It’s no surprise that business marketing can sometimes feel like a juggling act. With every ball sometimes up in the air, it can be difficult to know which to focus on and how it will affect the rest of your act and business performance as a whole. And because your time and effort is worth so much in the grand scheme of things, it is undoubtedly important that you make sure your efforts in social media marketing are reaching the right audience in the right way. The following are some tips to getting the most out of target marketing as it applies to social media.
Cast a Wide Net but Don’t Spread Yourself too Thin
While these may seem like two conflicting principles, it is important to know how far to reach to attain that customer or client you seek. It is also important, however, not to alienate a specialized audience by broadening your horizons too much. A good way to do this is to look at your competition (as mentioned below), and make parameters and goals for the audience you wish to attract. Sometimes starting broad is a good thing as you can learn as you go, becoming more specialized as you gain more knowledge about who you really are attracting and how you can capitalize on that segment.
Use the Market Research Tools at your Disposal to Identify and Segment Your Audience
Analyzing your Facebook fans, Google analytics, and Twitter followers to assess where your base is, and where you have room to expand is a must for utilizing social media. Focus on the reality of your business demographics and your target demographics and make sure they line up in terms of what your hopes are for future connections/friends/fans or followers. If there is a disconnect between the two, try to take a step back and really look at why you are attracting your current audience and what you can do to expand that base.
Have Competitive Intelligence
It will never hurt to see what your competition is offering and who they are attracting. This can be more valuable than you know. Facebook is especially helpful in this way. Is your competitor drawing more people from a specific demographic? Younger? Older? What can you do to mimic their success, and have an edge on the competition? There’s nothing wrong with a little snooping for marketing research purposes.
Be the Relatable Personality, Not the Faceless Business
The beauty of social media, is that is allows you to be more personal and thus create more meaningful and loyal relationships. If you come across as that faceless, heartless business with no real motivation other than clients, customers and money, it will show, and it is more than likely that people will go elsewhere. With such unique opportunities to ‘get personal’, it is in your best interest to show the more human side to your business, and to make those connections that last.
Ongoing Presence is Key
If your business is registered with Twitter but your last update was on December 2008, consider it non-existent. Even worse, consider it a free and easy tool you are neglecting for no good reason! Without an ongoing presence, you might as well be dead to the social media community. Think of that loyal blog reader that visits their favorite author’s page everyday. If suddenly, that author stops posting regularly, the viewer looses interest quick. Pretty soon, that daily check up on his or her favorite blog ceases to exist, as it becomes a waste of time to invest in a lack of content or no content at all. The more consistent you are, the more consistent your results will be. Stay involved, and your connections will stay involved with you.
