Identifying Your Audience Using Social Media

…or Building Personas for Search

Michael King | Global Associate

http://slidesha.re/seo-personas

Search Lacks Personality

Search is Too Impersonal

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

Informational Navigational TransactionalWays 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

So…Let’s Get Personal

Understanding your audience involves defining them and their needs

Social Listening / Need

State Determination /

Keyword Research

Keyword Mapping /

Information Architecture

Creative / Copy / Tech Development

Push Live / Conversion Rate

Optimization / Measurement

SEO DefinesInfo Architecture

SEO Validates User Experience

SEO Drives Measurement

This is where the magic happens

What Are Personas?

Personas are hypothetical representations of your target audience

Music MomsTypically 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 looking to make a purchase.

Happy HobbyistsTypically students or amateur musicians looking for the latest tips and tricks for playing their guitar. These tend to be the most active content creators in the acoustic guitar conversation.

Raging Rock starsTypically professional musicians at various stages of their careers that tend to spend more time creating content with their guitars only consuming content as new guitar technology is released. These are the influencers of the happy hobbyist group.

Involved InstructorsTypically professional musicians and thought leaders/content creators who talk about new techniques and have strong opinions about instruments and brands. These tend to be quite active in the acoustic guitar conversation.

What Are Need States?

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

Music MomsTypically 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 looking to make a purchase.

Searches for [best acoustic guitar]

This person probably needs information on the best acoustic guitar in order to make a purchasing decision.Need State is “Learning to Buy”

Need states help to eliminate keyword ambiguity and write

targeted copy

How Do We Develop Them?

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

Social Data & Business Goals

Educated Guessing

Personas & Need States

Personas & Need States are typically used and defined by Market Research, Strategy and UX teams

How Do We Know We’re Right?

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

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

personas

Why Do We Need Them?

Search quality is about showing content that satisfies needs; this is how to build it

This is how to optimize without chasing the algorithm

Persona Development Tactics, Tools and Tutorial

Business Goals?

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

Sell More 3D TVs

More Shares in Social Media

Occupy the Conversation

Facebook Insights

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

GenderMale64%

Female36%

U.S88%

Non-U.S12%

Age distribution

Male

Female

Country

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

Use Quantitative Analysis Tools

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

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

Planner

Use Facebook Ad Planner

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

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

Preliminary Social Listening

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

Social Listening Tools

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

Social Mention

Topsy

Amplicate

Discussion Listening

See what people are talking about on blog and discussion forums

Preliminary Keyword Research

Use a few broad keywords to discover related popular topics.

Apparently this audience wants to

know about the best 3d tv without glasses

Use Quora

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

ProTip: Keep track of influencers for link

building

Use Quora for KWR

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

ProTip: Grab the questions with Scraper, export to CSV then use SEOGadget’s Adwords

API plugin for Excel.

KWR + Soc. Listening is Circular

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

Define Your Audience

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

Curious George Gamer Film Purist Tech Geek

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

• 18-32• Male• Loves all music• Wishes he could move

out his mom’s basement

• 22-40• Male• Loves film soundtracks• Wishes he could live in

the movie Avatar

• 22-40• Male• Loves Techno• Wishes you would stop

invading his online privacy

Define Your Need States

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

3D AdvocatesThese people are participating in very detailed conversation about 3D through the lens of their

passion. They get satisfaction from demonstrating their knowledge about 3D and their opinion about

its use in media.

3D CuriositiesThere are more people in this group than the 3D Advocate group. They are intrigued by 3D

and how it could fit into their home life, but they haven’t made the decision to purchase.

They can relate to the advocate group through their shared passion points.

3D Gamers Tech Geeks 3D Film Lovers

Content Creation Content Consumption

Unaware Interested

Unaware Unsure

Unaware Ready to Buy

Aware Owner

Aware Looking

for 3D Content

Aware Creating Content

Aware Ready to Buy

Give Your Audience Personality

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

Curious George on 3D TV

Note: Individual results can be both positive & negative

Curious George is a hipster between 18 and 32. He’s a college educated graphic designer with a lot of time on his hands. He doesn’t like to be the last to find out about things but he doesn’t know if this 3D thing is going to stick around long. Curious George liked Avatar but he isn’t crazy about it like some people. Really he’s looking to find out if a 3D TV is going to become cool and if so he wants to be down before it becomes cool.

Curious George Gamer Film Purist Tech Geek

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

• 18-32• Male• Loves all music• Wishes he could move

out his mom’s basement

• 22-40• Male• Loves film soundtracks• Wishes he could live in

the movie Avatar

• 22-40• Male• Loves Techno• Wishes you would stop

invading his online privacy

Googlebot: the 5th Persona

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

Googlebot

• 17• Eunuch• Needs explicit

explanations• Is somewhat visually-

impaired• Loves Google+• Wants to know the

newest info on 3D TV

:Beep: Bots need love too, yo.

Do Final Keyword Research

Based everything you know about your audience find and categorize keywords

KeywordLocal Monthly

Searches PageTarget

Persona Need State

3d glasses 18100 GlassesCurious George

Unaware Interested

2d to 3d conversion 1000 Conversion Tech Geek Aware Owner

3d tv glasses 1000 GlassesCurious George

Unaware Interested

glasses free 3d 1000 GlassesCurious George Aware Owner

real 3d glasses 1000 GlassesCurious 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

Separate Targets from Influencers

Segmenting your audience helps you determine who will spread your content

Curious GeorgeThis group represents people considering buying a 3D TV

GamerGamers talk about their 3D gaming experience and the components and games they use.

Film PuristThis conversation revolves around use of 3D in film. They talk about 3D in a broad way, and occasionally touch on 3DTV specifically.

Tech GeekThis group talks about the technical details of their AV setup. They treat their TV’s like a racecar driver treats their car.

INFLUENCERSTARGET

Take Action

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

Have you found popular questions? Target them in your information

architecture

Validating Personas

Measure to Validate Personas

Validate your hypotheses via data collected in conversions

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

Use Keyword-Level Demos

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

FB:Admin Search Referrers

Keyword-LevelDemographics

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

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

Implementing Keyword-Level Demographics

Step 1: Create An App

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

Step A Step C

Step B

Step 2: OpenGraph Meta Data

Install OpenGraph Meta Data on your website template.

<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]" />

Step 3: Install FB Code On Site

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

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

<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 A.

Step 4: Install SessVars.js

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

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

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

Step 5: Install KLD Code

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

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

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

Step 6: Congratulate Yourself

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

That wasn’t so hard was it?

ProTip: Just Track the Persona

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

Work with a developer on this

if (demos.age >= ‘18’ && demos.age <= ‘40’ && demos.gender=“male” && demos.state == “New York”){

_gaq.push([‘_setCustomVar’,’1’,’Persona’,’Curious George’,1]);}

Check for key attributes of the persona with an if

statement

Push just the name rather than all of the data points

Live Code Implementation

:Beep Boop BOOM:

Measurement & Applications

Measuring People

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

Measuring Link Building Efforts

Segmenting your audience will better help scale outreach and measure success

Twitter User Persona Status

Referral Traffic

Conversion Rate

oxytree Curious George Engaged N/A N/A

MikeEv4ns Tech Geek No Response N/A N/A

RodolfoValiense Film Purist Closed 40483 17.63%

LG_Thailand Tech Geek Closed 1491 67.47%

TT_PangPang Tech Geek Closed 10785 58.00%

Visual_Post Tech Geek Closed 20237 35.15%

versianni Gamer Closed 40171 98.37%

dinamofilmes Tech Geek Closed 22011 73.05%

Mitsubishi3D Gamer Closed 23908 85.49%

iCronos4 Tech Geek Closed 24960 84.89%

BigStage Gamer Closed 9808 17.90%

XanPhillips Gamer Closed 30569 35.01%

Amazon_Lover Gamer Closed 22814 32.12%

Looks like links from Gamers are easiest to get and drive the most

traffic and high conversions

Dynamic Targeting

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

Curious George

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

What Normal Users See What Curious George Sees

(Dramatization)

Keyword Ownership

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

Curious George Gamer Film Purist Tech Geek

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

• 18-32• Male• Loves all music• Wishes he could move

out his mom’s basement

• 22-40• Male• Loves film soundtracks• Wishes he could live in

the movie Avatar

• 22-40• Male• Loves Techno• Wishes you would stop

invading his online privacy

OWNER

• 5000 Searches Monthly• Conversion Rate 5%

• 600 Searches Monthly• Conversion Rate 2%

• 1000 Searches Monthly• Conversion Rate 0.5%

• 100 Searches Monthly• Conversion Rate 0.2%

Keyword Arbitrage

Including audience in measurement helps to determine where to spend money

Initial Keyword Conversion Rate

Persona Keyword Revenue

Subsequent Keyword

Conversion Rate

Keyword 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

Predicting Audience Action

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

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

http://slidesha.re/seo-personas

@ipullrank

www.ipullrank.com

mike@ipullrank.com

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

www.seomoz.org/freetrial