Finding Your Target Market on Twitter

Author: Carolyn Menz Category: B2B, B2C, E-commerce & Retail, Marketing, Nonprofit, Social Media & Digital Date: October 30, 2013

As a business, you have a connection with a specific contingency of people or maybe other businesses. You cater to clients, customers, fans, followers, communities, families, whomever. Pinpointing your target market is one of the most important (if not the most important) piece of information you should know before you start spending money on advertising, marketing services, or even your actual product. If you have decided that your target market spends time on social media, and more specifically on Twitter, then you should probably find yourself learning a little about how the social media monstrosity works.

We have some great articles that offer some Twitter advice: how often should you tweet, how can Twitter improve my search rankings, and the benefit of organizing Twitter lists to name a few.

Once you start to get the hang of using Twitter, and you start following hundreds and thousands of other Twitter accounts, you start to realize that this is just a HUGE amount of information.

Where are my potential customers?

How can I find their Tweets?

This will take me ALL DAY to figure out if my potential clients are reading my Tweets.

Yep, these are all true. I’ve taken some time to think about what the best approach on how to find your target market on Twitter.

1. Write down all the demographic, sociographic and physical attributes about your target market. Are they people or businesses? Where are they located? What are their interests?

2. Start by following your current clients. Oh, they don’t have Twitter? Well, maybe you should rethink your idea of being on Twitter. Don’t have clients? Skip this step.

3. Take a look at your competition. Follow your competition. Follow who your competition follows.

4. Segment your potential clients and clients by creating Twitter lists. I don’t have to tell you twice why lists can save you time and frustration.

5. Search the interests of your target market. For example, if you are trying to target teenagers, consider what their latest music, fashion, television and pop culture interests are. Follow them.

6. Pay attention to what is being retweeted by these potential clients. This will help you figure out whether your competition is being favored, whether certain interests of your clients are being favored, etc. Then, you follow the followers of those that are being retweeted. Tongue twister, anyone?

7. Following all of the followers of the interests that your target market is into is a great shortcut to finding your target market.

How do you use Twitter to find your target market? Are they even using Twitter? I’m still amazed that only 5% of Twitter accounts are SPAM. I really thought it was more.