What You Need To Know Before You Can Best Use Social Media For Your Business

Before you can choose social media platforms or create content for your social media account, you first have to know who you are creating it for. I see it all the time. Companies create social accounts with a “just because” mindset without any real strategy or thought behind it.

That may make you feel better because you are doing something and are “active” on social media. But is it actually helping your business? If it isn’t, then you are just wasting your precious time and energy.

Why You Need To Know Your Customer to be successful at social media

If you don’t know who you or your customers are, nothing else you do will matter. You need to know who you are talking to, what their challenges are, and how your product or service solves their problems.

By honing in on exactly who your ideal customer is, you will be able to maximize your social media efforts going forward. 

Have you ever come across a product or service that you just knew was going to change your life? That’s why you need to know who your customer is. You want to create the type of content where your ideal customer says, “Did you read my mind? How did you know this was what I wanted and needed in this very moment?”

How to define your ideal customer

By defining your customer and their needs, you can create, market, and sell exactly what they need and want most.

You want to know this person inside and out. Look at their basic demographics like age, gender income, occupation. But also look at their psychographics. What are their interests, motivations and objections? What websites do they visit? Where do they shop online?

Write down as much about them as you can. Start to imagine a real person. Where do they live? Where do they work? Do they have a family? What do they do for fun? How old are they? Where do they shop? What do they eat and drink? Anything you can think of that fits your ideal customer. 

Depending on your product or service, you may have more than one ideal customer. If that is the case, get as detailed as you can be for each. Don’t lump them in together. If you do, your demographic and psychographics will be too general. 

If you are not clear on who your ideal customer is your message will be unclear, and lack relevance. You know the saying,

“When you try to attract everyone you’re going to attract no one.”

HOW TO LEARN ABOUT YOUR IDEAL CUSTOMER

If you already have happy customers, dive in to everything you know about that. Describe those customers in detail.

The most important thing to know about them? What keeps them up at night? Really dig in there. 

If you don’t already have a large customer base that you can analyze, you can learn by listening to them and engaging and doing a little digging online. Where to look:

• Go to other peoples’ Facebook pages
• Dive into Facebook groups, online forums, and in the comment section of other people’s blogs.
• Go to one of your competitor’s that you know is attracting your ideal customer. See what people are talking about and what kind of questions they are asking.
• What kind of struggles are they sharing?

Don’t approach this with a scarcity mindset

There is more than enough to go around. Don’t think that just because someone else is also serving your ideal customer that they’ve got the only corner on the market.

Don’t copy what others are doing, but you can always learn from other companies and leaders in your industry.  

Now what?

Once you know who your ideal customer is, it’s time to dive into how your company solves their problems or serves their needs. 

Write down the answer to these 2 questions:

1. What do you offer?
2. What problem does it solve for your customer?

Once you nail down those answers, you can speak to your customers in a way that directly addresses these answers. Your customer also needs to be able to answer those questions when they see your posts.

The other key question they need to be able to answer?

• What do I have to do to buy this product/service?

Never assume people understand how your business can change their lives — tell them.

Apply this knowledge to social media

Every time you post to social media, keep this person in mind.

• What social platforms to be on. You want be where your customers are to make the most of your
• Content creation. How will what you are posting serve them? Serve your audience before you sell to them. Everything you post should add value in the eyes of your ideal customer. Address their challenges and struggles and take some of that pain away.
• Call to Action. What action do you want them to take? Work backwards by first thinking of what you what your customer to do, and think about what you can say or offer that will encourage them to take the action you want. Want them to sign up for your email list? Give them a reason to sign up.

Start Here

Ready to really dive in to figuring out exactly who your customer is? Download the worksheet below and get to work. Reach to me with any questions.