Content truly is the heart and soul of any social media marketing campaign. Visual, written or interactive content captures a person’s attention, fulfills a need and/or offers a solution.

When a social fan takes action, whether by Liking, commenting on, sharing, retweeting or otherwise engaging, they are giving their social endorsement of the content and, by extension, the brand. Engagement is incredibly important, as it means the brand has hit their mark with that particular piece of content.

Engagement is not the end goal; ideally, your content serves to help you achieve both a social goal (engagement, exposure) and a business goal (increased site traffic, higher revenue, building trust), as well. Fans may be engaged by content without taking action towards a business goal, which is where much of the confusion around measuring social impact lies. Likes and other activity may be high, yet irrelevant to the business.

In order to succeed in social media marketing, you need to engage the right people, at the right time.

Plan for success with a deeper understanding of your audience and their needs, then address those with killer content. Easier said than done, right?

Understanding Your Customer

Customer personas are an incredibly helpful tool for social media marketers and needn’t be difficult to develop. You likely already have an idea of who the people are who make your business tick.

Using follower data from Facebook and LinkedIn, paired with your website analytics and any other customer data at your disposal, construct profiles of your customers. Aim for four to six different profiles and segment customers by the demographics that make sense for your business. You might consider:

• Geography
• Age and gender
• Interests or hobbies
• Profession and/or education
• Income
• Family type and/or size
• Shopping habits
• Other information available to you.

Developing Customer Personas

Use this data to develop a persona that describes a typical customer in that segment. For example:

“John” is a 29-49 year old professional in the Midwest. He is single and has an income between $50,000 and $70,000. He likes to have the latest toys in technology and expects excellent quality.

Or

“Jane” is a 29-39 year old working mother. Her family income is over $70,000, yet Jane is a deal shopper. She places a high value on conveniences, as she appreciates more time with her family.

From here, you can begin to identify the pain points that your customers in each segment face.  How can your company better address John or Jane’s needs? This forms the the basis of your content plan; you now have a far deeper understanding of your customer and can create content to address their specific needs and wants.

In the next post in this series, we’ll discuss the buying cycle and how understanding where your customer is in their decision-making process plays into a more targeted and effective content strategy.

Share your questions or tips in the comments and thanks for reading!

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