Why Traditional Targeting Methods Aren’t Enough in Social Media
Author: Katie
Targeting is critical for marketers. It costs money to get your message in front of potential customers, so the more certain you can be that they are in fact potential customers, the happier you are.
Right. We all know that. But what if I told you the traditional ways of targeting don’t work in social media?
Gasp!
But it’s true. Let’s review, there’s:
- Demographics – sex, age, ethnicity, etc
- Geographics – where you live, work, play
- Psychographics – generalized personalities based mainly on lifestyle ex: ’soccer moms,’ ‘c-suite execs,’ ‘vegan,’ etc
- Behavioral – you buy a cooking magazine so you’re likely to buy cookware and kitchen appliances
- Technographics - what kinds of activities you do online
All of these things make sense, and I don’t disagree that they can help you find the audience you’re looking for. But when you get into the social sphere, I think things can get a little more complicated. Right now, we’re talking about it the same way we always have been. Marketing Vox discussed the age demographics of Twitter, Facebook likes to point out that they’re not just for kids; everyone is still talking about the same classifications. Why?
Think about it. Here’s a sample persona:
Now, let’s say you’re a B2B service and you want to connect with Jeff via social media. You know that Facebook’s largest growing age population is 35+ and you know that Twitter’s got a very active older, techno-savvy, audience. Does either of those facts tell you which one you should use to connect with Jeff? I would say no.
It tells you that Jeff could be on Facebook and/or Twitter but what it doesn’t tell you is why he is on either network. I’d like to propose a new* way to target:
Purpose Based Targeting:
As it turns out, Jeff has a Facebook account and a Twitter account. He uses Facebook to get in touch with his old buddies from business school, keep up to date on his kids, and see pictures from family and friends. If those are the reasons why he uses Facebook, he probably isn’t looking to make connections with his B2B service provider in that space. On the other hand, he uses Twitter mainly from work and talks mostly about what’s going on in his industry and shares updates and news with his followers. This would be a great place to contact him with information about your B2B service because it’s aligned with his purpose in that space.
There’s been some research into this area – mainly in the B2B sector. The main designation is whether people are likely to use a network for business or personal purposes. I think this is a great starting point. But what about everybody else? We need more categories than just business vs. non-business. My personal theory is that younger people use social network sites to organize their whole lives, where older participants use it for limited updates on friends. I think there could be differences among people in different psychographic and technographic groups as well.
Until more research is done into those categorizations, each industry, or even every brand, needs to do its own research to know whether their customers are using social media (this is becoming more likely every day), where they are engaging, how they are using it and why they use the networks they do.
Thoughts? Let’s talk in the comments…
*Note: This is ‘new’ as in I haven’t heard it directly referenced and named. If you have, please share that in the comments because I’d love to read more on the subject.
Photo credit: cliff1066 (Flickr)
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