Social media marketing and data-driven personas

Personas for organic social media posts

What you see too often on the social web, unfortunately: Much ado about little relevant content. The main thing is to be there and to be at least as loudly perceived as the competitors. But what is really relevant: the interests of the target group. Target groups want to be understood, addressed in an interesting way, want to be heard and want to actively participate - if the topic fits their preferences, expectations and values.

This is where data-driven personas come into play. You directly increase the relevance of your posts. Because in the digital media race, everything revolves around attention. Dramatic headlines jump out at us everywhere, we are confronted with breaking news, push messages expect immediate attention and social media platforms point out the latest notifications. How can you keep track of everything and how can your own digital offering gain real attention in this competition for target groups? 

If you have only a superficial picture of the target group, only superficial interactions are possible. However, if you know exactly who you are addressing, an interesting conversation can arise directly. Example: Let's say a company makes electric bicycles. The benefit is clearly speedy, sporty and sustainable locomotion from A to B. But that alone won't get anyone out from behind the stove on the social web. With social media personas, you can get to know an exemplary target group representative directly:

David, 39, lives in Hamburg on the outskirts, works as a project manager for a company in Hamburg's Hafencity and therefore has to commute from home to work. David has a son from his first marriage and also visits him a lot by bike. For David, safety, reliability and modularity are therefore important when it comes to bicycles, for example when adding a child seat to a bicycle. He is also interested in extras such as bicycle bags, anti-theft protection with GPS tracking or tyres that cannot be flattened.

We know a lot more about David thanks to the data from Data-based personas but much more. We know which media he uses, when and to what extent. We know how he behaves when he wants to purchase a new product, i.e. which websites he then visits and how he gets into conversation with other users. On this basis, it is easy to create a targeted social media concept: Does David only log on to Instagram twice a week to follow the latest developments? Then it's unnecessary to post new messages on Instagram every day.

The clarity of the data basis of data-based personas also speeds up internal company processes. Often there are different views in companies about what content should be published on the social web. This can lead to seemingly endless coordination processes. These processes can be significantly shortened with personas, as the factual basis is clear: everyone knows what the target group uses on the digital web, when, why, where and how intensively.

Among the additional benefits of data-based personas is the improved storytelling opportunity. Only if you know the target group and its everyday life can you authentically tell stories that have a complex effect and do not simply address a point relevant to the target group. In this sense, clever connections between the individual social media platforms are also possible: Certain contents of a story are best told on LinkedIn, on Instagram the story is presented in more visual detail, while the associated video can be found on YouTube. 

Another plus point is the chance to attract target group representatives as brand ambassadors. Those who strike a chord with the target group are more likely to receive interactions or at least positive feedback. Anyone who follows a company on Instagram automatically shows that they like the company. And if this person even shares articles on LinkedIn, the target group representative becomes an active ambassador for the brand. More trustworthiness on the social web is hardly possible. And it is precisely the trust aspect that is particularly important in times of fake news.

In the end, thanks to personas you will not only understand your target group better, but you will also be able to use the marketing investments much more profitably. The business-relevant ROI factor will be significantly better compared to similar campaigns that, however, operated without social media personas. 

There are several details to consider when implementing such a strategy:

First, there is the data analysis of the existing social media followers. What socio-demographic details (e.g., age, place of residence, gender) can be obtained? Which interests regarding which content can be identified? Which dislikes as well as problematic topics can be identified? Also important: Which hashtags are preferred? Professional social media tools such as Hootsuite, Keyhole or Zoho Social help to obtain such data. With the help of Google Trends and also the insights from Twitter or Instagram, it is very easy to find out what topics users are talking about. Not only which topics they follow, but also which topics they talk about or discuss in an engaged way. When analyzing, one should also not forget the competitors. How do the target group representatives talk on the competitors' social media portals? Which content and which debates are preferred here?

All this, together with findings from representative surveys combined with the wealth of experience from the everyday work of already active social media managers, results in an authentic picture of the target group. It is made visible and usable in the best possible way with a persona sedcard. This enables customised campaigns that save costs and effort.

Define the right key figures

A Facebook example: If we plan an organic campaign on Facebook with personas, it is important to define the key figures correctly. How many likes, shares and interactions are specified? With personas, this can look like this: In order to be noticed at all, the impressions can be predefined on Facebook. This defines or takes into account the awareness of the Facebook activity. The next step is consideration, which can be defined via follower engagement: What reactions do the followers show after a post has been viewed? The next step is clicks, which reflect the content preferences of the target group in a much more concrete way. Another important step is concrete actions, such as product purchases. This is followed by brand loyalty and, in the next step, activities as brand ambassadors.

To stay with Facebook and personas, it could look like this for the persona Eva:

 Eva, 27, single, works in sales, lives in Leipzig, prefers IKEA style, dislikes drivers and uses Facebook for daily exchanges with her yoga fitness group. She generates impressions with different Facebook posts, e.g. fitness drinks, yoga trends or sports outfits. With this persona, we can now say very specifically what further engagement she shows with which postings, with which offers she also generates clicks, where she purchases an offer and how she shares brand usage with her Facebook friends.

Define time and content types for social posts

An Instagram campaign: When we plan a campaign on Instagram, we need to consider the time for publishing the content, the general frequency of publications and, of course, the general strategy. With Personas Richard, this can look like this:

Richard, 38 years old, married, works as a graphic designer, lives in Berlin, prefers country house style, has an aversion to lateral thinking and uses Instagram several times a week (mostly on weekends) for professional inspiration. Based on this persona, we can now concretely define what content makes sense for social posts on which days.

Use personas for social ads

Personas can be used for social ads. In particular, testing different ads can provide valuable insights. The implementation takes place via A/B testing, for example via Facebook. Two different personas are used, for example Eva and Richard. With the Facebook Ads Manager, an ad can be targeted to different groups according to specific keywords, interests and behaviour. And exactly these characteristics provide us with personas; in this case Eva and Richard. Now you can place an identical ad online once according to Eva's profile data and once according to Richard's profile data with an identical budget and evaluate the results (e.g. cost-per-engagement, cost-per-click) in detail at the end. 

The top 5 practical insights

1. data-driven personas enable successful organic social media.
2. Personas make it easier to define social media metrics.
3. Times and content are easier to define with personas.
4. A/B tests for social ads are easy to implement with personas.
5. Social media marketing with personas is more efficient and effective.