Audience Profiling: A Secret Weapon for Modern Marketers
Let's be real: if you're in marketing, sales, or community management, you're drowning in lists. Lists of clients, prospects, community members, followers, influencers, competitors - you name it. But here's the million-dollar question: Do you really know these audiences?
Why Audience Profiling Matters
Imagine having a crystal ball that helps you:
Segment audiences like a pro
Create content that makes people stop scrolling
Spot trends before they go mainstream
Find the perfect influencers and content partners
Design killer marketing campaigns
The best part? You don't need a massive budget or a team of data scientists to make this happen.
Our Real-World Example: Slack API Twitter Followers
We took the @slackapi Twitter followers (14,600 strong) and went deep. Here's what we discovered:
Who Are These People?
First, we cleaned the data. Bye-bye, bots and inactive accounts! Then we dove into their digital footprints - LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, GitHub, bios, pictures, and content.
On this map, the circle on a city is green, yellow, blue, and white depending on the presence of top, high ann medium influencers in that city.
On this map, the circle on a city is green, yellow, blue, and white depending on the presence of top, high ann medium influencers in that city.
Professional Snapshot
No surprises here - a ton of Slack employees follow their own account. But then we found something interesting:
Lots of people from big tech firms
Freelancers and entrepreneurs
Tons of software and tech professionals
Pro tip for sales teams: We even provided LinkedIn URLs, making it super easy to craft personalized connection requests.
This is actually quite interesting for sales. Zooming on the Microsoft people, here are a few people following slackapi:
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What They Talk About
These folks are tech obsessed. Their bios are 90% tech keywords, with tiny hints of personal life - "husband", "dad", "travel", and "music" sneaking in.
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Some cool insights:
"Formerly/Previously" appears a lot - engineers stay connected
Lots of executive titles (CEO, CTO) and developers
Positive vibes everywhere (lots of "love" and "enthusiast")
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Their Interests
Top topics (minus politics and COVID):
Tech, tech, and more tech
Hashtag favorites: #AI, #blockchain, #IoT
"Share your idea and build amazing apps" is a tagline that would resonate with the audience.
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The text cloud below is the same, but with a focus on Tech.
This audience uses hashtags a lot and #ai, #blockchain and #IoT are clear top trends.
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Favorite article sources? Medium, NYTimes, and GitHub.
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In terms of domains, the audience is sharing mainly articles from medium, NYTimes and Github.
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When we look at ho these people follow the most. Politicians, Tech gurus and VCs.
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The Social Network
We mapped out their social connections and found fascinating clusters:
API specialists
Community practice enthusiasts
Large corporation groups
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Key Takeaways
This kind of analysis works for ANY list:
Community members
Leads
Clients
Employees
It helps you:
Truly understand your audience
Develop content that actually resonates
Identify game-changing influencers
The Bottom Line
Audience profiling isn't just data - it's your secret marketing weapon. With the right tools and approach, you can transform a simple list into a goldmine of insights.
Want to unlock your audience's secrets? Start profiling!