Every social media channel attracts an audience with varying demographical differences, however slight these may be, and different expectations from you as a business.

Nailing the content and messaging for each audience can be challenge. Cast your net too wide and your content might not reach the right people, go too niche and you might miss opportunities that present themselves.

Even the best content in the world will fail if it doesn’t reach the right audience.

Standing out in the social noise has never been so important, and having unique content paired with well-defined audiences for each social channel is key to making an impact and attracting engagement.

If you’re managing your business socials by yourself, time is precious – you don’t want your hard work falling on deaf ears.

Paid social can help provide a clear vision of the wants and needs of the people you’re trying to target, and take some of the pressure off of your organic posts’ performance.

The huge benefit of paying to place or promote your content is that platforms help you get very granular with audience selection, right down to parameters such as age, skills, and location.

2023 is going to make things even tougher when it comes to getting your content in front of your target audience, with so many new and emerging platforms, as well as added and enhanced features on existing platforms.

And if you think a one-off post will create an audience, then think again! Audiences are built over time as a result of regular, relevant and meaningful content, making your organic content every bit as essential as your paid posts.

Let’s take that first step of defining your audiences by looking at each platform individually.

First things first – once you understand the target demographics for your brand or organisation, this needs to be compared to the broader overview of who’s using each social media channel.

Considerations needed at this stage include your brand’s tone-of-voice, language, and messaging relevant to the demographics of each channel.

When you decide who you’d like to target, understanding how they’re using these channels is the next step.

Are they likely to engage with content that sells a product, or do they want educational content? Does more informal content (“behind-the-scenes”, day-to-day etc.) resonate better with your followers, something Instagram is perfect for, or is it strictly business, making Linkedin ideal for you?

Also take the time to look at what content formats they interact with most – do they prefer video, images or text?

If you have a younger target audience, TikTok is a great platform to consider – even if it feels unaligned to your brand, amazing things are happening on that channel and it can’t be ignored.

TikTok is not just for creating dances and funny video shorts; it’s also an opportunity to extend brand awareness for big and small businesses.

Defining the specifics of your target audience is great for ROI from a monetary and an engagement standpoint. Knowing what type of content your audience wants to see also speeds up content creation by providing set topics for you to work with.