How to Understand And Engage Your Audience in Social Media

Hi, Vickie Siculiano here from ExhibitCraft. I want to recap last month's 10 Tips on Social Media Marketing, How to Engage Your Audiences, that was on 10/10 at 10am at ExhibitCraft in Wayne, New Jersey. In this short video, I'm going to show you how you can set the foundation for your social media activities by understanding who your audience is. In the next video coming soon I'll show you how you can dive deeper and take action. But today let's focus on setting the foundation up for your social media efforts. Now social media is not much without people and conversations. It's the conversations and people and brands with interesting content that get people sharing and engaging with others that drive it by liking, sharing and commenting. So, the biggest mistake that business leaders make when developing and executing their social media strategy is to start with the tactics and technology before they really get to know their audience and see how they can help them solve problems. And it's only after you have this foundational knowledge that you can determine your strategy and approach for building your social media plan. Remember, sharing is caring and you've got to know your audience to know what they care about so that they'll share your stuff. You need to know who your ideal customer is, what their age is, their gender, location, stage of life and interests. So you want to find the social media networks that your audience is already on. Don't reinvent the wheel. Go to the online forums in your industry. Which ones do people belong to that these forums use. Find out who your competitors are. Go to their website and see what social media networks they're on and like them. Follow the pages. Follow the twitter handles. Make a list for yourself. Go to Google and search for your industry authority blogs, profiles and groups. Ok. Find the conversations and listen. See which items are getting the most buzz, gathering responses, causing controversy and being the most useful. So now you've built a strong foundation. You know who they are, where they are. What they're talking about. You've done your research. You've built a strong foundation and now you're going to have more success at social media and build those lasting relationships. So now you understand how to go and look for your audiences. It's on this slide that we're going to end here today. In the next video, I'm going to show you more about actually taking action and diving in. So now you should focus on understanding your audience, where they are, what they're engaged with already so that you can have an impact on your social media efforts that's going to be long-lasting. You've already found places where your audience is in social media. You can kind of stick your toe in the water, start asking questions, commenting on posts, understanding your audience. But, really be authentic, helpful, interesting, using their language. Reach out to your audience and become part of their communities. Most importantly, be consistent so that you can engage your audiences for a lifetime. So now you know the who, the what, the where that I showed you, and that's your foundation, knowing your audience, finding out where they are and listening. If you have any questions, you can call me at ExhibitCraft, e-mail me, stop by our offices. Post your comments below this video. I'm happy to take your questions and maybe make a new video. Anyway, thanks for listening so much and I hope that you really enjoyed this presentation and took something away from it for your business to start using social media. Ok, thanks a lot for listening. Take care.