In this episode of The Trust Podcast, Zoe Cairns shared the tools she uses to analyse her audience and tips on how and where to find them. Are you engaging on your social media platforms? Do you see your audience engaging on your posts? Or is engagement like an afterthought? Tune in as Zoe sheds light to these questions.

What is an Engagement?

[02:56] Engagement is not just about the likes and comments, it could be direct messages, or website visits where people go through to get in touch with you. It is not about the vanity metrics and getting more followers, it's the quality of the followers and the actions that they make which is important.

How to engage with your audience?

[04:02] Have you brainstormed and filled out your target audience sheet? To find your ideal audience, know the age group, location, gender, where they hang out, their interest, etc. Be specific otherwise you are being too broad on who they are.

[05:25] Understand their pains and challenges. What challenges are they facing right now? What can you do to help them and lead them to potentially work with you? And be relatable.

Tools you can use to know your audience and engagements

[07:17] Start filling out your target audience sheet to create those buyer personas. You can use the following tools to understand your audience more:

1. AnswerThePublic – is an online tool that gives top questions people are asking Google.
   1. Type a keyword, that's not too specific, and results will be shown via a spider diagram of what most people are asking.
   2. You can use this as a topic to create blog posts, podcast titles, live videos, clubhouse rooms, and even an opener for a social media post.

1. [13:19] Facebook Audience Insights – provides comprehensive analysis on pages, groups, and communities your audience are hanging out on Facebook and a good indicator for LinkedIn as well.
   1. Define the location, gender, marital status, education, etc. Don't be too specific because results would be too few. Choose one or two interests and see what comes up.
   2. You can also see the Top 10 Pages they engage with and you can use that as an avenue to engage with them as a business—to get to know them more.

1. [15:48] LinkedIn – it now has hashtags to see what people are posting and engaging with.
   1. Click on a particular hashtag of interest and take a look at the contents being posted associated to it. You can get a clear idea of what they are engaging with.

1. [16:49] Flick: Instagram Hashtag Tool – an excellent hashtag tool to get ideas on the hashtags people are using and how many posts are associated with that hashtag.
   1. Look for the hashtags that your audience are mainly engaging with.
   2. You can also look at the top posts that are getting the most engagements and start from there.

[19:13] Alternatively, you can use Instagram itself and manually look for your audience, who they are engaging with, and what hashtags they are using.

Conclusion

[19:48] All of these tools provide you the content, ideas, and understanding about your audience. It will help you be more relatable, understand their pain and challenges, and enable you to come, find, and engage with them.

Key Quote:

[03:45 – 03:58] "Engagement is the key to build your audience. Before building your audience, engage with them, get to know them."

Resources Mentioned:

AnswerThePublic - https://answerthepublic.com/

Flick - https://flick.tech/?fpr=zcsocialmedia

Facebook Audience Insights - https://www.facebook.com/business/insights/tools/audience-insights

Connect with Zoe for the Target Audience Sheet @zoe_cairns or @ZCSocialMedia on Twitter!

Learn more about Zoe on:

Website: https://zoecairns.com/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/zoe_cairns

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/zcairns

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCp-gg60kW6VN3F-GKJbCZMg

Visit ZC Social Media and Academy:

Website: https://www.zcsocialmediaacademy.com/ or https://zcsocialmedia.com/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/ZCSocialMedia/