I had the opportunity to participate in a panel discussion with the SCAD Atlanta Graduate Student Association recently concerning how graduating students can put their best foot forward as the begin their careers.  (Including a rousing discussion about the pros and cons of Freelancing and Corporate work.)

Following the panel discussion we adjourned to a reception where I had the pleasure of interacting with students.  I spent the majority of time with a few students in the Arts Administration graduate program talking about social media and non-profits.  We got into a pretty interesting conversation about identifying the right audience.

If I have said it once I said it 1,000 times: If you don't have a goal in mind you will have a hard time identifying your target audience.  We spent the better part of an hour unpacking the various audiences that comprise a non-profit organization: Users of Services, Volunteers, Donors, Government Agencies and Board Members.

You cannot target all of those audiences with one social media campaign, in fact it would be pretty hard to even pick two of them to hit with one campaign.  So, the organization has to have some goals.  If the goal is fundraising you would build a campaign targeting donors, service recipients would be targeted if the goal is to spread awareness that the organization is servicing a specific need in the community, etc.

The same can be said for a business.  To direct your social media campaign you will need some goals to pick the right audience.  So, who is your audience?  Do you have the right goals in place to target that audience?