The Social Media Marketing Book

Research

Once you've started to monitor what is being said about you and your brand, you should get to know your audience. You want to know who they are, where they hang out online, and how they use the Web.

You're probably in your target market personally, and if not, you likely know a few people who are. Start with them (or yourself): ask them what their favorite sites are and what blogs they read. Build an initial list of these sites as starting points. Say you want to reach an older, more affluent female audience. Head on over to Quantcast and look at the data on sites from your initial list, such as Kirtsy, Sugarloving, BlogHer, and StumbleUpon. You'll see that of these sites, Kirtsy best matches your target audience (see Figure 10-6). Quantcast also gives you some great content preference data indicating which categories of sites Kirtsy users tend to frequent (see Figure 10-7):

• Fashion/Cosmetics

• Parenting

• Bridal

• Baby

• Fragrances/Cosmetics

• Jewelry/Luxury Goods

• Home/Family

• Kids

You'll notice that for some sites, Quantcast even offers links to other sites that share the same audience, which you can then use to further expand your seeding site list.

Another great place to find blogs about your topical niche is Alltop.com. This "virtual magazine rack" has over 700 categories of blogs covering nearly every subject.

Figure 10-8. Valentine's Day can be a great seasonal event on which to base a social ...