Understanding the Needs of your Niche Audience
20 Ways To Grow Your Business Through Social Media – Day 4
What is it about social media that so many people value? Even though it is online, personal connections and relationships can be cultivated between people with shared interests. It is these relationships that you are seeking out by using social media. But, what will you say and do through these platforms to make a connection with customers within your particular niche area?
The Uniqueness of Social Media
Social media has many advantages, not the least of which is an opportunity for conversation. We already talked about this. You can speak with your audience in real time. What better way to engage your current customers and discover what they are thinking?
A potential disadvantage to you, if you will, is also the immediacy of everything. With requests on your website, a standard turnaround is no longer than 24 hours for a response. With social media, those who post and comment require a shorter period. If you wait that long to answer a question, the impression will be that you do not intend to answer or are not interested enough to engage. Your reputation, which is further built by social media, could be damaged.
Providing for the Needs of your Audience
Want to improve traffic to your website? Learn to engage your audience. Give your customers what they want and need. It might seem like an easy thing to figure out since they’ve already interacted with your site, but maybe you have just been lucky so far. To avoid staying wide of the mark, social media provides an opportunity to get the answers you seek to make your business exactly what your customers are searching for. Here are a few suggestions for your use.
Blog about it – get the ball rolling by asking point blank what customers like about your products, what they think of your brand or what they don’t like. Just don’t ask it all at once. View the responses and really take them to heart. Customers like to know that they are being heard. Since they took the time to write a response, it is only courteous to listen and respond.
Offer helpful information – no one wants to be sold to all the time. Instead, create posts and content that enhance the life of the reader in some way. If you sell plants and seeds, offer information they can use to assist with growing and maintaining the plants that you sell.
Define your brand – in order to reach the right audience, they need to know what your business is all about and what you stand for. Make this known to your audience.
When you meet the needs of those you want to attract, they will keep coming back.
