Social media marketing (SMM) is a relatively new form of advertising, one which can greatly improve the success of your business if used right. However, if you don’t get it right, social media marketing can end up costing you a whole lot of money for very few results.

If you ask digital marketing expert Peter Brittain, one of the most important aspects of social media marketing is targeting the right audience. Most social media platforms allow you to set very specific adds which are delivered to a very specific audience. Doing this is very important for a number of reasons, including:

It will help you get more website views:

Once you have identified your target audience, good quality SMM ads can help drive them to your social media page or website. Targeting the right people will increase your conversion rate, and will prevent you wasting your time delivering ads to people who will simply scroll past them. After all, the whole point of marketing is to increase the amount of people engaging with you.

It allows you to identify the people who are engaging with your content:

Targeting a specific audience can help you narrow down the people who are engaging with your content, and can help you identify places where you need to improve your website. For example, if you target a specific age range and a specific interest together, you will soon see if this group of people is interested in what you have to offer. If they aren’t, then you know not to worry about them again. If they are, then well done!

It will drive the right people to your page:

You might find that targeting a general audience will drive satisfactory numbers of people to your website, especially if you have a very high-quality ad. However, this doesn’t necessarily mean that these people are going to engage in your content and become a part of your audience – many of them will simply click away again after a minute or two.

Finding the right target audience will help you drive people who are likely to engage with your content and return to your site. This is obviously beneficial, regardless of what sort of content you have.

It will save you money:

Money saving is extremely important when it comes to running a small business. If you can somehow spend less on your SMM for the same effect, why wouldn’t you. Alternatively, you might decide to spend the same amount, in which case you will find that you have a lot more engagement when you use effective targeted ads.

Make sure you always choose your target audience wisely:

The importance of choosing the right target audience for your SMM campaigns can’t be underestimated. Doing so will increase the effectiveness of your ads and should help drive the right people to your website.