Defining your audience personas is crucial if you want to create successful content.
But if you aren’t sure what that means, you’ll want to keep reading.
In this month’s #ContentWritingChat, we talked all your audience persona… What exactly it is, what you should know about your audience before writing your next piece of content, and more. If you’re ready to learn all about it, let’s dive into the recap!
#ContentWritingChat Recap: Defining Audience Personas for Better SEO Results with Diana Richardson
Hey, everyone! 👋🏻 Welcome to #ContentWritingChat!
Our guest host today is our friend, @DianaRich013. She's the social media and community manager at @semrush.
And she's joining us to share some tips on defining your audience persona. 🔥 pic.twitter.com/l0spb8NUW0
— Express Writers | Your Content Writing Partner (@ExpWriters) February 2, 2021
Our awesome friend, Diana Richardson, joined as a guest host again to share her expertise with us. She’s a social media and community manager at SEMrush, which is one of our favorite tools for SEO. Diana has previously hosted our chat to talk about optimizing web content and designing an SEO and content creation workflow. Be sure to check those out too!
Q1: What exactly is an audience persona and why is it so important?
If you haven’t already determined your audience personas, now is the time to get started. Here’s what that means for you so you can see just how valuable it is to know this information:
A1 (1/4): #ContentWritingChat An audience persona (or a buyer persona) is a personality description. 👋 You sketch out who your audience is: demographics, interests, life events, etc. so that you as a business, brand & marketer know WHO you are talking to.🧑🤝🧑 https://t.co/QY6TEwGXw4
— Diana Richardson🍷 (@DianaRich013) February 2, 2021
A1 (2/4): #ContentWritingChat Use your website data, social media insights, surveys, etc to find out in-depth information about the people who interact with you. Do not create personas based on assumptions. Use real information. 📊 https://t.co/QY6TEwGXw4
— Diana Richardson🍷 (@DianaRich013) February 2, 2021
As Diana said, defining your audience personas is essential creating a personality description about your target audience. You want to know their demographics and interests in order to create the content that’s most appealing to them. She suggests using website data and surveys as just a couple of ways to gather this kind of information. You never want to assume you know things about your audience.
A1 (3/4): #ContentWritingChat Understanding your audience on a ♥️PERSONAL♥️ level will enable you to connect with them in an authentic way. You’ll have an actual human in mind when you’re creating content or a new strategy. https://t.co/QY6TEwGXw4
— Diana Richardson🍷 (@DianaRich013) February 2, 2021
A1: Audience persona is getting to know your audience on a deeper personal level to truly understand them. The more you know about them, the easier it is to provide what they need. #ContentWritingChat
— Netvantage Marketing (@netvantage) February 2, 2021
By knowing these deeper details about your audience, you can develop a stronger connection with them and you’ll understand them better. This gives you more of an opportunity to deliver what they need the most.
A1:
An audience persona outlines a lot about your target audience. What they like, Who they are, etc.
You get to know them on a personal level.
It is important as that way you'll be to provide them with the right content.
— SEO Charge 🦄 (@seocharge_) February 2, 2021
When it comes to your audience, you want to know who they are and what they like. Then, you can start developing content accordingly.
A1 It's a detailed description of your ideal user / client / customer. It's the basis of all your marking & sales activities that, with good data, can be targeting the right audiences and come before the right 👀 at the right time in the 👉 form #ContentWritingChat https://t.co/isKvbe0ISM
— Zala Bricelj – 🇸🇮 😊 #edutech is my jam (@ZalkaB) February 2, 2021
This persona you’ve created will then become the basis of all your marketing and sales activities. As Zala said, it’s going to help you target the right audience at the right time. That’s pretty powerful!
A1: By developing your audience persona, you'll have a clear picture of who you're writing for. You'll know their demographics, their needs, etc.@ExpWriters has a great post all about this: https://t.co/BsOwrSnUfV#ContentWritingChat
— Rachel (@rachmoffett) February 2, 2021
And if you want some help with the process of defining your audience personas, I shared an awesome post from our very own blog here at Express Writers. Give it a read!
Q2: What characteristics do you need to know about your audience before creating content?
You really need to go beyond the basic demographics like age and location. Here are some other things you should know about the people reading your content:
A2 (1/2): #ContentWritingChat 🧠You’ll want to understand🧠:
1⃣What do they WANT from you
2⃣What do they NEED from you
3⃣Their intent (purchase, test, educate, etc) https://t.co/VB0SMPBboV— Diana Richardson🍷 (@DianaRich013) February 2, 2021
A2 (2/2): #ContentWritingChat 🧠You’ll want to understand🧠:
4⃣Their interests outside of your business/brand/niche (do they love pets, the outdoors, wine, etc)
5⃣If they are experiencing life events you can relate to (moving, babies, marriage, etc) https://t.co/VB0SMPBboV— Diana Richardson🍷 (@DianaRich013) February 2, 2021
This breakdown from Diana is spot-on! Knowing what your audience wants, what they need, what their intent is, what their interests are, and any life events they’re experiencing can all play a role in shaping your content.
A2: Good things to know about your audience — What questions keep them up at night? Who do they go to for advice? Are they confident in themselves, or do they need extra help to reach goals? How do they learn?
Thinking about them this way keeps you genuine. #ContentWritingChat
— Rachel Wendte (@rkwendte) February 2, 2021
A good question to ask yourself is, “What questions keep my audience up at night?” You can use your content to address their biggest pain points and provide the solution they need. They’ll be sure to keep coming back if you do that consistently.
A2: These can vary depending on what industry you're in but generally I'd say it's basic demographic info (age/gender/income/location/etc), hobbies/interests, lifestyle (work/play), and also how they consume content is critical as well. #ContentWritingChat
— Keith 🇨🇭 (@SumoFondue) February 2, 2021
Another thing to consider outside of the essential characteristics is how your audience likes to consume content. After all, it’s important to create content they’ll enjoy consuming.
A2. Who they are, what they’ve experienced, what they value. #ContentWritingChat
— Dana Lemaster (@DanaLemaster) February 2, 2021
It also helps to know what your audience values. How can you connect with them in this way by creating content that’s aligned to their values?
Q3: Can you share any strategies for coming up with topics that your audience will be genuinely interested in?
These ideas will certainly help you fill up your content calendar for the next month!
A3: #ContentWritingChat Well you have to know who they are first, but this is where social listening 👂& community involvement 👄can come into play. Join their conversations. Experience what they experience & you should get a good sense of what they are interested in. https://t.co/cFCoyf7CgX
— Diana Richardson🍷 (@DianaRich013) February 2, 2021
Once you’ve discovered your audience personas, you’ll know who you’re looking to connect with online. Then, social listening really comes in handy. You can join in on their conversations to learn first-hand what they are interested in learning about.
A3: We like to do this backward. We use tools like @semrush topic research and find popular topics to related what we would like to write about. Then we check with our audience to see if they want to learn about it. #ContentWritingChat
— Netvantage Marketing (@netvantage) February 2, 2021
Lexie uses the topic research feature within SEMrush to find popular topics. From there, you can see if there are ways to tie those topics to what you’d normally like to write about. And you can take it a step further by asking your audience if it’s something they’d like. It never hurts to just ask them their thoughts.
A3: Google Trends is a great way to practice topics. What are people searching right now? Is there anything you can offer that’s timely, relevant to your work, and to your audience?
With a broad theme in mind, you can branch out into specific areas for you. #ContentWritingChat
— Rachel Wendte (@rkwendte) February 2, 2021
Another way to find hot topics is to use Google Trends. It’s smart to write about timely topics because it can help you get your content in front of a much wider audience. However, you always want to make sure it’s relevant to your work and your audience.
A3:
#1 Survey them, it works really well
#2 Publish statistical case studies
#3 Take the help of @BuzzSumo
#4 Hop on Reddit, Quora threads
— SEO Charge 🦄 (@seocharge_) February 2, 2021
Even more great ideas! Surveying your audience allows you to get answers directly from the source. What could be easier than that? And BuzzSumo is another tool that will show you popular topics, so it can really come in handy.
A3: Probably not the most refined strategy, but I like to use social and just check out the scene. Whether its FB groups, subreddits, youtube channels, or Twitter microcommunities, a lot of the nuance is there. #ContentWritingChat
— Keith 🇨🇭 (@SumoFondue) February 2, 2021
Social media is a great tool for learning about your audience’s interests in terms of content. You can join Facebook groups, for example, to see what they’re talking about. Just be sure to find groups that your target audience is actively participating in. Twitter chats are helpful for this as well.
A3) I love using: Quora threads, @semrush's topic research tool, twitter explore, competition brands' content & of course keeping a check on trends for coming up with topics that my audience will be interested in. #ContentWritingChat
— Megha (@WanderlustGirl_) February 2, 2021
Another great resource that Megha suggested is Quora. It provides another opportunity to see the conversations your audience is having online. She also suggests paying attention to the content your competitors are producing. Can you put your own spin on some of the topics they cover?
Q4: How does your audience impact keyword research in the early phases of content creation?
Because your audience does, in fact, influence your keywords. After all, you want to use keywords that reflect how they’re searching online.
A4 (1/3): #ContentWritingChat Excellent question. 🔥Once you know WHO your audience is, you can better focus your keyword research around seed keywords, phrases & questions that person might search. https://t.co/GvW1leWfDs
— Diana Richardson🍷 (@DianaRich013) February 2, 2021
A4 (2/3): #ContentWritingChat Their intent (purchase💸, educate👨🎓, shop around🛍️, etc) will play a huge role here, too, but that should be wrapped into your persona. https://t.co/GvW1leWfDs
— Diana Richardson🍷 (@DianaRich013) February 2, 2021
Knowing your audience will give you an idea of what they’re searching online, as well as how they’re searching. You’re then able to choose keywords accordingly so your content will (hopefully) rank for the terms they’re Googling. Diana also said their intent will play a role here, whether that’s purchasing, educating, etc.
A4: I lift my keywords straight from queries that my audience (or my soon-to-be audience) puts into the world.
“Does anyone know any resources for ___(Keyword)?”
”Looking for tips about ____ (Keyword).”
”____ ___ best practices (Keyword, keyword).” #ContentWritingChat— Rachel Wendte (@rkwendte) February 2, 2021
Rachel gets her keywords straight from her audience, thanks to the queries they’re sharing online. Once you figure out where they spend their time online, you’ll likely to start to see the same kind of questions and you can address them.
A4:
A lot!
First, we do some research trying to find out some untapped keywords our audience is searching for.
Then, we filter them based on search intent.
— SEO Charge 🦄 (@seocharge_) February 2, 2021
This presents a great opportunity to discover some untapped keywords you can start developing content for.
A4: Understanding your audience helps you understand their purchase decision journey as well. And knowing that can help identify and prioritize the topics (and therefore KWs) you produce content with. #ContentWritingChat
— Keith 🇨🇭 (@SumoFondue) February 2, 2021
And it’ll all come together to help you choose topics, keywords, and produce content that appeals to them at each stage of their buyer journey.
Q5: Does your audience shape things such as the content formats you create and the tone you use when developing content? How so?
If not, it should! Your audience will tell you what types of content they like the most. Here’s how you can figure that out:
A5 (1/2): #ContentWritingChat Absolutely it does. 💡This is what it means to be flexible when you communicate. This is what it means to create content that resonates with your audience. https://t.co/s06UCdjarP
— Diana Richardson🍷 (@DianaRich013) February 2, 2021
A5 (2/2): #ContentWritingChat Use different tones for different personas. Use different content formats for different audiences. This is part of the reason why it’s so important to understand your audience from the beginning. 🗓️ https://t.co/s06UCdjarP
— Diana Richardson🍷 (@DianaRich013) February 2, 2021
Different personas will require different tones and content formats. You’ll want to tailor your content as necessary to ensure it appeals to the person who will be consuming it.
A5. Absolutely. Your audience's content formats are critical for your plan. Whether it is written, video, audio format, it all depends on your audience… Also tone has to be aligned to your audience (usage of gif etc)… #ContentWritingChat https://t.co/bnZlktjo7Q
— Vivek Nair – The Thrifty Marketer (@vivektweetsso) February 2, 2021
Written, video, audio… They’re all great options, but are they right for your audience? That’s what you need to figure out before you plan out your content.
A5: Your audience will inevitably influence your content creation formula, & it should. If you audience responds well to lists, & you deviate, numbers may drop. That‘s why you should TELL your audience you’re testing formatting, and that you welcome feedback. #ContentWritingChat
— Rachel Wendte (@rkwendte) February 2, 2021
You can even go deeper than general formats. For instance, if you know your audience loves blog posts, figure out what kind of blog posts they like. Tutorials, lists, long-form? The data will show you what they’re most drawn to so you can create that more frequently.
A5:
100%, Your content should align with your audience's interests.
They prefer blog posts – go for that, audio – hell yeah, video – great.
It all boils down to their preference & level of engagement.
Also, your skills play a vital role as well.
— SEO Charge 🦄 (@seocharge_) February 2, 2021
And don’t forget that your unique skills play a role here too. You want to embrace what you really shine at. For example, you’re great on video and your audience loves it, you’re golden!
A5 Yes! Putting them first, always. Content created is not just for the purpose of creating, publishing and promoting, but should primarily be used to be of use, interest, engage the audience (not just fill my editorial). I wish my audience to DO sth with it #ContentWritingChat https://t.co/5LkiH5eDc0
— Zala Bricelj – 🇸🇮 😊 #edutech is my jam (@ZalkaB) February 2, 2021
At the end of the day, you need to put your audience first. When you deliver what they want and need, it gives them a reason to keep coming back. And as Zala said, it’s not about publishing content for the sake of publishing. You want your audience to do something with your content.
Q6: How will you know if your content is truly reaching the right people and appealing to them?
If your content isn’t reaching the right people, does it even matter? These are the stats to watch out for:
A6: #ContentWritingChat ⁉️This is the question we all ask ourselves, right? Social media is a terrific test. The comments & feedback there are definitely a reflection of whether you are on the right track. Also, you could just ask. Send out a survey & get constructive feedback. https://t.co/uTYjAqebEV
— Diana Richardson🍷 (@DianaRich013) February 2, 2021
Pay attention to the feedback you get from people. That’s a good indication of what they’re enjoying from you. You can also take things a step further and send out a survey to get feedback directly.
A6: If you’re truly reaching people, they will go out of your way to tell you — and to tell everyone else!
When I love a piece, I share it & tag the author, as well as the publication. Great work should be celebrated! And then I send it to my group chat. 🙃 #ContentWritingChat
— Rachel Wendte (@rkwendte) February 2, 2021
Rachel loves to spread the word when she comes across a great piece of content. Consider doing the same when you read an amazing blog post or watch a fun video. Sharing the work others have created definitely puts some good vibes out into the world and people may feel inclined to do the same for you.
A6 When it motivates people to take action (do something). Engage, like, share, comment, give a shout out, share it in other communities, citing it, using it, and lastly generating WOM and new leads #ContentWritingChat https://t.co/xqrivuS8j1
— Zala Bricelj – 🇸🇮 😊 #edutech is my jam (@ZalkaB) February 2, 2021
When people start taking action in some way, you know your content resonated with them. And that really shows that you’re on the right path.
A6: Always be tracking! What data you are looking at will depend on the goal of the content you created. For your website, how long did someone spend with the content? Did they click on your CTA? With social, are people sharing your content? #ContentWritingChat
— Netvantage Marketing (@netvantage) February 2, 2021
Know your goals first and then track accordingly. What do you want to get out of the content you’re creating? Use your analytics to help you figure out if you’re getting to that end result. For example, if a specific blog post was meant to drive conversions, did it actually happen?
A6. If your content is truly resonating, you’ll notice:
👉 People engaging with it, for example, sharing it on social
👉 Leads coming in. E.g. more people signing up for your newsletter (if that’s the goal)
👉 Growing word of mouth as ppl refer and reference #ContentWritingChat— Masooma | Content Writer (@inkandcopy) February 2, 2021
Engagement and leads are great examples that your content is working. Plus, it’s always nice when others are saying good things about you.
Q7: Are there any brands that have done a great job at speaking directly to their ideal audience persona?
You can get a lot of inspiration from these brands:
A7: #ContentWritingChat. Shout out to @semrush – we truly enjoy knowing our audience. The @morningbrew team is my inspiration! @netflix is an amazing brand & they’ve stepped up their Twitter game lately. And I feel like @oreo really gets me. ☕️📺🍪 https://t.co/hujD98IdG7
— Diana Richardson🍷 (@DianaRich013) February 2, 2021
There’s no denying that our friends at SEMrush are awesome at knowing their audience! She also suggests checking out Morning Brew and Netflix for some inspiration.
A8: @netflix's Twitter game is strong since they've segmented different accounts for specific genres.#ContentWritingChat
— Kaitlyn Arford — Freelance Writer (@kaitarford) February 2, 2021
Kaitlyn seconds the Netflix recommendation. They really know how to have fun with their audience via social media.
A7: Those brands where you feel like there is actually a person there, and not a scheduled bot, gives people so much confidence in sharing and engaging, which makes the brand better. @RGA @netflix @NewYorker @onepeloton all do this. #ContentWritingChat
— Rachel Wendte (@rkwendte) February 2, 2021
While bots are helpful in some cases, there’s nothing like talking to an actual person. The brands that take the time to make a genuine response are the ones that truly stand out. Rachel suggests brands like Netflix and Peloton to inspire you.
A7. @HubSpot does a great job, I would definitely agree with @Grammarly, @ARKInvest has a really good newsletter. #ContentWritingChat
— Zengrowth (@ZengrowthHQ) February 2, 2021
HubSpot, Grammarly, and ARK Invest are the recommendations from the team at Zengrowth. Definitely check them all out if you haven’t already!
We’d love to have you join us for the next #ContentWritingChat! Mark your calendars for the first Tuesday of every month at 10 AM Central. And follow @ExpWriters and @writingchat to stay updated.