Why Knowing Your Target Audience and What You Do is Important to Your Social Media Assistant
Having spent the last few months consulting, running workshops, designing WordPress blog sites, web pages and managing Twitter accounts I've made a few interesting observations.
Firstly, quite a lot of business owners, consultants and coaches think that being all things to all people is what's going to help them generate new customers.
In other words, when I ask you: "Who is your target audience?" you respond," Anyone really.
" Anyone who needs a spark plug, marketing, personal development, anyone who needs an accountant, a personal assistant, a coach, etc...
And when I ask what you specialise in, again it is too general.
The responses I get are: "We are in IT" "Okay, so IT covers a whole range of specialist areas, what exactly is it that you do?" or "We're accountants, specialising in accounting", but "what aspect of accounting do you specialise in?..
..
" Now - you may think to yourself - as a social media assistant why on earth would I possibly need to know this to manage your Twitter account, or set up your blog site? Not many people realise that an important part of the planning process to run a successful online campaign is for me to understand your specialist area, your goals and who you are targeting.
I am designing your blog site, web site, managing your social media - so I just have to know what I am doing.
Knowing these 3 key areas helps me to determine what type of site/platform or system would best suit your needs and how your site should be designed and set up.
What social media tools would be most beneficial to you? No point being on MySpace if your audience is using Facebook.
Which keywords would be the best suited for you and how I can optimise your site and social media to those keywords to strengthen your presence and finally to gauge how the campaign is progressing? So, before I can even begin to design your website, build a blog or even have your copy written, you need to explain very clearly to me what your area of expertise is, who is in your target market and what your goals and objectives are.
How can you possibly write about what you are doing if you don't know why you are doing it and who you are doing it for and what you want to achieve? How can my copywriter possibly write about it on your behalf? You need to know what you want to get out of your website, your blog, your content.
Are you selling products online which require a shopping cart and perhaps an autoresponder facility? You need to know who is in your target market, so that you can speak their language and understand their needs.
You need to know what you specialise in so that you can theme your online presence and content around your specialist area.
Example, let's say you are a recruitment agency.
You have two key areas in your business.
One side of the business is people who come to you looking for employees to work for them; the other side of your business would be that you have people coming to you looking for a job.
Now you can clearly see that if you were to set up a website you would need to ask who you are going to be targeting? Who are you going to be setting up the site for? Are you targeting employers or employees? You would have to agree that both of them would speak a very different language or in fact would require different information from you.
Maybe you would want a main corporate site with 2 blog sites, one for candidates and the other one for employers.
Again, probably you want to have two Twitter accounts to target each audience separately.
But now let's say you are a personal development coach.
You may say to me, well I could sell my services to anyone who needs personal development.
Is this really the case? Have you asked yourself what area of personal development you focus on? Is it personal development as an individual? Do you, on the contrary, coach people for business? Or do you, for example, coach young women who have been abused? Again, the language for each area is very different.
Before you speak to a designer, spend some time on the above and be clear about the things that you do and offer.
It will save you time, money and will help eliminate disappointment when you have gone to the expense of doing things to find out later that it was not what you wanted.
Remember that web designers (blog builders) are not necessarily consultants or even business owners themselves.
All they do is design sites according to your instructions.
If you need a website that will help you achieve your business goals, look professional and follow the canons of taste accepted in your industry in terms of graphic design and content, you need to help your designer.
Similarly, you need to help your social media assistant, which will ensure that your social media marketing strategy will work effectively for you.
You can help us all immensely by answering our simple questions such as, "Who is in your target audience?" and "what is it exactly that you do?"
Firstly, quite a lot of business owners, consultants and coaches think that being all things to all people is what's going to help them generate new customers.
In other words, when I ask you: "Who is your target audience?" you respond," Anyone really.
" Anyone who needs a spark plug, marketing, personal development, anyone who needs an accountant, a personal assistant, a coach, etc...
And when I ask what you specialise in, again it is too general.
The responses I get are: "We are in IT" "Okay, so IT covers a whole range of specialist areas, what exactly is it that you do?" or "We're accountants, specialising in accounting", but "what aspect of accounting do you specialise in?..
..
" Now - you may think to yourself - as a social media assistant why on earth would I possibly need to know this to manage your Twitter account, or set up your blog site? Not many people realise that an important part of the planning process to run a successful online campaign is for me to understand your specialist area, your goals and who you are targeting.
I am designing your blog site, web site, managing your social media - so I just have to know what I am doing.
Knowing these 3 key areas helps me to determine what type of site/platform or system would best suit your needs and how your site should be designed and set up.
What social media tools would be most beneficial to you? No point being on MySpace if your audience is using Facebook.
Which keywords would be the best suited for you and how I can optimise your site and social media to those keywords to strengthen your presence and finally to gauge how the campaign is progressing? So, before I can even begin to design your website, build a blog or even have your copy written, you need to explain very clearly to me what your area of expertise is, who is in your target market and what your goals and objectives are.
How can you possibly write about what you are doing if you don't know why you are doing it and who you are doing it for and what you want to achieve? How can my copywriter possibly write about it on your behalf? You need to know what you want to get out of your website, your blog, your content.
Are you selling products online which require a shopping cart and perhaps an autoresponder facility? You need to know who is in your target market, so that you can speak their language and understand their needs.
You need to know what you specialise in so that you can theme your online presence and content around your specialist area.
Example, let's say you are a recruitment agency.
You have two key areas in your business.
One side of the business is people who come to you looking for employees to work for them; the other side of your business would be that you have people coming to you looking for a job.
Now you can clearly see that if you were to set up a website you would need to ask who you are going to be targeting? Who are you going to be setting up the site for? Are you targeting employers or employees? You would have to agree that both of them would speak a very different language or in fact would require different information from you.
Maybe you would want a main corporate site with 2 blog sites, one for candidates and the other one for employers.
Again, probably you want to have two Twitter accounts to target each audience separately.
But now let's say you are a personal development coach.
You may say to me, well I could sell my services to anyone who needs personal development.
Is this really the case? Have you asked yourself what area of personal development you focus on? Is it personal development as an individual? Do you, on the contrary, coach people for business? Or do you, for example, coach young women who have been abused? Again, the language for each area is very different.
Before you speak to a designer, spend some time on the above and be clear about the things that you do and offer.
It will save you time, money and will help eliminate disappointment when you have gone to the expense of doing things to find out later that it was not what you wanted.
Remember that web designers (blog builders) are not necessarily consultants or even business owners themselves.
All they do is design sites according to your instructions.
If you need a website that will help you achieve your business goals, look professional and follow the canons of taste accepted in your industry in terms of graphic design and content, you need to help your designer.
Similarly, you need to help your social media assistant, which will ensure that your social media marketing strategy will work effectively for you.
You can help us all immensely by answering our simple questions such as, "Who is in your target audience?" and "what is it exactly that you do?"
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