Who actually follows you? Read your audience insights

Key takeaways

Social media audience insights are the platform's own figures on who follows and sees your account. Four numbers show whether your followers could be buyers: location, age range, followers against non-followers reached, and active times. Check them quarterly and compare them with your customer profile.

• 4 numbers: location, age, non-follower reach and active times.
• Top locations should match your service area.
• 15 minutes a quarter is enough to check.
• A mismatch is fixed with content, not by removing followers.

What are audience insights?

Audience insights are aggregated statistics that platforms give business accounts about their followers and viewers: where they are, their age range and gender split, and when they are online. They describe groups, not individuals, and they are free.

• How to create social media content that attracts the right customers

Where do you find them?

Find them in each platform's professional or business tools. You need a business or creator account, and some platforms show demographics only above a minimum follower count. Menu names change, so search the platform's help centre for 'audience' or 'follower insights'.

• Instagram and Facebook: Insights or Meta Business Suite.
• LinkedIn: Page analytics, followers and visitors.
• TikTok: Analytics, followers tab.
• YouTube: Studio, audience tab.

• Social media analytics tools worth paying for

Which numbers show whether followers are buyers?

Location is the first test for any business serving an area: your top towns should be the ones you work in. Age range should overlap your customers. The share of reach going to non-followers shows whether you are being discovered. Active times tell you when to post and reply.

• Location: do top places match your service area?
• Age: does the main range match your buyers?
• Non-followers reached: are new people finding you?
• Active times: when should posts and replies go out?

• Ideal customer profile for social media: define yours
• UK social media demographics and what they mean for you

What does a mismatch look like?

A mismatch looks like a local firm whose top follower cities are in other countries, or a business selling to people in their fifties whose audience is mostly under 25. It usually has a cause you can name: a viral post, a giveaway, bought followers or years of general content.

• Social media attracting the wrong customers? Here is why
• Went viral but got no sales? Here is why

How do you correct the audience?

Correct it with content, steadily. Name your area and customer in posts, show local work, and use local hashtags and tags. A small, well-targeted ad budget speeds it up. Over a few months the platform learns who responds, and new followers begin to match.

• The right-customer content scorecard for social media
• Reaching your local community on social media

What can insights not tell you?

Insights cannot tell you intent, income or whether someone is a decision maker. Categories are broad and partly estimated. They also cover followers, while many buyers never follow. Treat insights as a rough check on direction and rely on your enquiry log for the truth.

• How to measure social media lead quality
• Dark social: the enquiries your analytics never show

What does this look like in practice?

A pattern we see with UK local businesses checking insights for the first time: a meaningful share of followers are in places the business will never serve. It explains, in one screen, why a large following has produced so few enquiries.

• See client work
• Social Media Marketing for UK businesses

Audience insights checklist

Fifteen minutes, once a quarter.

• Top five locations are noted.
• Main age ranges are noted.
• Non-follower reach is noted.
• Each is compared with your customer profile.
• Any mismatch has a likely cause.
• Next quarter's content names area and customer.

Next step

Open your main platform's insights now and write down the top five follower locations. Compare them with where your last ten customers were.