
When you’re launching your social media marketing strategy, defining your target audience is an important first step that is often overlooked. Defining your audience and getting clear on what that audience looks like can be the difference between a social media strategy that crushes all of its goals, and a social media strategy that completely flops. When you know who you’re marketing to, what their lives look like, and what they care about, your company can move forward with direction and confidence in its marketing decisions. You’ll be better able to identify which platforms to use, and what type of content will engage your audience the most. Here are some of my favorite tools to use as a social media manager to get clear on a company’s target audience:
1. General Audience Description
The first, and most important tool, helps you define general characteristics of your company’s ideal audience. Begin by following the framework below and providing answers under as many categories as possible.

Getting clear on these details will help you better understand why potential customers might care about your brand. For example, maybe your target audience lives in a specific geographic location. Part of your marketing strategy might be centered around supporting local business. Another example could be that your target audience values family, so you decide to market your product as family friendly. When you take the time to define these characteristics, it will be easier to see why your service or product might resonate with your audience, and you can tailor your messaging accordingly.
2. Persona Tool
The next tool is the “Persona Tool.” This tool helps you form a clear picture of what a real person in your target audience might look like, including what their problems and values are, and how your company might be able to assist them. This tool enables a deeper dive into the minds of your target audience, which can be extremely useful when creating content that speaks to the consumer and encourages engagement. This tool moves past simply listing characteristics, and even encourages you to select a photo of what someone in your target audience may look like, as well as a name, job title, etc. Since this tool does go so in depth, it will take more time to thoroughly complete. Know that the value it produces is well worth the time! Below is an example persona that was created for a yoga studio looking to target busy moms looking for “me-time.” This template can be used as a guide to help you create your own template.


3. Journey Map
The final tool that rounds out the process of defining your target audience is the “Journey Map.” This tool helps you to define each step of the buying process for a customer, define how they may be feeling at each step, and identify pain points that need to be solved. Below is an example journey map as well as a template you can use to create your own. The example maps the journey of a customer deciding whether to buy an app subscription, along with their accompanying pain points throughout the process. Blue boxes are events that occur along the way, white boxes with blue outlines are used to assess how events cause consumers to act, white boxes with orange outlines indicate possible choices the consumer may make, and “X”s signify pain points along the way that may cause a consumer to cut their journey short. Feel free to add or delete as many steps as needed to create an accurate depiction of your customer’s journey.




Once you have completed all these exercises, repeat for as many target audiences as your company plans to market to. Utilizing the general audience description tool, persona template, and journey map will allow your company to move forward with direction and confidence when making all of its marketing decisions!
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