Tag Archive for: digital communication

Building Content That Attracts Customers and Clients

, ,

Key Takeaways

  • Focus on Characteristics, Not Demographics: Tailor your content to resonate with the characteristics and values of your ideal audience rather than just their demographics. Understanding what inspires them can enhance engagement.
  • Communicate in Their Language: Use a tone and style that aligns with how your target audience communicates. This approach helps in attracting the type of clients you want to work with, similar to “dressing for the job you want.”
  • Create Relevant and Varied Content: Experiment with different formats (like infographics, white papers, or videos) that appeal to your audience’s preferences. Analyze which types of content generate the most engagement to refine your strategy.

Why Audience Characteristics Matter More Than Demographics

When your building content, you’ve got to remember not to be blinded by the demographics. Sort of.

To explain: last we I talked about how you shouldn’t be too blinded by demographics in social media, because, people like to talk to other people, not marketers. Building content that attracts customers and clients is about putting yourself in their shoes.

What to Consider When Building Content

Guess what? The same is true of content.

Create for the Clients You Want

If you’re building content, you should build it to attract the kind of people you want to do business with. I don’t mean the demographics of the audience, I mean the characteristics. Consider what inspires your ideal audience. What brings them into your world and shows that you can relate to them?

Use Tone as a Magnet for Alignment

One of the readers of last week’s post, Gwen, made a salient point: she wants to work with other women-owned businesses, so she supports women businesses in her sharing and tweeting. Not exclusively, but it’s definitely a focus. But what Gwen does very, very well is communicate in a tone that’s likely to attract professional women. She is supportive, positive, and warm in her tweets and engagements. Women are likely to be attracted to that type of communication so she naturally attracts more of the type of business she wants with that tone.

Dress for the customer you want

But again, it isn’t about demographics, its about attracting the type of business you want. Communicate to your potential clients like they communicate with their peers. It’s the same philosophy of dressing for the job you want.

It’s one thing to know who your audience IS, it’s another thing to know who you want your audience to BE. Dress for the audience you want. And that’s what we need to think about in our communication with our audience.

If you aren’t sure what I mean by that, take a step back, start a listening campaign. Start watching what your ideal customers talk about, what they share and who they share it with. Start tracking your clicks on your posts – which of your posts created action? Which were reshared? You’ll learn a lot from your audience if you dig a little deeper.

Choosing the Right Content Formats

When you create content, think about what your ideal customers would like to see and in what format they’d like to see it. By content, I don’t just mean blog posts, and Tweets and Facebook updates, I mean all content. Content can be expensive to make, so make it worth your while.

Match Format to Decision-Making Depth

Consider companies who are creating infographics. They know that infographics are easy to read quickly and easy to share: perfect for our attention-deficit social media community. But other companies create white papers, they are trying to attract decision-makers who have the time and budgets to dig into info deeper.

Leverage Video, Infographics, and White Papers Strategically

Using video is extremely powerful, when you consider who will be viewing the content (I’m still not clear on who this Bollywood-Planned Parenthood video was trying to say and to whom), but a video that speaks to your audience in a way that they can relate? Powerful stuff.

Finding and Attracting the Right Clients

Me? I create blog posts that are conversational in tone, occasionally take a risk and encourage some creative thought – I like people who can appreciate that tone, I work well with them.

And that’s really the point. When you stake your ground and create a strong voice, you may not attract everyone..but you will attract those people who you wish to attract and work with. At the end of the day, its more important to find the people who have the characteristics of people you work well with.

What are the characteristics of your ideal clients?

Photo Credit (Creative Commons) http://www.flickr.com/photos/uggboy/

by

Why I’m not writing about Google+ yet.

, ,

Key Takeaways

  • Distinct Experience Compared to Facebook: Google+ offers a different social media experience, focusing on integration with Google products and unique features like “Sparks” for organic content discovery, which sets it apart from Facebook.
  • Potential for Collaboration and Control: The platform may facilitate better collaboration and give users more control over what information they see and share, appealing particularly to creative thinkers and early adopters.
  • Evolving Culture and Engagement: The culture on Google+ is still developing, with ongoing discussions about best practices for using the platform. Users are encouraged to actively engage and experiment, as the platform’s dynamic nature allows for a blending of personal and professional interactions.

Its not that I don’t like Google+, I do. I think its elegant. I think its a brilliant integration of Google’s products. I think there are both useful and fun elements to Google+.

Will it replace Facebook? I really couldn’t say. I think it will be DIFFERENT from Facebook. For example, right now, there isn’t an official brand presence on Google+, that hasn’t stopped brands from setting up their presence, brands just don’t have a different presence than people right now. There also isn’t direct advertising on Google+, though there IS a handy search tool called “Sparks”, but its completely organic without any advertising.  Will that change? I don’t know. I suspect it will, but that depends on what Google’s end goal is with Google+. That goes hand in hand with the question of whether Google will monetize Google+. Aaaaand, before I could even post this blog, Google announced that there will be a way for businesses to officially have a presence, later this year.

I think that Google+ will have some interesting effects, I think collaboration may happen more natively on Google+ than on other social media sites, which may endear it to creative thinkers who also often happen to be early adopters.  I think its going to allow us to better see the information we want to see, while sharing the info we want with who we want. In essence, give us more control. I could go on and on about the “Hang Out” video conferencing feature, but again, before this post could even be posted, Facebook responded with that. So, you see, Google+ is already a game changer. As I said to a friend yesterday: a week ago if I wanted to video conference for free, I had one choice, today I have three. And so it goes.

There is a lot of conversation on the blog-o-sphere and Twitter-sphere from people who I respect, about what you should and shouldn’t do on Google+. Should you follow back? Should you create a brand page? (Google says it will shut down non-person profiles with the introduction of its business solution). Should you blend personal and professional contacts? Is creating “Circles” to limit conversation the essence of social media? It’s a little wild-westy there right now..and I love it. Google+’s culture is evolving. Its in the hands of the people – its the ultimate intersection of social media: the blending of digital tools and humans. I love watching the different approaches to integrating Google+ into the rest of our social presence. The social element is missing some “OOMPH” right now, but that’s because I think there is more “doing” than “watching” and “responding” right now. That’s to be expected to some degree, lots of us learn by “doing”. I’m one of those people. One thing I have decided to “do”/try is adding #pp to posts that are public in Google+. I think it lets people know that their comments will be more widely read and also lets them know that this is info I’ve shared with lots of people. We’ll see how its received and if something similar catches on.

But having had a week to “do” I think  I’m going to follow my own advice. I’m going to watch and listen.

 

What do YOU think of the Google+ experience thus far?

 

 

by

Why engaging influencers is even more important given recent Twitter research

, ,

Key Takeaways

  • Data Limitations: Most social media measurement tools, like Radian6, primarily analyze Twitter data, which, despite its smaller user base (8% of Americans), can still provide significant insights due to its indexed nature and active user engagement.
  • Influencer Importance: Identifying influencers on Twitter is crucial for businesses, as these users are more likely to also be active on Facebook, allowing brands to leverage their reach across platforms to enhance engagement and visibility.
  • User Engagement Dynamics: The majority of social media users are spectators rather than active creators, highlighting the importance of engaging influencers who can amplify a brand’s message within a largely passive audience.

I recently read an article by Tom Webster about the fact that measuring social media is limited largely by the fact that most data comes from Twitter rather than Facebook which has far more users, which limits the over all data a business receives from social media programs like Radian6. The fact that Facebook is a closed ecosystem has been a frustration of mine for some time, its one of the reasons that Twitter is one of my darlings, there is so much I can see and measure there. Alas, as Tom’s presentation on The Social Habit 2011 points out, according to Arbitron only 8% of Americans are using Twitter, despite incredibly high awareness numbers. Facebook continues to dominate the social scene, particularly in brand interaction.

But here’s the deal:  8% of Americans is still 20 million users. Please tell me any other marketing or promotions avenue which gives you access to 20 million users for free. Seriously. When I worked in magazines and tradeshows if I had been delivering 20 million readers or attendees, almost everyone one of my client’s problems would have been solved, and I would have been a hero. Alas, here’s the rub: there is a lot of junk in that group of 20 million people. Some of them will apply to you, some of them won’t. Some of them are active users (3 in 10 user Twitter daily), some of them aren’t.  But those who are using Twitter are apparently using the service more and more and Twitter users are more likely to use multiple platforms. Combine this with the fact that because Tweets are so easily indexed by search engines and its easy to see how the power of Twitter and its influencers can extend beyond the power of this single platform. Despite the short comings of services like Klout and Peer Index, there is significant relevance in identifying influencers who can evangelize your product. In fact, in light of the recent data, its all the more important to identify these people. Because those people on Twitter will almost assuredly be on Facebook (since 98% of Social Networkers are Facebook users).  Think of Twitter as the gateway drug to Facebook. While most Facebook users do not have a Twitter account, most Twitter users will have a Facebook account. And since businesses can not reach out to people who aren’t already fans, finding key influencers on Twitter will likely lead you to key influencers on Facebook. When you merge the idea that Twitter’s users are heavy social media users and typically cross platform users, with the Forrester Social Technographics information that suggests that MOST people are not social media creators or even critics, but spectators the importance of influencers becomes even more obvious. Because, generally speaking, most users (except influencers) use social media to listen, rather than actively engage.

For businesses considering a social media strategy, the question for Twitter clearly has to be: can we identify some key influencers and engage them?

What say you? Do you agree with me that Twitter is the gateway drug to Facebook?

 

Resources:

The Social Habit 2011 (download from SlideShare here)

Twitter X Factors (download from SlideShare here)

Tom Webster and BrandSavant.com

Forrester Research Social Technographics

by
Blogarama - Blog Directory