Photo Credit: Fahmo Mohammed/IRC
Before you start thinking about content, it's important to understand your audience profile and the information they need. If you do not know who you're creating content for, creating something that resonates with them and meets their needs will be challenging. Therefore, it is important to identify the information needs of our audience first, by listening to them and sharing our experience with them.
Defining An “Audience Persona"
An audience persona is a biographical sketch of a single representative client. While this persona has some hard demographic data (age, location, gender, etc.), it is mostly a subjective summary of the client’s likes, dislikes, problems, needs, and desired solutions. To help yourself empathize with your audience, try to sketch in your mind one or more potential “personas” who could benefit from your work.
When you start producing content, try to imagine the people you want to reach:
- Which gender?
- Where does he/she come from?
- What’s her/his age?
- What are her/his interests?
- What is he/she scared of?
- What are his/her main concerns at the moment?
- What’s his/her emotional condition?
Understanding Your Audience Profile
The following tools can be used to gather data on and further understand your audience profile:
- Information Need Assessment (INA): If you have already conducted an INA, it's a good idea to start with the findings and insights to understand the audience’s information needs, digital habits, trust and protection risks when accessing digital channels, as well as their capacities and proposals. Before starting to produce content, it’s of utmost importance to be aware of the ways in which our clients consume, produce, contribute to, interact with, and behave around their information and the (digital) channel they use. If INA is not available or you don't have a plan to conduct an INA, you should still find some ways to listen to your audience. For example, you can conduct a small survey, discuss directly with the audience, or discuss with similar organizations that are working on similar missions. Reading previous INAs from Signpost Instances that closely match your context can also help you understand information dynamics in a similar context.
- Desk Review: A Desk Review of existing information, including data gathered about the population’s general communication channels, digital preferences, and existing actors/ systems. This preliminary research will help you draft qualitative and quantitative observations of the behavior and interest of the audience. The best way to understand what is happening on digital platforms and where specific groups may look and/or find the information they need is simply to start navigating it.
- Additional Tools: Signpost Global Dashboard, Meta Business Suite, Google Analytics, and Search Console
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IMPORTANT: Our information should be based on contextual needs. We should not assume what information displaced people and other vulnerable people we serve need. Information needs for different audience groups may differ from each other. For example, women may need information about "pregnancy support," and people with disabilities may require information about "assistive devices." |