How to Find Your Tribe on Social Media
/In order to build a community that resonates with your brand, you have to make sure you’re talking to the right people. Your target audience may be missing if you notice slow to non-existent growth and poor engagement on your social media networks. When your social networks are attracting the right people, you then have a much better chance of building a meaningful community, making an impact, and creating more income.
A big part of finding your tribe is knowing the pain points and struggles your ideal client or reader is facing and having a clear understanding of her interests.
What is she looking for when she searches for information online? What problems or challenges are limiting her growth? Who does she admire? Whose advice is she likely to trust? Traditional targeting factors like age, gender, location, and occupation can be useful to a certain extent, but to find a genuine tribe, you have to dig deeper.
Across social media, there are methods and strategies you can use to find your tribe. But first things first: No matter which platform, you have to make sure your bio or profile clearly reveals who you are, who you help, and what kind of content your audience can expect.
Finding Your Tribe on Pinterest
Pinterest, unlike the other social platforms, is a search engine. In order to attract your tribe on Pinterest, you actually have to harness the power of SEO, or search engine optimization. In other words, the goal on Pinterest is to have your content show up in the search results of the topic related to your business.
How can you make that happen? The power of Pinterest lies within the keywords you use. In each pin description and board description, there should be specific keywords used that reflect what your target audience is searching for.
Ready to build momentum in your business? Instead of investing in another course, you need 1:1 support and a clear strategy to start landing clients/making sales consistently. Check out our Rescue My Marketing Intensive!
the humble & Whole blog post board features keywords in the board description that reflect the interests of our target audience
you can see here that our pin descriptions are also keyword rich to boost the visibility of this pin. we use keywords such as "blogger", "online business Owner" "social media strategy" "grow your following" and "find your tribe"
How can you know what your target audience is searching for? Use the Pinterest search bar to assess the trending topics! The “boxes” underneath the search bar reveal the most popular topics related to your search that are currently trending on Pinterest. Let's use the example of a food blogger with a brand devoted to healthy foods.
a pinterest search of "healthy recipes" shows that "for weightloss", "easy", "dinner", "vegan" and "on a budget" are the top trending topics related to healthy recipe searches. if I were a food blogger, i would use these search results as a guide to content creation and use these keywords in my pin & board descriptions
In a sense, finding your tribe on Pinterest is really about making sure your target audience can find you.
Besides SEO techniques, another way to find your tribe on Pinterest is to take advantage of group boards. Pinterest group boards are basically the secret weapon of the platform, and are usually efficient at attracting thousands of people interested in a specific topic. When your content is pinned to group boards, you have the chance to reach an audience that otherwise may not have seen your pins.
PinGroupie has a great list of Pinterest group boards assorted by category, but the list can be overwhelming because there are so many. Check out the Finding Your Tribe on Social Media: The Ultimate Guide to discover one of our favorite Pinterest group board resources!
Finding Your Tribe on Instagram
After identifying the interests, struggles, and goals of your target audience member, think about the other accounts that would capture her interest on Instagram. They may be related to your niche. For example, if you are a yoga coach, you may identify that your dream client is also interested in dietary health and wellness. Perhaps there is a vegan expert your clients would likely be following on IG.
Identify 3-4 accounts that complement your brand that are likely to attract the interest of your tribe. Check out the people who are following those accounts. If you find user profiles that match your ideal audience member, go ahead and follow them and interact. Make a habit of doing this 20-30 minutes a day.
Another option for finding your tribe on Instagram involves searching hashtags related to your brand. For example, maybe your brand targets young mothers. Searching through the hashtag #millennialmom would help you connect with your tribe. Develop a list of 5-10 hashtags that describe your target audience and explore those hashtags for 20-30 minutes a day, following, and interacting with those IG users.
Finding Your Tribe on Facebook
It could just be us, but we think Facebook is the easiest platform to find your tribe, mainly because there are Facebook groups for practically every interest and niche. Because Kleneice and I provide a social media strategy service, we belong to Facebook groups for bloggers and entrepreneurs. In fact, most of our blog content and service ideas have come from being a fly on the wall in these groups, and listening to what struggles and challenges bloggers and entrepreneurs are facing.
Being in a group of bloggers has also given us a front row seat to well-intentioned, but poorly executed market research attempts. Recently, we saw someone asking an audience of beginning bloggers about what skin care topics she should blog about. She managed to receive two responses in a Facebook group of over 10,000 members. Imagine the responses she could have gained if she asked that question in a Facebook group specifically devoted to skincare.
Your ultimate goal should be to find a FB group related to your topic that features people openly discussing their struggles and challenges. It will become much easier to create content that you know people will love. So what do you do when you find a group full of your target audience members? Interact! Answer questions! Pay attention to the group rules and see if you are allowed to promote your blog posts or freebies. The Humble & Whole mailing list skyrocketed just from promoting a freebie that we knew our target audience would be interested in.
Finding Your Tribe on Twitter
Like Instagram, Twitter relies on hashtags to determine the visibility of your posts. Check out the influencers in your niche and study their twitter feeds. What hashtags are they using? What hashtags are trending in your industry?
Twitter chats are a valuable tool to not only find your target audience but also to network and chat with them live. Twitter chats are usually centered around a certain topic or theme and can put you directly in touch with people who would fit perfectly in your tribe. Focus on two to three influencers and check their feed for any mention of a twitter chat.
Similar to Instagram, searching through influencer’s followers on Twitter is a great way to find users who would fit in your tribe.
As a blogger or entrepreneur, market research is inevitable in order to find your tribe. Because trends in industries constantly change, from one season to the next it is important to constantly conduct research to connect with your tribe. Before you launch any products or services, you want to be certain that you are launching to a tribe that actually wants & needs your offerings.
P.S. Are you an entrepreneur in the health and wellness industry struggling to land clients? Then you’ll want to check out our free video series, 5 Days to Consistent Clients!
