Social media has completely changed the marketing landscape. Instead of advertising to your audience, now you’re communicating with them directly. Not only that, but it’s never been easier to segment your fans and followers.
You can develop an ideal customer profile according to your market research, and then search for the very people who meet that exact criteria. You can find out all sorts of information about the people who want to buy your products, and contact them directly. The intimacy of it is just astounding.
Today, we’ll be discussing the best ways that you can leverage social media in order to find the folks most likely to become repeat buyers. Then we’ll describe the best ways to get in touch with them across the social media landscape so that you can earn a multitude of click throughs to your high quality WordPress website. And if you still don’t have a one, make your own website and better hurry up.
Twitter Targeting
Twitter is a marketing hub. You can quickly and easily reach an insane number of people with bite sized bits of content that will attract, intrigue, and entice your target audience. One of the best ways to accomplish this is with hashtags.
#ohmygoditssosimplewhydidntIthinkofthisbefore
So for the utterly clueless, a hashtag is that little number symbol placed in front of a word or phrase without spaces. As a grammarian and appreciator of the English language, this makes my blood boil. As a freelancer who markets his own material online, however, they make my life a lot easier.
Hashtags allow you to join an ongoing conversation about a trendy topic that has captured the public mindset. When used as shown above, hashtags are largely useless, and typically irritating. When used to connote an interesting subject or a current event, on the other hand, they become a marketer’s best friend.
For example, if you’re an SEO marketer giving a talk at the SMX conference in Israel in January, you might tweet about the event like so: “Getting ready for my speech! #SMXIsrael2014.” Then whoever was searching that particular hashtag would see your tweet and know you were getting ready for a speech.
Or alternatively, if you were dropshipping homemade ice cream makers, you might link to a how to tutorial and include the #icecreambreak hashtag, which just so happens to be trending at the time of this writing.
These are only two examples, but there are limitless conversations going on among Twitter’s 250 million+ users. Look for a conversation that fits your niche, and join in!
Twitter also recently unveiled an option to target your advertisements via zip code. So if you have a brick and mortar location and you want to reach customers within your general area, offer a special promotion on your twitter account with your zip code targeted. Users within your area will likely see your ad.
Facebook Targeting
Facebook is at this point the seasoned veteran of the social media world. They’ve got the most users, and allow you the greatest potential reach. So how can you best leverage this platform to your advantage?
First, you can upload a current subscribers list. Facebook will match email addresses through their Custom Audiences tool, and allow you to invite your customers to like your page. You can even further segment these lists by targeting customers who’ve made specific purchases through your online store.
But how can you find the customers that don’t know your brand already? Facebook’s ads create tool offers a wide range of customizable options. You can create your targeted audience based on age, gender, interests, location, language, education, workplace, even relationship status.
The audience you create will form the criteria for the users who see your ads. So before you even think about creating an audience, do your fair share of market research to determine what the ideal customer looks like.
There are a bunch of options for you to explore, and all for a reasonable price per click. Just make sure you optimize your landing pages for conversion. Otherwise you’ll pay out the nose for little to no return.
Don’t Just Advertise: Engage
The real point of social media, however, is not just to advertise to your customers, it’s to engage individuals in conversations. This means offering free high-quality content on a regular basis, as well as responding to feedback whenever possible.
People appreciate being appreciated. So your first priority as an ambassador for your brand is to speak and be spoken to by your biggest fans. That can even mean being open to criticism. After all, if it’s constructive it can only improve your offerings.
