subject: Knowing Your Audience [print this page] You can tell after their first joke whether or not you are even going to want to sit through the rest of their performance. On a related note, most comedians know what kind of audience they are dealing with. They know that as soon as they get up there, they will be telling jokes that the majority of the audience will think is funny, and why is this? This is due to the simple fact that the people who have come to see that comedian are already familiar with his or her sense of humor. They wouldn't have bought the tickets to see them otherwise!
Similarly, knowing your audience is especially important for business. When you are marketing a product, you want to really make sure that you are marketing it to people who are going to care about it and will want to buy it. You will want honest opinions and reviews on it by those who have actually used it so that you will know how to improve it for future generations of users. So, how can business owners get to know their audiences better? Well, there are all sorts of ways that this is accomplished, but perhaps the most successful way is through social media and social networking.
Sites like Twitter, Facebook and Amazon provide business owners with ample opportunity to figure out what is working and what is not working. There are also forum discussions, blog comments and other various forms of feedback that will alert a business owner as to how their audience(s) are faring. For example, let's say you had a t-shirt company. Your t-shirts are geared towards people who like Star Trek or who just like overall nerdy-related things. As a result, you might start a Twitter campaign in which you set up a small profile, a biography of a few words, and a link leading back to your main website in which you hope to garner a few sales. But before you set up the Twitter campaign, you do a little research before hand to find out where the majority of your audience is hanging out. So, you might find out that people who are really into Star Trek clothing and accessories spend a good deal of time on Facebook. As a result, you wind up setting up a Facebook account. You also know that your audience is extremely active on Twitter. Now you have both a Twitter account as well as a Facebook account. Well, did you know that you can link your Twitter account up to your Facebook account, thus making it easier to update your audience as to what's going on?
Social media and social networking is a great tool for jump starting any business. However, the key to really being successful is to get inside of your audience's head. Figure out where they spend their time on the web. Talk to them and find out what things they like or dislike about various projects.
