Finding Your Ideal Audience + Why NOT to Buy Followers

FINDING YOUR IDEAL AUDIENCE

Having an in-depth knowledge of your ideal audience is an essential part of the success to your Instagram strategy.

Unless you know what your audience wants from you, what motivates, inspires or intrigues them then you’ll have a difficult time creating the type of content to engage them. Also note, unless you know what time your audience is active, you won’t have a lot of success having your content actually reach them for them to engage when you post. (YOUR INSIGHTS ARE KEY!)

For example, if you offer a product/service for “graveyard shift” workers and you post at 9AM (the time they’re most likely sleeping), they’re more than likely NOT going to see your post. This is why it is so important to track your insights so that you know when your ideal audience is active to increase the chances of having your content actually seen by them.

Therefore, it’s important that you learn how to find your ideal audience on the gram.

Begin by using #hashtags to start your search.

How to find your ideal audience:

• Start broad and then begin to narrow down your search.

• Start with a general #hashtag (example, #entrepreneur #supportsmallbusiness #digitalmarketing #personaltrainer)

• Search through different hashtags that your ideal audience is using

• Search businesses that you aspire to and look to see if they are following any #hashtags -- search through the #hashtags that they follow

• Look at who follows your competitors/who your competitors are following

• Use existing demographics data (access your insights and go to “Audience.” Here is where you will be able to see vital statistics about your existing followers including their age range, gender, and location.)

• Utilize features on Instagram stories, for example, polls and questionnaires, ask relevant questions that will help you better understand your audience and help you to improve your targeting methods

BUYING FOLLOWERS

You might be thinking to yourself, “why can’t I just buy followers? It would make it SO much easier and save so much time!" And our response is, DO NOT DO IT!!!!!

Let’s get real,

The only reason anyone purchases Instagram followers is because they want their follower count to appear to be high so that when someone views their feed for the first time they come off as “credible,” “influencer status,” or just plain “cool.”

We’re here to tell you that buying your followers actually hurts your engagement and therefore your overall potential to grow organically. When you buy followers you are purchasing “bots” and “ghost followers.” Instagram’s algorithm takes these types of things into consideration when it comes to your engagement.

Think about it this way, if the majority of your followers are all bots and ghost followers then these are accounts that are not interacting or engaging with your content. They are simply filler accounts that are taking up space in your follower count.

Well, what have you learned about the algorithm from our last blog? (If you haven't read it yet, do yourself a favor and go find out how to beat Instagram's algorithm!)

Instagram likes to see you engaging! Instagram has vested interest in making their platform a place where users spend a lot of time + engaged with their audience. Therefore, Instagram wants to see you interacting with your followers and you’re probably not going to waste your time engaging with bots and ghost followers. So, when Instagram is calculating how to rank your posts and if to boost your content to a wider audience, not only is it harder to measure these types of metrics but when they do take these numbers into consideration (high follower count + very little engagement = LOW RANKING) your content will have a much lower chance of reaching your ideal audience.

Follow @ourmindfulmarketing (on IG and Facebook) for mindful tips and inspo for your small biz! 💓

⁣- Hannah & Adriana 🍃