One of the most essential steps in business is determining what audience you want to serve OR if you're already in business, what audience you are serving. Often you may find that the audience you intended to target is in fact not the audience that is responding to your content.

So, we're going to begin this lesson by looking at out Instagram Insights.

Let's pause here for a moment...

Ok, hopefully your answer to that little quiz was that you have your instagram account set up as a business account and you have at least looked at your insights. The goal of this exercise is to determine if the audience your are serving is your intended audience. We also want to see what type of content is resonating with that audience and look for consistencies across your post engagement.

To get your business profile insights, go to your profile and click the three lines in the top right hand corner. Then select "Insights." Now, for the purposes of the first part of this exercise we will be studying the tab that says "Audience," but we'll get to the other tabs. So, go ahead and select "Audience."

Sorry guys, no worksheet for this part. We're going old school... just pen and paper. Prepare to do A LOT of writing!

(P.S. Throughout this course you'll find firsthand examples from my own business)

HERE WE GO!

Write who your target audience or ideal customer is.

Brazen's ideal customer is a millennial. She's typically between the ages of 22 and 37. Some are students, others are working full-time jobs. Ideally, our customer is a woman who's into fashion, but she's on a budget. She loves to wear the color black, but isn't scared to venture out and try something new. She doesn't like to show too much skin, but still wants to offer a bit of sexy. She may be petite, but she also may have curves.

Write a general overview of what you see on your audience insights page.

• Largest percent in St. Louis, next highest is Atlanta
• 54% ages 25-34
• 96% women

Times of Day ( you will have to click on each bar individually to see numbers)

• Saturday 6pm then 9pm
• Friday 9pm then 6pm
• Thursday 6pm then 9pm
• Wednesday 9m then 6pm
• Tuesday 9pm then 6pm
• Monday 3pm then 9pm
• Sunday 6pm then 3pm
• Wednesday at 9pm is my followers most active time of the week, then Tuesdays at 9pm, Wednesdays at 6pm
• Mondays at 3pm are the only high afternoon time

Next we're going to go over to the "Content" tab. On this page we're going to be studying posts that fall within the following categories;

• Check highest engagement post
• Highest follows
• Most impressions
• Most Profile visits
• Most Saves
• Most Comments
• Most Website clicks

Write a general description of what post falls under each category. (See my example below)

• Engagement (colorful crochet dress)
• Follows (white jumpsuit - 8 follows)
• Impressions (black sequin dress - video - 3,246) (2nd highest - colorful crochet dress)
• Profile visits - (colorful crochet dress - 371) (2nd - yellow jumpsuit - 288) (3rd - white jumpsuit - 263)
• Saves (Launch video featuring multiple styles - 15) (2nd - yellow jumpsuit - 10)
• Comments (black sequin dress - video - 35) (colorful crochet dress - 25)
• Website Clicks (Black Sequin Dress - video - 94) (colorful crochet dress - 67)
• Likes (white 2-piece skirt set) (colorful crochet)

As you can see I have briefly described what item each of those posts consisted of. (Note: Some of yours may be graphics such as quotes or promotional posts. Take note of that as well and detail what that post was about.)

Now, we're going to analyze each of those posts individually. (See my example below)

Include descriptors such as number of likes/views, details about the wording in the caption, how many photos were in the post, etc. Include as much detail as possible.

• Colorful Crochet Dress - New arrivals mentioned, emojis used, Sense of urgency (“She’s gonna go fast”) Call-to-action (Click the link in our bio), 224 likes, swipe feature showed multiple angles of the dress, (STUDENTS SHOULD ALSO DOCUMENT HOW MANY OF THIS ITEM YOU’VE SOLD, HOW MANY DO YOU STILL HAVE, HOW LONG AGO DID YOU POST IT), 16 comments
• White Jumpsuit - Swipe featured four photos, 156 likes, joke in caption with emoji, details about the item (“it stretches a lot and contours to the body” … “belt is detachable”), no call to action, 4 comments
• Black sequin dress - Slow motion video, 164 like, emoji used, 3 photos after video in swipe feature, value mentioned (“we don’t believe in “everyday wear”), 19 likes
• Yellow Jumpsuit - 166 likes, sunflower emoji represents the name of the jumpsuit, talk in first person, 6 comments but I only responded to one, Question asked in the comments (What’s your favorite color to wear?
• Launch video - 1,873 views, 138 likes, Question asked, Mission mentioned, Motto mentioned, goo upbeat music, launch date mentioned
• White 2 Piece Set - 243 likes, photos taken in different area than all the others, Swipe feature, call to action (check out some of the other photos of this set), 10 comments

Now document any consistencies that you see. Was there an item that seemed to generate high engagement, impressions, profile visits, etc.?

Example: colorful crochet dress fell into many of those categories, included a call to action, swipe for more photos, created a sense of urgency, used emojis.

Now back to studying our audience.

Often we may find that the people we intend to see our posts are not the people engaging with it at all.

Take a moment to scroll through and look at the profiles of some of the people that liked each of the posts listed above (scroll past family and friends, but do take note of if many of your likes are coming from people who already know you - if this is the case, your targeting is off and you need to do a better job of marketing to your target audience) - List five followers per post if possible.

As you select "likers" list details about them by examining their posts. You may need to eliminate some people if their posts don't tell you much about them.

EXAMPLE: (names have been changed)

• @customer1 - curvy, wears crop-tops, likes to show cleavage, likes pieces with cutouts, dancer, likes to show legs
• @customer2 - curvy, wears 2-piece sets, spandex, dramatic sleeves, stripes,
• @customer3 - In a sorority (AKA), wears lots of pink, curvy, wears mature attire but trendy, nothing short or too revealing, works in corporate

Did you find any similarities across the people that you listed?

Make sure to jot the similarities down.

Now based on all of the data above can you confirm that you ideal customer is the type of person that is engaging with your content? Is there a particular type of content that seems to work well for you? What wording in your captions seems to be working. Take some time to study the data above and create a strategy going forward for Instagram.

MY EXAMPLE STRATEGY

Save content for posting in the evening between 6pm and 9pm. Monday's Tuesdays and Wednesdays I will post more because that seems to be when my audience is more engaging.Solid black and solid white pieces seem to work well for Brazen, but customers also like a pop of color here and there. Include a call to action in every post. Use emojis here and there to add character. Use the swipe feature as much as possible.