In Part 1, we discussed the importance of using Facebook to build relationships, communities, and not for bombarding people with requests for “likes” for our business/product/service. We discussed that everything we post about our business/product/service should be done with the express purpose of continuing to build relationships, make connections with people.
If every message you post says something like “check out this product” “check out this service” “buy my book” “order my products” … all people hear is “I want your money.” How would you feel if the first face-to-face communication you have with someone you just met was “I have this great product/service. Please buy it”? Would you want to buy whatever they offer? Probably not. So why would you expect the people you connect with online to be happy to hand their money over to you when it appears all you view them as is a source of income.
How to Reach your Target Audience
Don’t make everything you post be about your product/business/service.
Your strategy to reach your target audience, again, should be focused on building the relationship, their sense of trust in you. How do you do that?
- By sharing/liking/commenting on posts that demonstrate to people how you feel about certain topics. Avoid sharing/commenting on politics as much as possible, but show in a non-confrontational way that you are interested in or at least aware of current events.
- By sharing, liking and posting things that make people feel inspired, uplifted and encouraged.
- By sharing, liking and posting things that make people laugh, feel like they could get behind a cause/injustice (not everybody will agree with you … and that’s okay)
- By sharing, liking and posting things that address a need your target audience may have.
Notice I haven’t said anything about sharing, liking, and posting about your product, service or business. Remember, we’re not selling on Facebook. We’re building relationships and communities.
Relevance is Key
Let’s take point #4 for a minute. Since I focus a lot on promoting authors, let’s take an author-based example, and hopefully you can apply it to whatever your business, product or service is. If you’ve written a book targeted for teens (whether fiction or non-fiction), then you want to get the message not only in front of teens, but also in front of their parents, friends, coaches, teachers — a much broader audience than you might think. Your social media posting strategy (across all networks) is to address a particular need or concern for those people.
This can include such things as:
- Why sleep is important for teens?
- How can organized sports be helpful for building self-confidence?
- 4-year-old boy with cerebral palsy scores touchdown
- Teenage entrepreneur receives achievement award.
- Communication strategies for parents and teens.
These kinds of topics will resonate with people in your circles. If you’re sharing research or “learning” kind of content, make sure it’s from a reliable source. Make sure it’s well-researched. The writer doesn’t have to be an expert or medical professional. Sometimes an experienced mother or father or teacher can be just as helpful and informative as an expert with ten letters after his name.
Not only are you looking for content that will help you connect with your target audience, demonstrate that what you do is relevant to them, your content needs to be shareable. Whatever you post, you want these people to say, “Hey, that’s helpful. I know people in my contact list would be interested in this.” Or “That’s cool. I have to share that.” Or “I completely agree.” Or “I completely disagree” and then click “share”. The more the article or post gets shared and viewed that’s more eyes seeing your name, your brand … without you even having to say anything about your product, service or business.
When people trust you, see you as someone who can help them, they will not hesitate to buy from you or recommend you to someone when you post periodically about what you offer.
