Look, at its simplest, marketing on social media is just about 2 things:
Your Audience and Your Message.
People tend to get overwhelmed with social media, funnels, an exciting call to action, all the options, apps, platforms and marketing buzzwords out there.
They try to pump out content with no real direction or strategy, and with very little understanding of who they're targeting, where to find them or what they really care about.
And then nothing happens.
So, let's start at the beginning and get some focus.
Who's your audience?
This is a really tough one for many entrepreneurs to answer because narrowing it down feels like making your options smaller. But it really opens things up to know exactly who you're talking to, so you can craft a message that will resonate.
When I work with clients who are having trouble defining their audience, I start by getting them to identify who is NOT their audience.
For example, for Fresh Collective, my womenswear fashion retail business, people it would not be worth it for us to target are:
- men
- children and babies
- people who don't live in the GTA
- people who want the cheapest prices on fashion
- people who want the trendiest items
So this starts to narrow us down to:
Women in the GTA who prefer timeless style over trendy fast fashion, and who will invest in pieces they love for a wardrobe they're building over time.
From this base, we can start to get clearer about their age, the stage they are in their career, what their values and habits are, etc.
When we've completed this picture, we can make educated guesses about where they hang out, what they read and what other businesses they patronize.
This gives us the ability to connect with them through our marketing and get responses like these:
Every single day people comment on our posts, tag their friends, message us, call our stores and best of all, come in and shop for what they saw on our social media.
We can interact with customers, let them know what sizes we have in stock and build relationships while they're in their living room or at their office!
And we know how to find others like them and grow our audience.
It's really quite incredible.
So now let's look at message.
Often when I'm working with a client and they're struggling with their message, it's because they're not clear on what makes their business totally special, valuable and truly of service to their target market.
I ask them, "Why would someone go to you, rather than any of your competitors? What makes you the best at what you do?" and it's usually hard to answer.
So that's where we start. We explore those questions until we've uncovered their uniqueness and are able to start to put it into words.
Once that's clear, it's a simple case of coming up with a strategy to deliver that message to the right people in pictures and words, in a way that will connect over time.
When crafting the strategy, there are several points to keep in mind, but here are the most important.
Consistency - a schedule for posting to build momentum and keep content fresh
Authenticity - does the content feel authentic? will it connect with people?
Measurability - what's the system for measuring effectiveness going to be?
I hope this article gives you some clarity in creating a simple, focused strategy to craft and deliver your message to the ideal audience to get the kind of results we get at Fresh Collective.
This is exactly the kind of thing I help my business coaching clients with all the time!
Wishing you ALL the most wonderful things in 2018, including the business of your dreams.
xoxox
Laura-Jean