It is not really known who said it first, but that 'we always teach what we need to learn most' adage has some merit. In the Social Media Marketing (SMM) realm, this means that becoming the thought makers and leaders in your given industry is a must. This is achieved by identifying what your audience wants to know and what people are discussing right now. This article will delve deeper into how to figure this out and how, when and where to deliver the quality information that your current and potential customers seek.
For the purposes of this article, let's use an example. We'll pretend that we are a niche entrepreneurship company. Who would be your target audience? Well that would be an easy guess, ambitious individuals who are looking for new ideas: entrepreneurs.
How do we find the keywords to find the audience that cares about for example building construction or personal branding? Here's a simple framework that can be applied to any industry or subject whether you are an individual blogger, business or professional.
Find the Most Searched for Keywords:
Google Adwords provides a free keyword analytics tool that can tell you what people most often type in to find this information. After typing in the words niche entrepreneurship, it appears that I am slightly off track. However, change the word entrepreneurship to marketing and according to Google there are 27,100 monthly searches.
Become Part of the Audience: Listen
To become more focused set up a few alerts to get a nudge each time your keyword e.g. name of concept, business, event or product is mentioned. You can then respond accordingly. There are many tools that can help you in identifying which blog or what discussion forum people are talking or sharing ideas directly related to your business or subject. Try Social Mention or Google Alerts to see which tool you prefer to use. There are lots of other similar tools for listening to help your social media strategy.
Become Part of the Audience: start the discussion
Make a list of the four or five top blogs or forums in your industry. Create an RSS feed stream for all of them that you can easily monitor. Read them and check out their audience by reading comments of some of the blog entries. What are they about? What are their primary demographics? What sorts of questions are they asking? Then add your thoughtful additions. This is not an opportunity for you to shamelessly add your website link or plug your product, these sorts of comments are generally frowned upon as blatant piggybacking. Instead, use these posts and comments as your invitation to start or continue the dialogue.
You normally have to create an avatar and profile to comment on most blogs. In the creation of that profile you can add a link to your site without feeling two ways about it. Once you've entered the conversation and conversed for a while, offering useful information or commentary, people will start to want to know you. This will result in click throughs and traffic to your site.
Create a New Home For Your Audience
Studying your audience where they already exist therefore becomes beneficial in two ways. First, you will know them demographically. Then, once you delve deeper, you will begin to know them personally. This is your aim. Developing personal relationships with your audience or customers is the most important part of any SMM strategy, and the most difficult to achieve. However, once you achieve that, it can offer unimaginable benefits. You will have a better understanding of what information they are searching for. And you will have the platform in which to deliver it to them.
Update Your Content Regularly
This may seem obvious, but this also includes regularly asking your new audience what they would like to see on your site. For example, when people sign up for your newsletter why not add a question in the auto-responder asking them to inform you what they do, find interesting or topics they would like further advice on. This way you can personalize and target your online content more effectively. Asking for consistent feedback is another way to engage and make the people that have chosen to visit your site feel like they are truly a part of what happens there. Wouldn't you?
The entire purpose of listening to your audience is to give them what they want. In time, you will become a thought leader. This means that you will achieve customer loyalty and probably have a few game changers trumpeting for you. It just requires some conscious effort and thinking, but the results are invaluable.
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