Identifying Your Audience Using Social Media

…or Building Personas for Search

Michael King | Global Associate

http://slidesha.re/personas

Search is Too Impersonal

Informational Navigational Transactional
Ways to ____ Company Name Buy _____
How to _____ Organization name Download ____
What is _____ Domain name Get _____

These classifications don’t make it clear
exactly what need the audience is trying to
fulfill or who you should be talking to

The standard keyword classifiers are too vague to understand a searcher’s intent

So…Let’s Get Personal

This is where the
magic happens

Social Listening
Keyword Push Live /
/ Need State
Mapping / Creative / Copy / Conversion Rate
Determination /
Information Tech Development Optimization /
Keyword
Architecture Measurement
Research

SEO Defines SEO Validates SEO Drives
Info Architecture User Experience Measurement

Understanding your audience involves defining them and their needs

What Are Personas?

Music Moms Happy Raging Rock stars Involved Instructors
Typically uninformed gift givers Typically professional musicians at Typically professional musicians
looking for information on the Hobbyists various stages of their careers that and thought leaders/content
right guitar for their happy Typically students or tend to spend more time creating creators who talk about new
hobbyist or raging rockstar. amateur musicians content with their guitars only techniques and have strong
These people enter the looking for the latest tips consuming content as new guitar opinions about instruments and
conversation when they are and tricks for playing their technology is released. These are brands. These tend to be quite
looking to make a purchase. guitar. These tend to be the influencers of the happy active in the acoustic guitar
the most active content hobbyist group. conversation.
creators in the acoustic
guitar conversation.

Personas are hypothetical representations of your target audience

What Are Need States?

This person probably
needs information on
Searches for the best acoustic guitar
[best acoustic guitar] in order to make a
purchasing decision.
Need State is
“Learning to Buy”
Music Moms
Typically uninformed gift givers
looking for information on the
right guitar for their happy
hobbyist or raging rockstar.
These people enter the
conversation when they are Need states help to eliminate keyword
looking to make a purchase.
ambiguity and write targeted copy

Need States are the user’s motivations behind their search.

How Do We Develop Them?

Social Data & Educated Personas &
Business Goals Guessing Need States
Personas & Need States are typically used and
defined by Market Research, Strategy and UX teams

Personas and need states are the art of educated guessing based on data.

How Do We Know We’re Right?

Now more than ever there is enough
data to verify or discover new personas

Measuring the performance of the site will prove or disprove your personas

Business Goals?

Sell More 3D TVs

More Shares in Social Media

Occupy the Conversation

Use the client’s business goals to drive audience understanding.

Facebook Insights
Non-U.S
12%
Female
36%
Gender Country
Male
64% U.S
88%

Female
Age distribution
Male

If the site is already on the Open Graph
can you get this too

Does the site have an existing Facebook page? FB Insights has demographic data

Use Quantitative Analysis Tools

If it’s a new site check out a
competitor’s site in Ad Planner

Who does ComScore, AdPlanner, etc say is the audience for this vertical?

Use Facebook Ad Planner

Link: http://www.facebook.com/ads/create/

Use the FB tool to see how many people fall into an audience by interest and demo

Preliminary Social Listening

Use a few broad keywords to see who is talking in Social Media.

Social Listening Tools

Social Mention

Topsy

Amplicate

Start your social listening in Topsy, Social Mention, and/or Amplicate

Discussion Listening

See what people are talking about on blog and discussion forums

Preliminary Keyword Research

Apparently this
audience wants to
know about the best
3d tv without glasses

Use a few broad keywords to discover related popular topics.

Use Quora

ProTip: Keep track of
influencers for link
building

Identify questions and people in the vertical that are important to the business goals

Use Quora for KWR

ProTip: Grab the
questions with Scraper,
export to CSV then use
SEOGadget’s Adwords
API plugin for Excel.

Put Quora questions into the keyword tool to identify the associated keywords opps

KWR + Soc. Listening is Circular

Insights from one fuel research in the other; Iterate to a great list of final keywords

Define Your Audience

Curious George Gamer Film Purist Tech Geek

• 18-32 • 18-32 • 22-40 • 22-40
• Male • Male • Male • Male
• Loves indie rock • Loves all music • Loves film soundtracks • Loves Techno
• Wishes he had a beard • Wishes he could move • Wishes he could live in • Wishes you would stop
out his mom’s the movie Avatar invading his online
basement privacy

Break your audience into four core groups based on all the data you’ve collected

Define Your Need States

3D Gamers Tech Geeks 3D Film Lovers
3D Curiosities
There are more people in this group than the
3D Advocates 3D Advocate group. They are intrigued by 3D
These people are participating in very detailed
and how it could fit into their home life, but
conversation about 3D through the lens of their
they haven’t made the decision to purchase.
passion. They get satisfaction from demonstrating
They can relate to the advocate group
their knowledge about 3D and their opinion about
through their shared passion points.
its use in media.

Content Creation Content Consumption

Aware Creating Aware Aware Aware Unaware Unaware Unaware
Content Looking Owner Ready to Buy Ready to Buy Interested Unsure
for 3D Content

Based on your research identify the phases of need in the search process.

Give Your Audience Personality

Curious George is a hipster
between 18 and 32. He’s a college Curious George on 3D TV
educated graphic designer with a lot of 800

time on his hands. He doesn’t like to be 700

the last to find out about things but he 600

doesn’t know if this 3D thing is going to 500
400
stick around long. Curious George liked
300
Avatar but he isn’t crazy about it like some
200
people. Really he’s looking to find out if a 100
3D TV is going to become cool and if so 0
he wants to be down before it becomes Positive Negative
cool. Note: Individual results can be both positive & negative

Build a story for each of your segments helps you understand their needs.

Googlebot: the 5th Persona

Googlebot


• 17
• Eunuch
• Needs explicit
• explanations
18-32 • 18-32 • 22-40 • 22-40
• • Is somewhat visually-
Male • Male • Male • Male
• impaired
Loves indie rock • Loves all music • Loves film soundtracks • Loves Techno
• • Loves Google+
Wishes he had a beard • Wishes he could move • Wishes he could live in • Wishes you would stop
• Wants to know the
newest info on 3D TV
basement privacy

:Beep: Bots need love too, yo.

We know Googlebot’s attributes so think of it as an influencer in your audience.

Do Final Keyword Research
Local Monthly Target
Keyword Searches Page Persona Need State
Curious Unaware
3d glasses 18100 Glasses George Interested
2d to 3d
conversion 1000 Conversion Tech Geek Aware Owner
Curious Unaware
3d tv glasses 1000 Glasses George Interested
glasses free Curious
3d 1000 Glasses George Aware Owner
real 3d Curious
glasses 1000 Glasses George Aware Owner
3d ready 720 3D-Ready All All
3d ready tv 590 3D-Ready All All
3d active
glasses 390 Active/Passive Tech Geek Aware Owner
active 3d
glasses 390 Active/Passive Tech Geek Aware Owner

Based everything you know about your audience find and categorize keywords

Separate Targets from Influencers
TARGET INFLUENCERS
This group represents people Gamers talk about their 3D This conversation revolves around This group talks about the
considering buying a 3D TV gaming experience and the use of 3D in film. They talk about technical details of their AV setup.
components and games they 3D in a broad way, and They treat their TV’s like a racecar
use. occasionally touch on 3DTV driver treats their car.
specifically.

Curious George Gamers Film Purists Tech Geek

Segmenting your audience helps you determine who will spread your content

Take Action

Have you found popular questions? Target
them in your information architecture

Lay out and/or optimize a site structure that reflects what your targets are looking for

Measure to Validate Personas

Curious George

• 18-32
• Male
• Loves indie rock
• Wishes he had a beard

You can also test effectiveness using demographic
targeting with Facebook Ads and Paid Search

Validate your hypotheses via data collected in conversions

Use Keyword-Level Demos

Search Keyword-Level
FB:Admin Demographics
Referrers

This requires an opt-in so there must be a
value-add to encourage enough people

http://www.seomoz.org/blog/keyword-level-demographics

Use Pzyche

http://www.pzyche.com is a tool built by @JasonD that gets demo info without opt-in

Use Micro-conversions

If you can’t get the info from sales or an external source, use micro-conversions

Step 1: Create An App

Step A Step C

Step B

Place Your Site on Facebook’s Open Graph: https://developers.facebook.com/apps/

Step 2: OpenGraph Meta Data

<meta property="fb:app_id" content=“[YOUR APP ID]" />

<meta property="fb:admins" content=“[FACEBOOK IDs OF ADMINS]" />

<meta property="og:title" content=“[PAGE TITLE]"/>

<meta property="og:url" content=“[PAGE URL]"/>

<meta property="og:site_name" content=“[SITE NAME]" />

<meta property="og:description" content=“[SITE DESCRIPTION]" />

<meta property="og:type" content="website" />

<meta property="og:image" content=“[IMAGE URL]" />

Install OpenGraph Meta Data on your website template.

Step 3: Install FB Code On Site
Step A.
<div id="fb-root"></div>
<script type="text/javascript">
var ref=searchRef();
window.console.log(ref);
(function() {
var e = document.createElement('script');
e.src = document.location.protocol +
'//connect.facebook.net/en_US/all.js';
e.async = true;
document.getElementById('fb-root').appendChild(e);
}());

// Asynchronous Initiation of Facebook API

window.fbAsyncInit = function() {
FB.init({
appId : „[ YOUR APP ID HERE]',
status : true, // check login status
cookie : true, // enable cookies to allow
the server to access the session
xfbml : true, // parse XFBML
oauth : true //enables OAuth 2.0
});

fbApiInitialized = true;

};
// Runs Keyword Demographics Function once init is
finished

fbEnsureInit(kwdemos);

</script>

Step B: <fb:login-button scope="user_birthday,user_location">Login with Facebook</fb:login-button>

Install the code for the Facebook Button & Connection into your site

Step 4: Install SessVars.js

Get the code: http://www.thomasfrank.se/sessionvars.html

Code: <script type="text/javascript" src=“http://yoursitehere.com/sessvars.js"></script>

This file is a helper function to track a variable throughout a user’s visit.

Step 5: Install KLD Code

Get the code:
https://github.com/ipullrank/keyword-demographics

Code: <script type="text/javascript" src=“http://yoursitehere.com/kwdemos.js"></script>

Include the kwdemos.js file in the header of the site.

Step 6: Congratulate Yourself

That wasn’t so hard was it?

Take a look in your custom variables in Google Analytics, you’re up and running!

ProTip: Just Track the Persona
Check for key attributes of
the persona with an if
statement

if (demos.age >= „18‟ && demos.age <= „40‟ &&
demos.gender=“male” && demos.state == “New York”)
{
_gaq.push([„_setCustomVar‟,‟1‟,‟Persona‟,‟Curi
ous George‟,1]);
}

Push just the name rather
than all of the data points

Work with a developer on this

Identify the key criteria and just push the name of the persona to GA for ease.

Measuring People

Using personas helps you identify insights in terms of people rather than abstracts

Measuring Link Building Efforts
Referral
Twitter User Persona Status Traffic
oxytree Curious George Engaged N/A

MikeEv4ns Tech Geek No Response N/A

RodolfoValiense Film Purist Closed 40483

LG_Thailand Tech Geek Closed 1491

TT_PangPang Tech Geek Closed 10785

Visual_Post Tech Geek Closed 20237

versianni Gamer Closed 40171 Looks like links from
dinamofilmes Tech Geek Closed 22011
Gamers are easiest to
get and drive the most
Mitsubishi3D Gamer Closed 23908
traffic!
iCronos4 Tech Geek Closed 24960

BigStage Gamer Closed 9808

XanPhillips Gamer Closed 30569

Amazon_Lover Gamer Closed 22814

Segmenting your audience will better help scale outreach and measure success

Dynamic Targeting

What Normal Users See What Curious George Sees

Curious George

• 18-32
• Male
• Loves indie rock
• Wishes he had a beard

(Dramatization)

Using this data you can build a site that reflects the persona when they arrive

Keyword Ownership

OWNER

• 18-32 • 18-32 • 22-40 • 22-40
• Male • Male • Male • Male
• Loves indie rock • Loves all music • Loves film soundtracks • Loves Techno
• Wishes he had a beard • Wishes he could move • Wishes he could live in • Wishes you would stop
basement privacy

• 5000 Searches Monthly • 600 Searches Monthly • 1000 Searches Monthly • 100 Searches Monthly
• Conversion Rate 5% • Conversion Rate 2% • Conversion Rate 0.5% • Conversion Rate 0.2%


Keyword Arbitrage
Initial Keyword Conversion Persona Keyword Subsequent Conversion Keyword
Rate Revenue Keyword Rate Revenue
Sneakers 5% Curious George $50 Sneakers 40% $50

Sneakers 5% Curious George $50 Windbreakers 60% $100

Sneakers 5% Curious George $50 T-Shirts 20% $20

Windbreakers 3% Curious George $100 Sneakers 32% $50

Windbreakers 3% Curious George $100 Windbreakers 5% $100

Windbreakers 3% Curious George $100 T-shirts 80% $20

T-shirts 2% Curious George $20 Sneakers 50% $50

T-shirts 2% Curious George $20 Windbreakers 40% $100

T-shirts 2% Curious George $20 T-shirts 75% $20

Including audience in measurement helps to determine where to spend money

Predicting Audience Action

Curious George

60% of these users that
buy sneakers from the
keyword “sneakers” come
back and purchase
windbreakers


We are now cleared for take off. Questions?

Michael King | Global Associate

See me speak @ SMX West (2/28 – 3/1/2012)
LinkLove London (3/30/2012)

@ipullrank
www.ipullrank.com
mike@ipullrank.com

http://slidesha.re/personas

Identifying Your Audience Using Social Media

Identifying Your Audience Using Social Media

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