Target Audience
Young or Old, They’re Good as Gold
My hobby is an extremely niche one – Bernese Mountain Dogs. In researching for a target audience many different search words were used in Google Trends and Twitter Search. I realized at some point through this exercise just how niche it is. Twitter search came up with probably hundreds of individuals who own a Bernese Mountain Dog and maybe just a few groups or clubs relating to Berners. The searches (e.g. #berners, #bernese, #bmds, to name a few) would be a good place to follow like-minded people.
The Google Trends search turned up a little more information than Twitter on the demographics of this particular Bernese Mountain Dog search. It was able to give me information on the Interest By Region, some Related Topics and Related Queries see examples below (top 5).
Interest By Region
Canada 100
Ireland 85
United States 69
Australia 57
New Zealand 52
Related Topics
Breed – Bernese Mountain 100
Dog – Animal 100
Mountain Dog – Topic 30
Puppy – Animal 25
Breed-Organism Classification 5
Related Queries
Puppies 100
Puppy – BMD 95
BMD – Puppy 80
Dogs 80
Bernese Mountain Dog 55
There are several clubs that maintain Facebook Pages – this is where I would start listening to clues about my audience and to get to know their communities as they are throughout Canada and the United States. I currently follow most if not all North American Bernese Mountain Dog Facebook Group Pages. My heart project – the Blood Collection Project for Bernese Mountain Dogs that I spoke about in my Assignment 2 this is a Canada wide project to get blood samples from Berners across the country to be used for research into diseases that affect this breed – this is where news would travel the quickest and where I would go to get the word out. As well as directing professionals (vets, members of Berner-Garde, and MSU) to follow our communities to learn more about our Berners and the ailments that are affecting them. The owner of these big beautiful “bears” talk about all things good and the horrible things that we experience. This breed only has an average lifespan of only 7-9 years – not long enough for any us.
I would use the data from Facebook as an indication whether or not people were talking about this project, if they are sharing the information and if they are inquiring about the project. The people who scour social media about this breed are from all different age groups, ethnic backgrounds and have differing reasons for doing so, pet owner or breeder. We have fun in our local Facebook Group and hopefully, every other Group does as well. It takes all kinds of people.
Young or old, they’re good as gold – all the people who make up the Berner world.
Algonquin College Social Media Certificate Program 