INTRODUCTION
SparkToro is an audience research tool that uses data collected from social networks to provide insights about online behavior, sources of influence, demographics and topics of interest. These insights can help you identify opportunities for reaching your target audience.
Following are some ways you can use SparkToro to guide your marketing efforts.
HOW TO GET STARTED WITH SPARKTORO
SparkToro is a fairly easy-to-use, comprehensive tool that gives a plethora of data that can help with a variety of marketing objectives. You get that data by conducting searches in one of the following categories:
- Frequently talks about
- Uses these word(s) in their profile
- Follows the social account
- Frequently visits the website
- Frequently uses the hashtag
Based on the parameter you choose, you can enter a keyword or phrase that relates to your business’s products or services, problems you solve, industries you serve or a job title you’re targeting. You also can enter a specific social account, website or hashtag you’d like to gather audience data about.
Click “Discover Now” to view the results. At the top, you will see the number of unique profiles that match your search, which is equivalent to the total social presence of one individual. You also will see an overview of demographics, interests, online behaviors such as websites or social media accounts they interact with or podcasts they listen to, and text data like the language and hashtags they use in their profiles or posts.
This data is presented as a percentage of the profiles in your search that match the result (e.g., 9% of profiles from the search follow a specific social media account), and you can dive deeper by clicking on individual results.
You can further filter information based on what is relevant to your business and build lists based on your results. A B2C company, for example, could exclusively add profiles for individuals and exclude organizations. Another business may only want to look at profiles from a specific location. Once you build a list, SparkToro can generate additional information like social contact information or email addresses associated with the domain.
While there is a free version of SparkToro, it only includes up to 50 unique searches a month. It also offers a limited sample of results. This is a good way to test out the platform, but you will need one of the paid plans to access some of the more detailed data and features.
HOW TO USE SPARKTORO DATA FOR YOUR MARKETING OBJECTIVES
There are several ways to leverage the information you collect from SparkToro. One way is to build personas based on demographic data and interests you obtain from your searches.
You can use the “Frequently talks about” parameter to learn more about the people posting language related to your products or services. Some useful insights include age, gender, job title, interests and geographic distribution. Use this information to build those personas and audiences for your social media ads, search ads or YouTube ads.
Look at “Text Insights” to see which words, phrases or hashtags people use to help guide your content creation. For instance, you can incorporate them into organic social media posts and ad copy. You can also develop related blog topics or hone in on the correct keywords to use on your website.
In addition, SparkToro can help you identify the ideal media outlets or websites for your business to advertise with or for your PR team to pitch. Similarly, you can use your findings to determine which influencers to partner with or podcasts to pursue.
Research your own social media following and your competitors’ by searching with “Follows the social account.” You can take this a step further by using the “Compare Audiences” feature to see how you overlap and how you are different. You can do this with the company websites as well.
This information could help you identify ways to engage with your target audience(s) that you may have missed. For instance, SparkToro shares insights about “hidden gems.” These are platforms that have a smaller reach or less traffic, but high relative engagement from that audience.
Finally, you can use the “Audience Tracking” feature to monitor how your lists are changing. SparkToro looks at data within a 120-day period, which means you can make more timely and informed decisions. For instance, you can view growing and declining trends among the group and adjust your marketing plan accordingly.