What target audience analysis is and how it differs from checking followers
Your target audience is the people who need your product, not the people who already follow you. Studying them means learning their goals, fears, words and habits. On any social network, buyers leave these traces in comments and messages. Checking whether your current followers are real or inactive is a separate job. It is covered in bots and inactive followers on Instagram.
A description like “women aged 25 to 45 in big cities” tells you nothing useful. It gives you no topic for a recurring post and no words for a headline. A working customer profile sounds different: “a first grader's mom who worries her son will fall behind in reading and looks for classes close to home”. With a line like that, you know what to film and how to talk.
Steps of target audience analysis
The work moves from a guess to a test. The first two steps take an evening. The rest take two to four weeks while answers and reactions to test posts build up.
- Write down your guess about who buys. Two lines are enough.
- Split it into segments. A segment is a group of people with one goal: “a gift for an occasion” or “a hobby for myself”.
- Pull cities, age, gender and active hours from your insights.
- Collect comments, messages and answers to the Poll and Questions stickers from the last three months.
- Study accounts in your niche: what people ask under their posts and which other accounts the same people read.
- Combine everything into a customer profile of two or three segments and test it with posts.
Research methods
Marketing practice splits audience research into four methods. On Instagram, each one has its own source and time cost and answers one question for your customer profile.
- Observation: insights and other people's posts, no asking. An hour a week. It answers who these people are and what they watch.
- Polls: the Poll and Questions stickers in stories. Half an hour per round. It answers what people need and what stops them from buying.
- Comment review: comments and messages copied word for word. An evening per hundred. It answers which words people use for their problem.
- Competitor comparison: questions and complaints on peer accounts, plus accounts that share your crowd. One evening. It answers where people spend time and what they feel is missing.
One method gives a lopsided picture. Insights know the age but say nothing about fears. Comments reveal fears, but only the most vocal people write them. Cross-check the methods against each other.
Questions to ask and where Instagram answers them
A customer profile is built from five answers. For each one, Instagram has a source and a blind spot. The table shows both.
| Question | Where Instagram answers it | What you won't find there |
|---|---|---|
| Who they are: age, city, gender | Insights: Total followers, Viewers, Accounts engaged | Job, income, interests |
| What they need | Comments, messages, Questions sticker | Opinions of people who stay silent |
| What stops them from buying | Questions in messages, Poll sticker | Reasons from people who left without a word |
| Which formats they watch | Post insights: viewers, saves, shares | Why someone scrolled past |
| Where they already spend time | Related accounts, comments under other posts | The full following list of each person |
Who they are: age, cities, gender
Numbers about people live in your account insights. According to Instagram Help, Total followers becomes available once you have at least 100 followers. It shows growth, top locations, age range and your followers' most active times. You can pick a timeframe within the past 90 days.
Viewers and Accounts engaged show gender along with top countries, cities and age ranges. The condition there is over 100 accounts reached or engaged. If the last 7 days show nothing, Help suggests a longer preset such as 30 or 90 days.
Needs of your target audience
What a person needs and what holds them back only shows up in real comments and messages. Sort these replies into the columns of your future table: goal, problem, objection. According to Instagram Help, Poll sticker voters see real-time results, and the author sees how each person voted. Replies to the Questions sticker in stories go to the author. When the author shares a response, the person's photo and username aren't shown.
A goal is what the person came for: “a gift by Friday”. A problem gets in the way right now: “no time for a course”. An objection is a reason not to buy: “too expensive for one evening”. Three prompts for the Questions sticker that bring detailed replies:
- “What have you already tried, and what didn't you like”
- “What stops you from booking a class”
- “What should our next reel be about”
Where they already spend time
This question is about accounts in your niche. They hint at the topics, formats and words people are used to.
Your competitors' audiences: what you can see from outside
A peer account with the same crowd works as a free focus group. Its followers have already asked, complained and chosen what to save. Content comparisons live in Instagram competitor analysis, and this section is only about people.
Questions and complaints under other people's posts
Open five accounts in your niche and the last 20 posts on each. Note what repeats: price, timing, address, “is it fine for a beginner”. Look for complaints in comments and the owner's replies, and for reviews in Highlights.
A made-up example: a similar studio's reel has 40 comments, and 12 ask whether a person can come alone. The owner answers in direct messages, and the feed has no answer. That is a ready post for you.
Audience overlap
Instagram itself hints at which accounts are close. According to Meta, account suggestions look at followers of the accounts a person already follows, mutual connections and recent interests. Your buyers already chose to follow an account with the same followers, so its topics and formats are familiar to them. Meta names the signals, not the formula, so a list of close accounts is a hint. Where such lists come from is covered in suggested accounts on Instagram and where they come from.
What an open profile shows
An open profile of a similar account shows its posts, captions, comments, Highlights and follower count, and that is enough for the comment review. The age, gender and cities of your own audience are in your own insights: Instagram Help describes these blocks as insights on your own account.
Your target audience profile
A customer profile is a short description of your buyers, split by segment. A good customer profile fits in a table of two or three rows. Each row names a goal, a problem and the place where the person reads posts.
Customer profile table
Fill in the template with answers from the earlier sections. Polls give the segment and the goal, and messages give the problem and the objection. Accounts in your niche fill the “where” column, and insights suggest the format.
| Segment | Goal | Problem | Objection | Where they spend time | Format they watch |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| What to write: a name of two or three words | What the person came for | What gets in the way now | Why they won't buy | Accounts in your niche and sections | Reels, carousels, stories |
| Where to get it: polls, comments | Polls, comments | Messages, complaints on other accounts | Messages, price questions | Related accounts | Post insights |
A sample customer profile with two segments
The example is made up, numbers and wording included. Take a pottery studio in Leeds with 1,800 followers. Three months of comments and messages showed two stable groups.
| Segment | Goal | Problem | Objection | Where they spend time | Format they watch |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| A handmade gift | Make a gift for an occasion in one evening | No time for a course | “I'm not good with my hands” | Accounts about dates and gifts in the city | Process reels, reviews in stories |
| A hobby for myself | Switch off from work once a week | Doesn't know where to start | “I'll quit in a month” | Accounts about crafts and slow leisure | Step-by-step carousels, longer reels |
Now the customer profile suggests content themes. The first segment needs a reel called “a gift in three hours”, the second a carousel called “your first class: what to bring”. Speed for the first group, calm for the second.
Here, fitting your content to your target audience means adapting topics, format and language to the customer profile.
How to test your customer profile
Publish three posts per segment over two weeks. Compare saves, shares and questions in messages, not likes. According to Instagram Help, accounts engaged on posts and stories are split into followers and non-followers. Engagement from non-followers shows whether a topic reaches new people. Recheck a segment with no response against your messages.
Competitors in your niche in one check
A manual search through suggestions takes an evening. Competitor analysis on Sled collects them in one check, without logging in to your account. You name the niche in your own words, say “pottery studio”, and set the filters: followers from and to, minimum ER, city. The search finds the studios, workshops, makers and shops selling what you sell. Know a strong peer? Add it as a sample profile, and accounts similar to it are checked first. Before checkout you see the search words and choose the report size: up to 20, 50, 100 or 200 accounts.
- Username, name and a link to the profile.
- Followers and ER: the median of likes and comments per hundred followers over the last six posts.
- Likes and comments per post, the date of the last post.
- The city and how it was found: in the profile or by a search with the city.
- Profile category and the start of the bio.
- A CSV table for Excel.
The list is ordered by ER: the accounts whose audience responds the most come first. Take the top five and repeat the comment review on them: the “where they spend time” column will fill with real pages, and the start of each bio shows the words your peers use about themselves.
Competitors in your niche with filters: followers from and to, ER, city and a sample profile — accounts similar to it are checked first. A report and a CSV table.
Find competitorsFrequently asked questions
How many target audience segments should you define?
Two or three. One segment turns into a vague “everyone”, and five won't fit into a content plan. Start with the two most frequent groups from comments and messages. Add a third once it takes a visible share of the replies.
Can you find out the age and city of another account's followers?
Not precisely. Only the owner sees those numbers in their own insights. Any percentages about someone else's profile are estimates from indirect signs. The reliable route is to ask the owner for a screen recording of their insights.
Where do you start with target audience research on social media when you have few followers?
Total followers only appears at 100 followers, so lean on real comments and messages first. Read comments and questions under competitors' posts, your own messages and your story poll answers. Add a list of competitors in your niche. Once your insights become available, check your customer profile against them.
Do you need a professional account to see audience insights?
No. According to Instagram Help (article 788388387972460), any public account gets free insights. Total followers becomes available at 100 followers. Gender, age and cities in Viewers and Accounts engaged appear once you reach or engage more than 100 accounts.