Social media is not a one-size-fits-all marketing strategy, and it requires constant vigilance to maintain.
Think I’m joking?
We may write (and think and speak) in 140 characters or less, but ask any social media manager and they will tell you executing a good strategy goes beyond penning a few witty tweets.
On any given day, at any given hour, we are hyper-focused on the social strategy in its entirety. We can be found monitoring the latest trends and analyzing social data. And we are constantly testing – everything from messaging to hashtags and time of day to which URL shortener works best. We geek out on this kind of stuff.
The focus and attention may seem daunting to some, but to those who live and breathe social media marketing we know all of the activities boil down to one thing—engaging with a target audience.
Here are four tips for connecting with your audience on social channels.
How to Reach Your Audience on Social
1. Who Is Your Audience?
Understanding your target audience is the first step to being able to reach them across social media. Are you looking to target current customers or new prospects? Mid-size or enterprise companies? What types of people are you looking to target based on company size, industry, job level, day-to-day responsibilities, pain points, etc.?
All of these answers will help you create buyer personas. Together, your personas build the profile of your target audience.
2. Where Are They?
Once you’ve created the profile, you can begin this discovery phase. Finding your target audience is not an exact science, but it can be done with a little research.
Essentially, we are looking for the watering holes they frequent most—are they active in certain digital communities or are they using a particular network to engage with their peers? Determining what channels they use most will tell you where to engage them.
3. What Do They Want?
Now that you have an idea of where to find these people, it’s time to understand what they are looking for. Using the information you found in your initial research, you should have an idea on the types of content they frequently engage with and share. Are they highly engaged on Twitter?
Participating in the right tweet chats, polls, as well as sharing relevant content, are all methods for getting the attention of your target audience.
4. Are They Listening?
As with most things in marketing, testing and data are key. Analyzation can look different depending on your goals, but ultimately, you will want to understand if the audience you tried to reach actually engaged. Otherwise, what was the point? The top recommended metrics worth including in a report are engagement, interaction, and conversion rates.
Social media strategies must evolve, and no two action plans can ever be identical. The constant evolution is what makes managing social media so interesting—or frustrating, depending on how you look at it. As each network adds features and new platforms pop up, the possibilities for engaging your target audience become endless.