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Social Media Profiling- Targeting Basic Demographics by Temp Testing Competitors’ Data

30 June 2009 | social-media | 0 Comment

social media demographics

First Things First- Basic Demographics

Going blindly into any marketing effort is foolish, right? Right. Social networking sites are too new to understand and gauge demographics, right? Wrong. Most people have in mind who their target demographic is (ex: moms in the middle income bracket) but before you get settled, take a look at the demographics of your competitors’ websites to fine tune your own online efforts.

Step One: Identify Competitors, Compare

In this space, information flows quite freely and if your competitor or someone that has a similar service or product as you do existed online first, look at their public data to compile a profile for your own target (keeping in mind that public data is less than exact but at least enough to give you a rough guess). Let’s say that you have a stationary company, you’ll want to do a google search for “stationary” to see who other people will see as your competitors (not just who you see as direct competition). For stationary, let’s use Quantcast to look at Crane.com, NoteworthyNotes.com and PaperStyle.com to see how their basic demographics stack up:

Crane.com

Click the images below to enlarge.  Note that this site has a lower ranking with sparse data, but enough to compile a rough demographics study based on site traffic, age of users, income and more:

crane1

crane2

NoteworthyNotes.com

Click the image below to enlarge. This site has enough traffic (27k/mo) to give enough data, so we can see several things- a decline in traffic, a Generation Y heavy user base and mid-level incomes:

note2

PaperStyle.com

Click the image below to enlarge. Paperstyle.com has an audience that is a tad older with more income which is worth knowing if this is closer to your target- their demographics will be more important for you to reach than other competitors. This site has great traffic and even shows users’ affinities for other sites which could open your eyes to who else you need to study.

paperstyle

Putting it all together

I recommend spending a few minutes looking at the trends of each so you know the existing user data. You should be thinking about whether your competitors’ data matches what you thought they would and if you need to rethink your strategy or does it affirm your current target?

When setting up or altering your marketing efforts (especially our blog), keep these simple, common sense demographic tips in mind:

  1. Male/Female ratio is important for your color choices, your tone, etc. Gender profiling experts can tell you the drastic differences between the two, it’s not just pink versus blue.
  2. Age data is crucial because generational differences and marketing to those can determine your success or failure. If your product or service is aimed at senior citizens and the data shows an absence of seniors in the space you wish to dive into, you’ll have to invest time and money into getting those people to you rather than siphon off of current users’ traffic patterns. Your copy will change depending on your age target, as will your content.
  3. Ethnic makeup may or may not be important to your strategy. We always advise remaining neutral unless your product or service is targeted to a specific ethnicity (for example if your company is a Latin America Business Professionals Networking group).
  4. Parental status is important if you’re targeting parents or if your product involves a client to commit ti and you’d like to use this data point as an indicator.
  5. Education/Income levels are standby indicators that imply buying power of your consumer. Luxury home builders will aim for an upper bracket but ringtone sellers will aim for the lower brackets, there’s room for both.
  6. Monthly traffic to a site can point to a weak spot in a competitor where you can pick up slack as they fall or can prove who the biggest dog to take down in a fight is. It also gives you an idea of what your site traffic should eventually look like.
  7. Affinities for other sites by users of your competitors’ sites can open your eyes to new competitors OR new verticals for your brand.
  8. Traffic frequency shows loyalty and/or quality of site content. If someone comes to a site, sees that it doesn’t meet their needs or is ugly, they “bounce” by clicking away quickly. When visitors linger and click around, it shows quality of content meeting their needs, so as your site grows, study your bounce rate closely to monitor your success.
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