4 Ways to Tap Into Your Target Audience

Why you need to identify your target audience

Let’s face it: your next content could be the juiciest peach out there, but there’s no point in it if it’s not going into the right hands.

To make sure that you thrive as a content creator, you have to identify your target audience. Your audience is the folks who resonate with the content you create. They’re defined by varied factors like demographics, personalities, and interests.

From building personas to identifying content gaps, here are four ways to tap into your audience.

1. Create an audience persona

An audience persona is a profile of your ideal follower. It acts as an anchor for your content, ensuring you create what your audience (ideally) wants to see.

It includes demographics like age, gender, and location, and psychological behaviors like interests, goals, and pain points. Other traits like spending preferences and online habits are also helpful. For example:

• Demographics: Lili, 22, student, Kuala Lumpur
• Interests: Drinking teas, exploring cafes in KL, following aesthetic foodie accounts
• Pain points: Finding good content around tea cafes in KL, no time to research her own
• Preferred platforms: Instagram, TikTok

Look at your existing followers as a start, and use tools like polls and Q&As to gain deeper insights from them.

2. Get analytical

Platform-specific analytics tools like Instagram Insights and TikTok Analytics provide data that shows your followers’ age, gender, location and even the times they’re most active. It can reveal habits or demographics you hadn’t considered, giving you a new perspective on your audience. Once you’ve looked at the numbers, try A/B testing. Experiment with posting times, formats, and topics. Look at the analytics to find out what content performs best with your target audience.

3. Ask your audience

It’s a good idea to get feedback straight from the source. Actively engage with comments, DMs, and Q&As to gather insights that help you align your content with what your audience wants to see.

Be genuine—show your audience you value their input. While it’s important to stay true to your style,tweaking your content to match their preferencescan help build a better rapport.

4. Identify content gaps

Content gaps are the topics other creators in your niche don’t talk about. Identify these potential topics and match them up with your target audience’s goals and pain points to find out what kind of content can meet their needs.

Start by studying creators in your niche to see what they’re missing. Read through their comments to find out what their followers are asking and talking about.

Your audience persona will also help you spot these gaps. Going back to our persona, Lili: she’s a tea enthusiast on a student budget. While there’s plenty of content about cafes in KL, Lili would enjoy reviews of budget-friendly teahouses near public transport. Get specific–it’ll help you hit that content sweet spot.

Evolving your target audience

By identifying and understanding your target audience, you can create content that resonates and keeps them coming back for more. When it’s time, don’t be afraid to challenge yourself to expand your target audience–it’ll help you grow as a content creator.