Social media is one the greatest internet marketing tools available to any e-business owner. It’s effective, it’s free, and anyone (and everyone) can do it. But when deciding on how to use it for internet marketing, should you post broad messages or target a specific market?
There are pros and cons to each approach but the short answer is that you achieve the deepest market reach by using a combination of both broad and targeted social media marketing.
Marketing To A Broad Demographic
Who belongs to your company’s broad market? This is a wide group of consumers who have one common interest, making them potential customers. For instance, if you sell nonfiction business advice books, your broad market is all business owners regardless of industry or niche.
How does this affect your social media marketing efforts? Reaching a wide group of site members is actually more difficult than you might at first think. Using the above example, you could join groups that discuss various small business concerns. You could post links to articles on your website with catchy text, such as “Want to get the most bang for your buck? This article lists 10 ways to increase profits”.
Notice that in both cases, the odds of gaining a new client are rather slim because you haven’t revealed a niche market to members. Yet without focusing on the broader market, you could easily be missing out on potential clients with a specific need.
Targeted Social Media Marketing
On the other side of the coin is your specific target market. These are the consumers identified by doing research. You may know such things about them as their average income level, age, gender, geographic location, hobbies, interests, and main concerns.
In the case of business books, as we are using for an example, suppose they focus on supply chain management. This narrows your target market to those business owners or managers who manufacture products. Are your books aimed primarily at established industrial companies operating in Australia? You’ve just narrowed the field even further.
Targeted social media marketing to this narrower demographic means you need to vary your efforts. You will want posts with article links to say something more along the lines of “Decrease shipping costs by taking advantage of new Australian export regulations for the mining industry”. The business owner who sells floral arrangements will probably not be interested but the operations manager of a copper mine might well take a look.
Don’t forget keywords in your posts, too. Broad keywords like “small business advice” will work for a broad market but to target specific customers, try using long tail keywords like “copper mine shipping operations” or “supply chain logistics for the mining industry”.
The more targeted your efforts, the farther abroad you should look for social media platforms and groups to join. Consider becoming a member at various industry-specific sites and gearing your posts appropriately. Make an effort to post on the forums and do so on a regular basis so that you are recognised as a valued, contributing member.
The only way to reach each and every potential client is to use both broad and targeted social media marketing efforts. It takes time, but it is more than worthwhile in terms of ROI.
About Sean Rasmussen
While I will follow back nearly anyone who follows me on Twitter, those that I choose to follow first are mainly in my niche. Targeted marketing in any medium always works better than throwing tons of crap against the wall and hoping some of it sticks.
@gwcalvert
Seems like a good way to go Gary. You will more than likely achieve better results from a handful of targeted prospects compared to a bucketload of untargeted prospects.
Such good advice Sean. The size of the internet and its potential tends to blind some of us, particularly me, so that we start out trying to utilize the entire sphere.
I know and will keep telling myself that very specific targeting is the way to go. After all in the big wide wonderful world there surely are enough people even in a smallish target area to make me rich and famous.
I will try to be more focused thanks to you. I know intellectually that targeting a very specific market is the way to be successful, but somehow I let greed overtake me and think about bigger numbers. You have pointed out – SILLY ME!
Thanks
Hi Sean,
I guess the best thing would be to be able to create a balanced approach to marketing,
giving all areas a try, and finding what works best for you.
Rita
These are similar to the considerations of targetting long-tail vs short-tail keywords. It’s not about the number of people you reach, it’s about the quality of those leads.
Very true Lina. Quality makes a big difference. It doesn’t help a lot if you have hundreds of people coming, just to leave straight away again because they are not really interested in what I have to offer.
Excellent points Rita and Lina,
We are all learning how important it is to be targeted in our approach than being a scatter gun. We can leave others do that
Hi Sean,
I can see the advantages in both broad and targeted social media marketing. I’m thinking that I need to spend most of my time chasing my target market because that is where I’ll get the most results. I need to consider different social media sites where I can find more of my target market.
Still, it never hurts to throw the net out there and see what new prospective customers I can get.
I wonder whether it is a good idea to target one or the other first? Or is it a better strategy to work at both broad and targeted social media marketing at the same time? Which strategy is best in terms of return on time?
Hi Sean
I am definitely a ‘niche’ girl and the targeted market is for me. I feel that I can take one theme and expand that out but I can’t take a whole variety of stuff and pull it into one thing. Philosophically it doesn’t work and therefore it won’t work in the practical either.
I like what Gary had to say, though I don’t know about the medium he chose to demonstrate!
There is a wonderful Buddhist saying I have used in another of your posts but seems relevant here, “when you’re everywhere you’re nowhere and when you’re nowhere you’re everywhere”.
I prefer to target a smaller, concentrated group of people who are looking for what I have to sell rather than a larger diluted group who I have to work more widespread in time and effort.