How do you know what social media content your audience needs?
- Dave Endsor
- Dec 2, 2025
- 5 min read
Updated: Dec 22, 2025
Understanding what your audience wants from you on social media vs what they actually need are two very different things.
What they think they want is product or service information, offers, and content that encourages them to ‘buy now!’.
In reality, they don’t.
None of this content is actually engaging enough for them to do anything with it on social media. It’s not serving a purpose beyond selling and if a customer isn’t in a buying mindset it doesn’t matter how many times you try and ask, you can’t force them to spend.
People use social for so many reasons – often just to escape reality – but it’s now an essential research tool as well. Something we use for news, finding new ideas, problem-solving or to be inspired. Businesses can play a part in all of those scenarios but you have to understand how.
This all means that social media is now a vital tool for brand building…
… but only if done properly.
That’s where your marketing challenge – should you choose to accept it – is to find out what your customers actually need.
These are the real, emotional, human triggers that mean your brand awareness efforts will put you front of mind when they are in a position to make – or at least consider making – a purchase.
To get to that point, you need to go out and find that answer. And that means research!
Here’s are seven ways you can do it:
Ask your audience (plus social listening)
Any marketing strategy – social media or not – has to include audience research. Without it, your strategy is doomed to fail.
In a B2B company this might mean a series of interviews with customer contacts, whereas for a B2C brand it could take shape as a survey followed by a series of focus groups.
However you do it, just make sure you do!
But to avoid getting surface-level answers that imply customer wants, and instead uncover those all-important needs, you should dig deeper. Your need is to find out their ‘why’. Why do they use companies like yours? What do you do that makes their life (at work or home) easier? How are you helpful to them? What makes you stand out… or could?
All of these questions – with a few more – give you a detailed understanding of your audience so you can spin that insight into content ideas and actions.
Research creates understanding >
Understanding leads to insight >
Insight creates actions >
Actions generate content >
Content leads to the dark side…
Ok, too far.
The point is – if you don’t ask, you don’t get.
Don’t forget to find the time to also include social listening. The questions above will give you answers directly, but social listening tells you what people think when you’re ‘not in the room?’ What will you learn?
Analyse historical social media content
If you’ve posted on social, you have content you can review. Take the time to look back at previous content and audit it to understand what worked, what didn’t, and what you can learn.
Here’s some questions to get you started:
Why did these posts work?
Why did they fail?
What was the content lacking, if anything??
Can I categorise the ones that worked into broad content pillars?
Do we even have content pillars?
Can it be reused in a different format?
Is it evergreen?
Use the data inside each platform, or any external tools you use, to help.
Review your data (and ask your team)
If you have a wealth of internal data, you’re in a great position to generate content ideas – but this means reviewing the data in the first place.
Dive into website analytics on GA4, your Google performance in Search Console, as well as your CRM, and even product or service usage data to discover the content that customers may engage with at every touchpoint.
All of it will give you a better understanding of your marketing performance.
You can also gather insights from your team. Speak to those who speak to customers – either before they actually become customers (sales teams), or once they start paying you (customer service teams).
This can range from informal chats, internal surveys, workshops or focus groups.
Two questions I always like to ask are:
“What’s something you always say to prospective or existing customers?
“What’s something they always ask you?”
Check out external data (reports, reviews and search data)
Good research is always supplemented by third-party data.
Fo example, how do customers talk about you in reviews on Google or Trustpilot? Yes, these are platforms connected to you, but people leave reviews to help others – sharing their thoughts for everyone to see.
Additionally, there might publicly-available reports or research papers from professional bodies in your industry. These often produce reports full of relevant insight and emerging trends – go and find them, now!
Finally, speak to your SEO team (if you have one) to see what’s popular from a search point of view via tools such as SEMRush or Ahrefs. How can you weave that insight into your social content?
Spy on the competition (plus influencers and other brands)
It’s ok to be nosy. Spy on the competition and audit their content – they’re doing it to you anyway.
Find out what is and isn’t working for them. Is it the same for you? If it is, then you’re both not giving audiences what they need, but you can get a headstart.
Check out their comments too. What are customers saying, good or bad, that give you inspiration for your own channels?
While you’re at it, look at the influencers and content creators in your industry. What topics are they talking about? Are they sharing things they love about services similar to yours – or even yours?! Maybe they’re talking about pet hates, problems or challenges. All of this is useful information.
Don’t forget to look at brands outside of your niche too. What can you learn from them?
Asda’s Facebook Page, which is one of my favourite examples, rarely shares anything to do with food. Instead it focuses on its employees and the difference they make to their colleagues, customers and wider community.
From taking a moment for SEND children, saving lives through CPR, or even raising money for charity by wing-walking at the age of 76!
This kind of content does more than encourage engagement from Asda’s two million plus Facebook followers, it makes them memorable.
Trawl the web (Reddit and Quora are goldmines)
Reddit is an unbelievable resource, and there’s more than likely a subreddit for everything… well, everything that’s legal anyway – with at least 138,000 active subs.
That’s a lot of content but, more importantly, it’s a lot of inspiration. Use these as starting points to see what’s being talked about and turn that into useful content for your brand’s channels.
Start with the question-based posts, but also look at the top-rated comments to find out which answers were voted as the most useful. Once you’ve got this as a starting point, you can put your own spin on the content.Make sure it’s original!
(If you’re new to Reddit, start here.)
You can do the same with Quora and relevant online forums, Discords and other channels.
Test, fail, learn
Sometimes you just need to try!
Don’t be afraid of failure, but do remember to learn from anything that goes wrong or right.
And make sure you get the necessary approvals from senior leadership, if needed!
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About Dave Endsor and Chapter
I'm Dave, a social media strategist and founder of Chapter. I have over 15+ years of agency and in-house experience, helping hundreds of people and businesses use social media more confidently, strategically, and purposefully.
I've worked with well-known brands including Blue Light Card, Miller Homes, Bayer, The Access Group and many more.
Fun fact: I led the social media team that helped Game of Thrones star, Emilia Clarke, launch her charity SameYou.
