media update’s Talisa Jansen van Rensburg walks you through how to find — and
engage with — your target audience on the top four most used social media platforms in South Africa.
Before you can locate your target audience on social media, you’ll need to ask yourself the following questions:
- What does your target audience like and dislike?
- How expensive is your product and how much is your target audience’s average income?
- Is your product or service specific to a gender, age or ethnicity group?
- Where does your target audience physically live?
- Who makes the purchasing decisions?
You’ll need to do extensive research to ensure that you can answer these questions with 100% accuracy. Only then will you be able to locate your target audience on social media platforms.
Time to locate your target audience on social media:
How to find your target audience on Facebook
Facebook is the biggest social media platform worldwide with
2.45 billion monthly active users as of October. In South Africa, Facebook dominates the social media game with
16.9 million monthly active users, which is a total of a
53% penetration rate.
Facebook has made it easy for you to find your target audience — all you need to do is go to the search bar and type in what you are looking for. You will then see various people, groups and companies that are interested in the topic that you were searching for.
How to find your target audience on LinkedIn
LinkedIn is the second-largest social media platform used in South Africa, with an
18% penetration rate. It is important to note that LinkedIn is mostly used by business-oriented people. The tone on LinkedIn is professional and therefore, the target audience that you will look for on this platform will differ the most from all other social media platforms.
On LinkedIn, you can go to the search bar and choose between the following six options:
- People
- Jobs
- Content
- Companies
- Schools
- Groups
When you click on ‘people’ you will see that there are additional filters that you can add to make your search more specific.
How to find your target audience on Instagram
South Africans love Instagram, especially women — the platform has 3 782 000 active monthly users and women make up 53.4%. This already gives you an idea of who you will find on this social media platform.
Hashtags are your best friend on Instagram when you want to find your target audience. You need to do is go search relevant hashtags and you will find people who are interested in what you are selling.
How to find your target audience on Twitter
According to Statcounter, Twitter only has a 4% penetration rate in South Africa. Even though fewer South Africans make use of this platform, it is still a vital platform to have a social media presence because it has
330 million active monthly users worldwide. This means that you can reach a portion of your target audience — even if they are living in another country.
Twitter has an option where you can do an
advanced search. The search allows you to see what people are tweeting about, at what time and where they are located. The various sets of data will help you find your target market, according to various criteria.
Keep Whatsapp in mind
Whatsapp is the fastest growing messaging platform in Africa. Looking specifically at South Africa, recent stats show that
49% of the 30 million internet users in South Africa makes use of Whatsapp — beating Facebook, YouTube and Facebook Messenger.
People are already on WhatsApp groups where companies send them daily updates on new products, services or news. This is also a great way to reach your target audience on another social media platform. You can start a group and do a cross post where you inform your target audience that they can join the Whatsapp group for daily updates.
What are other ways that you think you can reach your target audience on social media platforms? What are your thoughts? Let us know in the comments section below.
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If you want to get a deeper insight on the changes that will happen on Whatsapp be sure to go read the Social media news you missed: August recap
*Image courtesy of Vecteezy