Whether you want to be Instagram famous or produce educational content on YouTube, business is business. Market research works wonders, even for the social media influencer. Luckily for the budding social influencer, social media platforms are often used for market research for other professionals and businesses. It is important to make the most of your social media channels to boost the marketing efforts of your content.

How is social media used for marketing? Social media market research gathers historical and real-time data from social media channels such as Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, and even Facebook. There are tools available that combined these channels into one place to gather appropriate insights, but each social media channel runs on analytics and you can find what you need. As with other marketing methods, social media marketing helps you increase brand awareness, find your competition, and segment your market and niche.

Regardless of your business or niche, social media market research complements other kinds of research. As a powerful tool in a time where billions of people actively use at least one social media channel, there are several things that can be done with just a little bit of research. Mentions of certain brands, Twitter or Facebook surveys, and site analytics work much more effectively than the traditional surveys often used in other types of marketing. Social media data is derived from people where they come from, where they live, and what they genuinely like. When researching, create a focus, keep data clean and clear, and keep an open mind from the start.

But how do you learn from social marketing research? It’s as easy as the repetitive “do your research.” As content creators, there is a variety of data to be collected through social media that help you grow and better your brand and content. To find this critical data, define your research objective, develop research questions, and these will help you gather the most helpful information. Using social media, you answer these research questions with audience demographics, ages, gender and location, trends they are interested in, the kind of content they like most, and how they feel about the content.

From Twitter Analytics to monitoring the metrics on your YouTube videos or Instagram posts, social media marketing for social media influencers feel like a no brainer. And, although it is, there is still an aspect of better engagement through marketing. As an influencer, you are able to directly engage with and speak to your audience.