out more. Think back to the previous lesson, “How to define your target audience” and remind yourself: What are your audience’s needs and interests? What type of content will resonate with them most? Think beyond just sharing content with your audience. Consider how you can effectively build a two-way conversation.

How to define your target audience with demographics? Let's start with demographics Age: What age group will your audience most likely be? Top tip: Millennials (20 – 30-year-olds) will often interact with businesses through social media in a very different way to their parents (40 – 50-year-olds). Millennials are likely to be more active throughout the day on their smartphone, whereas their parents may only access social media once or twice a week and may prefer to use their desktop computer. Gender: Are they mostly men or women or is there an equal split? Men and women often have different tastes and preferences, meaning a focus on one over the other could be useful to establish early on. Location: Does your business rely on customers coming into your store or can they make purchases online? If you rely heavily on them coming to you, make sure you adapt your social media activity to those who are local to you. For example: It is no use advertising your beauty st...