Is Your Social Media Message Getting Through?
Or Are You Wasting Time and Effort?
Does Your Audience Know What You’re Selling?
How much effort do your followers have to put in to find out who you are and what you can do for them?
Do you click on the social media profiles of every person you follow to check out their bios and their websites — without being prompted? Do you know who owns their own business, who works for a nonprofit, who works for someone else, who’s looking for a job, who does consulting?
I certainly don’t. I can’t tell much from a lot of people’s tweets or updates. Can you?
That really got me thinking.
What do people know about me from what I post on New England Multimedia’s Twitter profile and Facebook Page? How about from my LinkedIn profile or our Company page?
Does my target audience know my specialty in the internet marketing field?
Is my social media message getting through loud and clear?
A Twitter Test
I want to play a little word association game with you. What comes to mind when you hear or read the following Twitter names? What do you think they’re selling? Who might be their target audience?
Three of these should be easy. (Don’t click the links yet.)
1) PilatesBodyNYC
2) Nikolas_Allen
3) RIBloodCenter
4) ShamrockFinCorp
5) Soulati
Now, click the links, one at a time. Each will open in a separate tab, or window.
Read their Twitter bios.
Do you have a clearer picture yet?
Read their Twitter feeds.
What do they Tweet about?
Can you tell from their conversations and their updates what they’re about?
If you want to take this even deeper, click on their website links from within their Twitter bios. From their websites, check out their Facebook Pages next, then their YouTube Channels, then their LinkedIn profiles.
I’m sharing these people with you because they’re favorites of mine, and good test subjects. I’m asking myself the same questions I’m asking you:
How much effort do your followers and fans have to make to find out what you can do for them? Is your social media message getting through without spamming or being blatantly self-promoting? If so, tell us what you’re doing to make it happen.
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I’m still finding my voice on both my iheartrhody account and our employer’s account. It’s a process.
It’s definitely a work in progress for all of us, Erika! I love it when I can tell by someone’s social media conversations and updates what it is they’re all about. For businesses who don’t have a known brand, it’s imperative that their readers know what they do, and what their expertise is, without being obnoxious, spammy, or self-promoting. It takes thought, and tweaking as you go.
Thanks for commenting!
Even with a little bit of a follower count, I’m not sure people really know what I’m about, let alone how I can serve them. Very few have picked up on that, or even that I’ve been and still am looking for paid work/clients….even when it seems that I’ve put that in their faces. Guess a lot of work to do on that count
Brad, it definitely takes a very intentional, thoughtful approach to every tweet or Facebook update. I’m not so good at it, but now people have a general idea about what we’re all about — using social media, video, and WordPress to market to a target audience.
I need to be even more intentional. There’s a very delicate balance, though, between being conversational and being self-promoting!
Good questions Michelle, and questions I definitely have to think about. On one account I think it is clearly delineated…sometimes too much and I would like to do more engagement about a variety of subjects but don’t want to veer too much off what we are about.
The other account? Not so sure…still refining my strategies there. Not necessarily a bad thing so long as there are not lost opportunities while I figure that out…Thanks for posing the question. I think I would like some follow up on this subject about branding without selling. Especially for service areas…businesses without something to sell but have services to offer,
Kathie, I used to worry about lost opportunities while I was rethinking strategy, tweaking, and letting a few things go unattended because of time constraints. Then I counseled myself: A missed opportunity today doesn’t mean a lost opportunity tomorrow. I showed myself grace, and decided to simply always move forward, to not put so much pressure on myself to do everything today, to have everything in place right now — because that’s never going to happen anyway. The field of internet marketing is constantly changing.
Everything you do, no matter how small, to build your brand — even if it’s one small thing a month — is going to pay off later. Even if you end up in a different field, there’s not one thing you’re doing or learning that will be wasted. You’re in the right place at the right time, and you’re not taking it for granted.