The Importance of Your Social Media Audience

Massive sharing on social media was once a positive milestone. Now, with social media years old, that is changing. Recent research cites that users pay more attention to who shares a social media post than the original author of the content and that people are considering the trust level and credibility of the sharer. High profile social media users also stop to think of how sharing from a noncredible source within their network may affect their own online presence.

Considering the who and why of your social media audience and understanding the power of leveraging those answers can take your strategy to new heights. More importantly, not understanding this can do the reverse. With this in mind, pay close attention to the following 3 criteria to move your social media presence in the right direction.

Who Exactly is Your Audience?

Quality vs. quantity: Between networking introductions, alumni associations and professional colleagues, any social media platform can become convoluted. The quality of your followers is much more important than a large number of random followers. Shoot to reach those who actually care about your topics and those who are credible. When they share to their audience, there will be power behind it. It may be worthwhile to slowly trim down your followers to eliminate those who don’t represent the presence you are striving to create online.

Identify New Followers

Search out higher quality followers to replace those you weed out as you go along. Put thought into who is posting content similar to yours, who can further your mission, and with whom you can interact.

Engage

Enough cannot be said about the importance of engaging your audience; and while most on social media understand this importance, engagement is still one of the most underutilized tools.  In fact, Sprout Social reports that while the top channel for customer care is social media, 89% of customer posts to companies by customers go ignored.

Why is this? While tools like Hootsuite and the newer Zoho Social make scheduling posts easier, engaging with the audience requires leaning in. It calls for manpower and attention, but the rewards in deploying those resources are great. Schedule daily time to peak into your accounts and look for new and fresh ways to engage your audience to become a standout interactive source.  

In the end, your social media audience is an extension of you.  Make the most of this by honing your network and followers to be the best extension of that presence possible.