Photo Credit: Dalia Khamissy/IRC
A target audience is the group of people you want to reach with your message, because they may be likely to take action as a result of seeing it. Understanding your public is the first step when planning your editorial line. Defining your targeted public clearly helps you create the messages, the communication styles, the tools and the format you can use to reach your audience.
Defining Your Audience
People in your target audience will share certain characteristics. These characteristics fall into three broad categories:
| 1. Demographics: | 2. Interests: | 3. Behaviors: |
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They may have the same age, gender, occupation, education, location, etc. |
They may share interests in certain topics or activities. |
They may read the same publications, visit the same online destinations, have certain hobbies or play the same sports. |
Target Audiences
There are two different types of target audiences when it comes to social media. They are the:
- Primary target audience: Your primary target audience will typically get most of your attention, as you expect them to become your most valuable group of clients
- Secondary target audience: Your secondary target audiences are other groups of people with common characteristics who may be interested in your information or services but are unlikely to become your most active clients. Secondary target audiences can help you structure your visibility efforts. Especially if you provide more than one service or feel your services may appeal to distinctly different groups of people.
Define a “Audience Persona”
A audience persona is a biographical sketch of a single representative audience. While this persona has some hard demographic data (age, location, gender, etc.), it is mostly a subjective summary of the audience’s likes, dislikes, problems, needs and desired solutions. When you start producing content, try to imagine this “persona” you want to reach:
- Which gender?
- Where does he/she come from?
- What’s her/his age?
- What are her/his interests?
| Here is an Example: |
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Your persona is a woman, in her thirties, she’s probably also a mother, her native language is Spanish. Your “persona” is not only defined by her current situation: migrants, refugee or SGBV survivor. First of all, she’s a human being with different interests, skills, fears and expectations. She might be interested in beauty products, hair and skin care, clothes, children care, music and dance, movies and series, workout. She might be looking for a job in a beauty salon or as a kindergartner. |
Whenever you want to widen your audience, all those elements should be considered to reach more people interested in your project's information and services. Here are a few ways you can better understand your audience profile:
- Information Need Assessment (INA): If you have already conducted an INA, it's a good idea to start with the finding 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. If INA is not available or you don't have the plan to conduct an INA, you should still find some ways to listen to your audience through a survey, discuss directly with the audience, or discuss with similar organizations who are working the similar mission.
- Desk Review: This preliminary research will help you draft a qualitative and quantitative observation of social media behavior.
- Other Possible Tools: Signpost Global Dashboard, Facebook Business Suite, Google Analytics and Search Console.
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IMPORTANT: We should not assume what information displaced people and other vulnerable people we serve need. Moreover, you may serve different audience groups where the information need of each group may differ from others. For example, women may need information about ‘pregnancy support’, and people with disability may require information about ‘assistive devices.’ |
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