29. SparkToro: Accurate and Uncomplicated Audience Research with Rand Fishkin

MAKE YOUR MARKeting

Do you know where your ideal customers hang out online? My guest today, Rand Fishkin, started SparkToro to help content marketers, social media marketers, advertising pros, and PR folks crawl millions of social and web profiles to find out what (and who) your audience reads, listens to, watches, follows, shares, and talk about online. This tool is amazing!
The data SparkToro returns is invaluable to marketers of all kinds. Acquiring it previously required months of expensive surveys and interviews, but with SparkToro's database, it's right there at your fingertips, waiting to be searched. Engage your target customers where they hang out. You can find podcasts, websites, and social media that could never be uncovered through a keyword search. And you can try it for free, you gotta check this out! ~ Pia
Get all the links, resources and show notes at https://makeyourmarketingpodcast.com
About Rand Fishkin
Rand Fishkin is cofounder and CEO of audience research startup SparkToro. He’s dedicated his professional life to helping people do better marketing through his writing, speaking, startups, and his book, Lost and Founder. When Rand’s not working, he’s usually cooking a fancy meal for the love of his life, author Geraldine DeRuiter. If you bribe him with great pasta or great cocktails, he’ll spill big tech’s dark secrets.
Web/Social Links

• Website: https://sparktoro.com
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/randfish
• LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/RandFishkin
• Facebook: https://facebook.com/rand.fishkin

Highlights from the Conversation

• Welcome to episode 29!
• Rand shares his story of co-founding Moz.com, and then SparkToro.
• SparkToro solves problems that Search Engine Optimization or "pay-to-play" can't.
• Rand's software helps you connect and engage with ideal customers on social platforms and more channels.
• SparkToro isn't for every business and Rand explains who it is a great fit for.
• The data is pulled from 11 social networks, tens of millions of websites, bio attributes, following data, shares and engagement.
• An example: You can find YouTube channels your target audience is subscribed to and engaged with.
• SparkToro is a fantastic tool for growth-minded businesses.
• Rand believes your marketing should flow from your top-level strategic plan.
• Think about your marketing goals and how they would fit into a certain channel.
• Not all businesses need to focus on content marketing, but Rand dives into some great strategies if you do!
• If you are creating content, you should answer these questions: What strategic objective does it directly serve? And who will help amplify this and why?
• The content should grab attention and compel someone to amplify it by commenting and sharing with others.
• Short format videos and other visual formats with quick data make good forms of content.
• But keep in mind it's different on every sector, it's not one size fits all.
• SparkToro helps you find the content that is earning your audience's attention.
• Rand drops a few predictions about the future of marketing.
• He also shares his favorite cocktail and TV show(s).
• Head over to SparkToro.com for your free trial, you can get up to ten searches each month!