How To Segment The Social Media Sphere

As a platform for engagement, social media sites are due to stick around, IAB UK reports. As more and more consumers engage with the sites, the more marketers and businesses as a whole need to research and analyse the data provided in a bid to understand how customers – either existing or potential – use the sites, as well as which sites are more popular with the target audience.

There are a number of ways to segment a social media audience; one popular form is to differentiate an audience based on how many connections an individual has, and how likely they are to create and post a review of a brand or company, or like a brand or company page. How people connect and engage with businesses online is key to working out exactly how they use social media.

There are various groups that users can be listed under, including ‘credible contributors’, or users who have an average number of followers but engage with a number of brands and companies and post helpful reviews. There are also ‘passive socialites’ who have a high number of followers but do not engage with companies or brands online. Without looking further into how people use social media, a number of companies may look to try and connect with ‘passive socialites’ due to their high number of followers – when in reality connecting with ‘credible contributors’ would be more fruitful.

Some of the other user groups online include:

Online experimenters – these users have high levels of purchase power and online engagement. They account for 10% of the adult social media-using population.

Connected dabblers – again representing 10% of the social media-using audience, they have a high number of connections and follow brands, but are less likely to post reviews than ‘connected engagers’.

Connected engagers – this audience has the highest level of connections and influence out of all the groups.