Let’s face it.
You have a business and you should also be on Social Media.
Let’s put it out there that Social Media does not replace your website. You don’t own any social platform. But you do own your website and your email list. Social media is a tool to help you reach new clients, run polls, share information, and promote your products.
It’s hard to remember a time before social media even existed. With all the noise out there, you need to know exactly what platform you want to focus your energy on.
Should it be Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, LinkedIn, Twitter, TikTok, YouTube, SnapChat or WhatsApp?
The question needs to be changed from:
“what platform should I be using?
to
“what platform does my ideal customer use?”
Would you rather spend 10 hours a week creating content for your blog and just four social media platforms to reach a few people or spend 2 hours a week creating content for 1 social media platform and doing it really, really well?
If you’ve never heard of an ICA, it’s also known as an Ideal Customer/Client Avatar or Dream Customer. This is the “person” you want to work with, who is your perfect customer, the one that you really enjoy talking to. It takes in more than just Demographics, it takes in Psychographics and learning about their values.
So if you are a manufacturer of a widget that helps your customers run video conferences on mobile phones, your ICA will likely be a business owner or manager, knowledgable in technology. There are so many other pieces to the ICA puzzle, so let’s keep it simple.
Below is a sample picture of your pretend widget.
Where would you post this photo? Instagram or Twitter?
Instagram is a visual platform that allows 2,200 characters for the message (caption) and has lots of:
- lifestyle posts
- seasonal photos
- travel shots
- fashion and jewellery photos
- organizational tips and photos
- inspirational and motivational quotes
- selfies all around
Your widget itself won’t necessarily be attractive on Instagram, but groups of people in a video conference, laughing, eating salad and drinking chai tea lattes.
or something more realistic like a casual photo of three ladies, smiling and on their laptops.
This is the type of photo that would do well on Instagram.
This photo is has a bit more of a business flair to it, it might do well on Instagram and it all comes down to this.
Is your ideal client on Instagram and would they find value in this photo. Would they want to see it and engage with it?
When you really understand who your ideal customer is, it becomes so much easier to get your message out to them.
Let’s take Twitter. It’s a text-based platform that does allow photographs but only allows 280 characters for your message (tweet).
You can tweet about:
- your latest products or service launch
- interesting news or blog articles
- something you’ve learned
- a national day of X
- daily observations
- events you’ll be attending
- you can re-tweet things you find interesting
- you can ask for feedback
- hobbies
- ask questions
and this is where you have to know your ICA. Are they on Twitter?
How are you supposed to know these things?
- search out your competitors on each of the platforms, look at their engagement, likes and comments
- what they are posting?
- what do people like and what are they re-swhen you compare the data for each platform, you’ll have some insight into where to focus your social media energy
Do you really want to spend time posting on a platform that the majority of your customers and ideal customers aren’t on. That would be just a waste of time right?
Fight the temptation of being on a whole bunch of social media platforms. It’s not sustainable and honestly, you’ll just burn out.
Learn who your ICA is.
Learn what platform they use.
and master that platform.
You can do this research in 7 days, even if you only spend an hour a day doing it. Just think of how much time you would be wasting if you were posting in the wrong place.
Start today with learning who your ICA is and if you’d like some help, reach out and contact us.