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First Things First
The very first thing you absolutely must know before you jump into using the Internet is: Who is your audience?

This is a simple question, and your answer needs to be reduced down to one simple sentence such as: My target audience is men, age 21 through 35, who are avid professional sports fans in the Chicago metropolitan area.

Audience Analysis and Adaptation
Your entire focus in using the Internet must consider your audience first and foremost. The key elements you need to understand deeply and completely are:

• [1] audience characteristics (age, gender, culture, social, economic factors)
• [2] geographic location or locations of your audience
• [3] what brings this group of people together (common interests, values, beliefs, needs, desires)
• [4] what do you need and want to say to this audience and why do you want to say it

These four factors are the foundation for guiding you in adapting what you need and want to say to your audience.

You likely can find out a great deal about your target audience by spending time in the places where your audiences goes online and by using the digital tools that you audience uses. You can buy that information from a credible source of audience research, but it is best if you have more direct touch experience.

Nobody can tell you the best way to learn about your particular audience. Sometimes you can only gain this knowledge by going there and being physically with your audience in person. This is why politicians go out in public to meet and greet, shake hands, and kiss babies.

But, yes, indeed, it is possible to learn about your audience from afar (or using symbolic, representational data rather than field data). You can research their demographic characteristics even though you are not there among them, for instance. However, no matter what else is true, you must discover how your audience feels about the subjects that you intend to cover.

Only when you reach the point that you truly understand confidently how your target audience feels in their hearts about the subjects that you intend to cover will you be able to target them successfully.

Make this easy to remember. The first letter of the alphabet is “A”. The first thing to remember is Audience.

Your goal should be to reach a strongly confident understanding about how your audience feels when it comes to the subjects you intend to cover online and using other digital outreach technology.

Ancient Savvy
This is nothing more mysterious than being savvy so you can succeed in business. Believe it or not, this focus on starting with a target audience dates back to ancient Greece and Rome. Yet, it is highly relevant in the 21st century.

The most successful politicians, preachers and performers are those who have attained the professional skill of identifying and then adapting to their target audiences. This skill of targeting and adapting to audiences is one that has intrigued and haunted philosophers, kings, prophets, and charlatans over the centuries to today.

For you right here and right now, it boils down to knowing what you want to say online and knowing how to get it across in the most likely ways to win over a specific target audience. This is why it is so important that you need to know in advance what feelings you wish to convey.

Even after you know your audience, you need to be careful to aim for persuading that specific audience. If you do not aim properly, you cannot expect to hit your target except by accident.

NEXT: The mode or manner or way you should choose.