Assignment
Take your business/client/brand (the one from the SMART goals assignment), and taking into account geographic area, tell me about your target audience. This is the target audience for your social media message NOT for the entire product. You will need to define both demographics and psychographics. You can look at your target area using either the US Census or SimplyAnalytics to see what your potential targets might be.
This is the target audience for your social media message NOT for the entire product. To whom are you speaking with your social media. Remember the narrower your target the more likely your social media campaign is to be successful. If you speak to everyone; you speak to no one.
This is the target audience for your social media message NOT for the entire product. (Why do I keep saying this? it’s the number one reason that people do poorly on the assignment. They give me the entire target for the brand. You may welcome people of both sexes aged 19-78 in your gym, but a message for a 19-year-old man, will not work for a 59-year-old woman.)
You will need to use SimplyAnalytics to get “the number” … i.e. the number of people in the target area that match your demographic description. This is worth 5 points, so you can certainly pass without it, you can even get an A. But if you need 100% you need to complete that section. I go through SimplyAnalytics in the module and in class (if we have class). I will also help you during office hours just contact me so we can schedule. Only about 3 people at a time can log into SimplyAnalytics through our library. That is why you have two weeks for the assignment. If you wait until the day before it is due, you will not be able to log on. Again, that’s only a problem if you want a perfect score on this assignment.
Demographics are:
Age (mandatory)
Sex or gender
Generation
Sexual orientation
Marital status
Number of children
Nationality
Income (mandatory or a good explanation why it is not)
Education level
Homeownership
Place of residence
You don’t need all of them, but you need some. You must have an age range. You must have an income range. You MUST add one additional attribute that reflects your brand message.
Psychographics are attitudes, interests, and opinions. An easy short cut is to find a VALs that fits. But you can just describe these attributes of your target. ESRI has psychographics, but you need to pull out the ones that are appropriate for your target.
Use the same business/brand as you used for your goal assignment. I have provided four samples below or (even better), you may also use a real local business. By using the same brand for all your assignments you will find that at the end of the semester, you will have a social media strategy outlined for this business that you can put in your portfolio.
Sample Businesses for Social Media and Strategic Branding WITH potential client areas. (To help you narrow your audience and come up with a real number of potential targets.)
Elizabeth Marsh – Candidate for Mayor of Middle South Miami. District is composed of zipcode = 33134. Precincts 606 and 623
(note this is not the real boundary of South Miami, but I chose one zipcode to make demographics easier.)
Candidate’s interest and expertise are education and climate change
Candidate wants to raise money, so how many people would you say are interested in education (for their children) and sea level rise?
Mobile Tire Repair and Replacement (you pick a great name) – service area is zipcodes = 33134, 33126 and 33144.
New company seeking to establish brand awareness
Tire repair and replacement at your work
Westchester International Bank – local area zipcodes = 33155, 33144,
Established community bank that wants to expand portfolio
Wealth management and estate planning
Little Royals VPK (Voluntary Pre-K) and childcare. Zipcode = 33134 & 33144
LRVPK is a well known high end childcare facility
Rebranding to service more moderate income families through state sponsored VPK
You should then tell me how many of these people described above are in your target area. This is where you need to use SimplyAnalytics.
Define this narrow target (for the message) using demographics and psychographics. Your research should reflect SimplyAnalytics or the US Census, and ESRI. Your target must be narrow with respect to age, socio-economic bracket, and sex, also race/ethnicity if it is relevant.
Lastly, create an audience persona (or buyer persona) which is description of a person with a name, sex, etc who is your typical audience member. This needs to include a picture. It should include both demographics and psychographic. It should include where you will find them on social media. I have included templates for audience personas in the module. You may follow one of these or you may do some research on your own to find another style you like better.
Before you start look at the rubric. You can clearly see from the rubric what I am looking for and how you can lay it out so it is easy to grade.
Your assignment should have two headings: Demographics and Psychographics. You should include a bullet point list of each underneath the heading. For psychographic, you can use a VALs (one!) category but do include the list of attributes on this assignment.
Then put the number of members of your target audience in your chosen area.
Then, on a separate page, create a persona. Use the template in the module to understand what one looks like.
Demographics
Psychographics
Number
Narrow target (Which is something I decide. I look at your demographic and psychographic profile and determine if it is narrow. You do not need to write anything here.)
Persona
Your persona must look like one of the templates, or what you would see if you Googled “Buyer Persona.” BUT do not copy the templates. I will not except any of those examples.
