Adglow’s Guide to Creating a Social Advertising Brand Persona

By Marketing Team

The very best content out there is built on a sturdy marketing strategy with extensive research to support it – and any social media plan is exactly the same.

When marketers are launching a social advertising plan they should ensure there is a brand persona working alongside it.

In order to gain a broader understanding of the type of content you need to be producing alongside your social media plan – as well as the channels you should be utilising - you first need to define the buyer persona for your brand.

In order to do that, you should start by asking yourself the following three questions:

  • What is my target audience?
  • What type of content is resonating with that audience today?
  • Where can I find and reach out to this audience?

people15.jpgThey may seem like pretty standard questions for anyone preparing a social strategy, but the real value comes from how you answer them.

Putting yourself in the shoes of your target audience helps you to generate an insight into your brand persona.

But What Else is Essential When Creating Personas for Social Media Strategies?

If you want to get real results, it requires building on the three primary questions mentioned above. You’ll want to get a little more granular with each one – such as identifying audience demographics, their job roles and their locations.

You’ll then find that some of these questions spill over into your other primary ones, such as what they do and where they spend their time – which ties in with finding and reaching out to your audience.

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For instance, if you’re trying to reach out to a young audience who spend lots of time out and about, you can be sure they’ll have regular access to a mobile device. As we’re dealing with social here, knowing what hash-tags they’ll be using and what social networks they’re on is essential information for your persona.

If you’re seeking a useful tool to locate specific demographics for your personas, Facebook Audience Insights is useful for identifying age, lifestyle, interests, habits etc.

You should also consider audiences of the future. How are your audience likely to change in the future? Could they be using new tech? Will their behaviour change? If you consider this on top of everything else, you could be one step ahead of your competition.

Connecting With and Understanding Your Persona

Are you ready for some more questions? It’s time to get even more granular with your persona specifications and ask some specific questions – what does your persona enjoy? What are they motivated by? What are their goals? What affects them emotionally?

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It’s a somewhat never-ending list of questions you can ask yourself.  By answering as many as you can, you gradually get an even better understanding of your audience – and ultimately a far more accurate brand persona.

In order to achieve the best results from this exercise, give yourself enough time to build a list of questions you can ask. Don’t just consider what comes to mind during the planning process – take some time out to build a proper list and go from there. Just like any expert social strategy, brand personas take time.

How Does a Brand Persona Define a Social Strategy?

It’s all well and good having your brand persona preparation completed and ready to initiate, yet you may still be wondering how this is going to cooperate with your overall social strategy. It’s a fair question – and the answer is actually pretty straightforward.

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If you have a persona in place that’s well constructed based on substantial research and our already-mentioned granular questioning process, you have your guide. That’s right. Any content you create from this point on should reflect the brand persona you’ve created.  That’s everything from your tone of voice to the content you’re posting out on a regular basis.

Soon enough you’ll realise that your brand persona is defining your content format, type and channel. When you think about it, it solves the issue many social media users have - knowing what channel is best for their specific interests. If you’re following the brand persona guide you’ll be adhering to their requirements consistently.

When it comes to delivering high quality social advertising campaigns for various audiences within numerous markets, Adglow’s expertise is unparalleled. If you’re keen to take your social advertising to the next level, contact our friendly team today.

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