3 Ways to Find Your Blog Demographics
You probably have a decent idea about the types of posts your audience likes and doesn't like. But what about WHO they are?
Demographics are data that get to some of the who. Some types of demographics: age, gender, education level, kids or no kids.
Why would you want to know demographics?
If you plan to work with brands, giving them a few bits of demographic data can make it clear that your audience is similar to their target audience. You can include demographics on your PR/Advertising page or your media kit (or both). In fact, in my course Media Kit Smash I go in depth about describing your audience to potential brands. Demographics is part of that.
Finding out the demographic makeup of your audience can be a bit daunting so I want to show you three ways to find your blog demographics.
1. Quantcast (self-hosted blogs only)
One of the most popular ways to find out about your demographics from the website Quantcast. This tutorial walks you through installing the Quantcast code on your blog. (There's also a plugin but since it hasn't been updated in over 2 years, use at your own risk.) Once the code has been set up and verified, it could take a few days up to a week for your demographics to appear.
To see your demographics, login then click on your blog URL . Scroll down to see some demographic data but go one step deeper and click See All to actually get your demographics in percentages. Here's a sample (that's my audience, by the way!):
In Quantcast you can see:
- Gender
- Age
- Children in Household
- Household Income
- Education Level
- Ethnicity
While you don't need to share ALL that, you can share the most relevant ones with potential partners. (Quantcast also provides traffic data, but I don't find it to be accurate… for this blog at least.)
2. Reader Survey
While you shouldn't do a survey just to gather demographics, if you're doing a survey anyway to gain some insight about your readers and what they want, then you can add a few questions about demographics! I'd stick to no more than 3 questions.
Be wary of asking salary range since talking money gets a little personal. Plus, I suggest keeping your survey anonymous if you include any demographic questions. Otherwise, some might feel uncomfortable answering your questions. Kiersten from the popular Oh My Veggies wrote a guest post a while back about surveying your readers.
3. Facebook Insights
Yeah, yeah I know it's not technically not demographics about your blog, but if the other options are too many hoops to jump through, then BAM! Insta-demographics. While it might not be an exact measurement of your blog audience, I bet it's pretty close. Well, unless you bought followers, in which case we'll call that karma.
To access demographics on Facebook Insights, go to your Insights then click the People tab.
When comparing to Quantcast, I found it was a good bit off regarding gender. However, it's probably more indicative of my true audience as the men reading this blog are either closet readers (*waves*) or just come to read a post and don't return.
A note about Google Analytics: Not too long ago, Google Analytics added demographics. You can read how to do that here. To be honest, just about everyone I know has had trouble setting this up (including me). So while it technically is an option, let's pretend I didn't mention it!
Let's Talk!
Do you know any stats about your audience? Anything surprise you?
