How to Research an Instagram Target Audience

Did you see it? Everyone out there is busy figuring out how to increase Instagram followers, how to improve engagement, and get their business off the ground. You too, right?

You don't need to tell you how effective Instagram is to promote and grow your brand. Professionals and companies know this well. The possibilities are endless. You can show the "human face" of your company, share its ideals and stories that bring it closer to the public.

But here's the problem. People confuse the medium with the purpose.

It is not a race for those who have more Instagram followers, but a tough fight to get noticed and sell. So, first, you will have to understand who your ideal customers are: the target audience, who would love to meet you, follow you and buy your products or services. And then? Then you will have to find them. What are you waiting for? Come on; let's see how.

Instagram followers: who are your ideal customers?

The beating heart of any marketing strategy is to build relationships with the right people.

Searching for your target audience should be one of your priorities when developing a strategy on Instagram.

So who are these people?

It all seems very trivial; they are your ideal customers. But, stop for a moment, do you know who your ideal customers are? Do you know, or do you think you know?

To get the clearest ideas, it is necessary to define fictitious representations of your potential customers, called buyer personas. Use these questions to search for answers that shape your ideal customers:

  • Who am I?
  • What are they doing?
  • What are the goals they aspire to, and how can you help them achieve them?
  • Where are?
  • What are they passionate about?
  • What types of content do they want and with which they interact?
  • What hashtags do they use and follow?

We know it sounds crazy to you, but creating a reference model helps you. You can understand what your ideal customers think and do while evaluating their options to solve a problem, or while looking for something that satisfies their passions.

Start putting yourself in the shoes of who is your potential 

The customer might be and gather information. This aspect is fundamental. When you know what your buyers want, your approach can be such as to create a bond of trust that your competitors can hardly unhinge.

What may now seem like a waste of time will be your compass in the journey in search of your Instagram followers. You will discover how your audience is much more diverse than you thought, and this will lead you to develop diversified strategies that will enrich your marketing plan.

Think about it.

  • To create engaging content, you need to know what he likes.
  • Knowing how to write attractive captions for Instagram is possible if you know what awakens their attention.
  • To use the right hashtags, you need to know which hashtags follow.
  • To post at the right time, you need to know when I'm on Instagram.

You will be able to create a solid base to promote your content and to grow a following of really interested people who will want to interact with you. The sooner you define your target audience, and the sooner you start to structure strategies that really attract them.

Instagram followers: where to find and reach your target audience

Easy to say, difficult to do, where do you find, and how do you reach your target audience?

Put away pencil and compass; you won't have to reinvent the wheel. Often the answer you seek is so close that you can't see it. If you have defined the profiles of your ideal customers and segmented them into possible target audiences, now is the time to go and look for them on Instagram.

Start with trending topics in your industry. Find out who pulls strings in conversations on the topics targeted with your business. The easiest way to reach potentially relevant conversations and, consequently, the most interesting profiles for you is to take advantage of hashtags.

Find Instagram followers using competitors' profiles.

Finding out who your competitors are and what they are doing is a strategic move to increase followers on Instagram:

  • Who are your competitors?
  • What are they talking about?
  • What hashtags do they use?
  • Do the followers interact? If so, what do they say? Who am I?

Scroll through the list of followers engaged with your competitors and look for active people who could match the profile of the potential customer you have built. Look at the profiles, participate in the conversations with a few comments, and leave some likes to their contents.

It is painstaking work that will take some time, but make sure you create relationships with followers who are "real," active, and potentially interested in your products and services.

Analyze your content: what do your Instagram followers like?

You need to monitor to understand if the dynamics change or if new needs arise. Nobody ever said it was going to be easy. If you want to be successful on Instagram, some apps and bots can help you and facilitate your work, but you must be active and constant. Here I'm.

Start analyzing the content you have published, what works best? Which contents are appreciated and which generate the most interaction?

Follow the Influencers and evaluate collaborations

Influencers are the way to your target audience. Not everyone, of course. You will have to find those profiles capable of creating a greater impact in your sector.

You can analyze their followers and apply the strategies you have put in place with your competitors. However, if you want to make a leap forward, start collaborating with them. They can allow you to reach the followers you are missing today. Start from:

Define the goal: do you want to collaborate with an Influencer to increase awareness of your brand, or do you want to increase sales? Whatever the goal, clarify it a priori and create synergy with the Influencer.Define metrics to evaluate collaboration: how will you keep track of your performance to understand if you are reaching your goal? You must define the metrics to measure the performance of your campaigns: impressions, reach, interactions, etc.