Do you know who you should be talking to through your blog, Facebook Page, Twitter account, or any other social media platform? As with any form of communications, your social media strategy relies on knowing your audience.
“Shut up and listen”
Author and journalist Bob Garfield told attendees of last year’s PRSA International Conference to “shut up and listen.” With tools available as rudimentary as Google Alerts, it is possible to discover conversations already taking place about your organization. That is certainly a start. In many situations it’s critical to address conversations already taking place about your business; however, this is not where the search for your audience should end. You are not using social media to its full potential if you view it solely as a reactionary device.
Where you should be looking
So where do you find your audience? Well, that depends on who they are. Audiences could include customers of a specific demographic, shareholders, board members, employees, voters, etc. Once you have some targets in mind, zero in on where they hang out. Shareholders might be discussing your company on a forum, while passionate brand advocates may be discussing you in a Facebook group. You either need to make a serious commitment to discovering these “hang outs” or hire someone to do it for you.
Put your strategy to good use
Now that you have found and targeted your audience, implement your strategy. Though let’s be honest here, there are a few important parts I am leaving out—like what that strategy entails—but we’ve covered that before. The point of this post is that you need to know your audience in order to have any hope of connecting to them.
Who are your most important audiences? How do they prefer to receive information? Are they excited to hear from you? If so, how do they show it?
[Photo from tore_urnes on Flickr / CC BY 2.0]
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Google Alerts seem to be viewed as a great competitive advantage over your competitors, but recent “converts” seem to not understand Google Alerts are not only a marketing tool, but a customer service tool, and a future improvement tool.
We should listen to our audience, not only to market to them or send them some crazy coupon, but to see what they actually want and how they actually interact with our company / service.
True care for the customer needs to be in our minds as we monitor those alerts. True listening will set us apart.
Thanks Jarad.
Justin, thank you for responding to this post. Tools like Google Alerts are certainly customer service tools as much as they are marketing tools. In fact, they should also be employed as tools to gather intelligence about your competitors and industry. While Google Alerts are effective for many, they can also be simple to a fault.
Some of the analysis tools our team uses allow you to better understand the people or organizations creating digital content, or even long term trends such as sentiment. These tools in turn allow us to set overall strategy and respond more effectively to consumers and other audiences.
Your closing couldn’t be more true when it comes to social media. Two-way communication is not the same thing as two-way talking. Those who listen will thrive.
gravatar!
Thanks for joining our conversation. You’re much more approachable when we can see who you are (RE: adding a Gravatar)!
Good post Jared! well written
Thanks Katie. We will definitely delve into this topic further in future posts. It’s hard to underestimate its importance.