Knowing your Audience
What kind of people want to see what you make?
Whom do you want to come see it?
What benefit will they gain from their effort?
Getting a clear picture of your target audience helps you with your tone of voice, how you brand yourself, and to adapt your content for social media, email newsletters, and other platforms.
Your audience might be defined by a number of attributes, such as age range, location, language, educational background, gender, ethnicity, income, religion. These are known as demographics. For example, forty percent of the visitors to my blog’s Facebook page are women ages 25-44, and most of my fans are English speakers from the U.S.
You might even be able to find out further details about their personalities, hobbies, and families. How? Ask them! If you already have a group of readers or fans, ask them to talk about themselves and why they follow you.
Exercise 2: Create A Persona
Personas are fictitious characters created in the marketing world that serve as representatives for your various audience segments. They’re a tool to help you better understand what motivates people to engage with and support your blog-slash-cause.
Here are some ideas for what to include in your persona:
- Fictitious name
- Vital stats such as age, gender, income, location
- What sorts of topics, images, or other features appeal to them?
- How will they find your content?
- Why will they read your blog (what benefit do they gain)?
- What would you like them to think about your blog?
- What kind of content are they likely to share with others?
- Where else are they getting science content?
Some personas include stock photos that look like they fit with the persona described.
Next time you’re about to write, think about your audience—and this persona—to help you focus on them.
