In a recent post I mentioned one of the blogging analytics tools I use is Quantcast. I like it because it gives me a really good insight into the type of readers I attract, both regular and casual. It has a breakdown of demographics, gender, ethnicity and more.

To give you an example, here are some figures about this blog:

The above chart shows that I have more visitors from the US than anywhere else – which isn’t too surprising considering my location. Combine that with Alexa figures, and I see that my global audience is led by Canada, the UK, India, Australia and Sweden. Quite the mix.

With the information above, I can see how that traffic breaks down (100 index is Internet average). Now I can see that my main audience is made up of middle-aged males of mixed ethnicity, grad-school educated and in both the lower and higher income bracket. So, a little bit of me in there with my readers.

This final chart shows that the majority of visitors to my blog are new, with 16% being regulars. Which, when you break down the traffic over either a weekly or monthly period, pretty much ties in to the subscriber numbers at the top of the blog.

So what does this information offer other than some pretty pictures and figures and why should you care? Simple.

• If you’re writing a niche blog you can see if you’re reaching the right audience.

• If you’re in business and have a corporate blog, you can see where your customer base is coming from (or where it could be coming from).

• If you’re running a PR or marketing campaign for a client, you can gain valuable information about what type of person is attracted to that brand’s blog. This will help you to either strengthen or adapt that campaign.

Far from being just a simple look at who’s reading your blog, you’re suddenly seeing how the world in general is looking at you.

Isn’t that information worth having?

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Who’s Your Audience? originally appeared on Danny Brown | Social Media Marketing Blog - The Human Side of Media and the Social Side of Marketing under a Creative Commons license.