How to Reach Your Target Audience on Instagram

Finding and reaching your target audience is a difficult challenge, no matter where on social media you are and what platforms you are using. With these simple and smart tricks, you can find your target audience and then engage with them to get the best possible results.

A misconception on social media is that the more people you reach, the better. This usually not the case. By targeting your target audience, you’ll get better marketing results because those you’re reaching are interested in what you have to offer.

That means a higher ROI of your efforts on Instagram.

The challenge is just knowing where and how to find your target audience and that’s what we’ll be teaching you in this article.

How to reach your target audience on Instagram:

Hashtags

One very effective way of finding your target audience is scrolling through hashtags on Instagram.

If you’re familiar with hashtags on Instagram, you know that you can search for basically any hashtag you can think of in the hashtag section.

If you’re not familiar with Instagram hashtags, read: Why should you use hashtags on Instagram before proceeding with this article.

Hashtags on Instagram works like a tool to categorize the content you’re sharing and make it more easily accessible for others. Kind of like a folder with different categories. Hopefully, you’ll find what you’re looking for – if the content has been sorted properly.

This is what you’re now taking advantage of to find your target audience.

Go to the hashtag section and search for a keyword relevant to your niche and business. Basically, a keyword that customers and other people who are interested in your niche are using.

For example: If your business is selling bicycles, a relevant keyword that you can search for is ”Mountainbike” or just ”bicycle”.

Now you will find content that has been posted by people who (most likely or probably) are interested in bicycles.

With just a simple search for a keyword relevant to your niche, you can find tons of people who might be interested in what you have to offer.

The next step

Once you have found people in your niche with the help of hashtags, you want to get noticed by these people. To get noticed by them, you want to engage with them. There are several ways to do that but the most effective ways are the following:

• Like some pictures of theirs
• Leave a comment on their page
• Message them a personalized message (such as admiring the photo that you found them with)

How to reach your target audience: check-ins

Next to hashtags is the so-called ”places” button.

Here you can search for content that has been published and checked-in at different places.

A lot of businesses have their own check-in and if you have one yourself, it can be a great way to show your appreciation to those who have made a check-in at your venue by writing a thank-you message or simply engaging with them.

One way to find your target audience in the check-in section is to take a look at places where your competitors are. For example:  If you own a beach club, you can take a look at the check-in ”Nikki Beach”. Those who have made a post with the check-in ”Nikki beach” are most often people who have visited that venue and therefore might have the interest of going to more beach clubs.In

In short, People who have checked in to Nikki beach (or any venue related to yours) are your potential customers which mean you want to target them.

One idea is to write a personal message to them and let them know about your beach club. Maybe even give them a special deal to further increase the interest.

The possibilities are endless, really. Let your creativity flow to find new, unique approaches to your target audience to stand out from the crowd.

How to reach your target audience: competitors

A third (and excellent way) to find your target audience is to take a look at your competitors on Instagram.

Go to your competitors’ Instagram accounts, take a look at their followers,  take a look at their comments, take a look at the likes they have received.

The people you find in the mentioned places are people who are interested in what your competitors’ have to offer and therefore, most likely what you have to offer as well. If they are interested in your competitors, why wouldn’t they be interested in your brand as well?

How to reach your target audience: Events

Whatever industry you’re in, there’s a high chance there are events closely related to it.

Events are a golden opportunity for your brand to find and target your audience as many of them are gathered at the same place at the same time.

Hashtags are common at events but if there aren’t any specially made for that event, you can always use the check-in.

It’s important that when you are engaging with the audience, you’re doing it in the right way. Take some time to read the captions of the posts and ask questions or offer helpful advice accordingly.