Get More Clients Through Social Media By Talking To Your Target Market!

In the mad rush that accompanies finding fans, enticing followers and growing circles, it can be all too easy to forget one of the most basic rules of social media and business: always reach out to a relevant audience.

Collecting 100,000 Twitter followers or Facebook fans means absolutely nothing if those people are not invested in your product or services. It’s much better to have 1,000 followers who eagerly anticipate your every move. It’s this latter group after all that’s far more likely to become clients or customers.

Finding your target audience

Before you can talk, you need to find somebody – or better, some people – to talk to.

Finding your target audience on social media isn’t as hard as you might think. As each platform becomes more advanced, so does the search mechanism found within each. Today it is possible to use the likes of Facebook and Twitter to search for a very precise demographic. From age and location to interests and marital status, you can reach out to the type of people you’re looking for.

Even better than that, you can also find people that are interested in what you have to offer. From searches based on interests to piggy-backing existing followers to find like-minded people, you can create a following of people that have an expressed interest in what it is you do.

With a following that’s interested, you’re more likely to be able to convert likes to leads, and followers to clients.

Conversations worth having

In order to promote the transition from fan to client though, you’ll need to talk to your target market.

We’ve extensively covered what types of things you can talk about on social media, but here are a few quick pointers.

It’s vital you remember that a conversation is a two-way alley, and your conversations need to have worth to both you and your social media followers. Under no circumstances should you adopt a marketing-only approach, simply trying to sell your wares. Instead, get involved with real conversations – including those that are trending right now – and show that there’s a human behind your company logo.

Remember too to engage in enough conversations to keep your company on the radar. Talk to different fans and followers about different topics. Try to vary what you talk about, but also remember that too many conversations could also be detrimental, especially if you’re rehashing the same old same old.

In short, ensure that the conversations you strike up with your social media community are worth having, or face a quiet time online.

Always engaging content

Of course, conversations aren’t simply about leaving comments and responding to status updates and tweets.

If you really want to generate engagement, and in turn earn new clients, you’ll need to give your followers something interesting. Engaging content can come in a variety of forms – including pictures, videos, polls, status updates, and more – so the key is finding out what works for you and your followers.

Don’t be afraid to try out new tricks, but be prepared to can them if they fail to engage others. Don’t feel like you have to create a piece of art, just come up with something that will catch the eye. And always remember that the more varied your content, the more chance you have of striking up a conversation with your target market.

Converting fans to clients

For some companies, social media is simply a PR stunt to create engagement with fans with no real need to convert those fans to clients. Coca-Cola for example can simply use social media to extend brand awareness.

For most of us though, social media isn’t a vanity project. Instead, it must become a means to an end, which means converting clients. By providing interesting (fun, exciting, emotional) content you’ll be able to spark up a conversation. From there it’s a case of leading that person towards your company.

Once converted, you’ll then need to give consideration to looking after your new client – again leveraging social media to do so.

Expand your reach

No matter how hard you try, a client is rarely for life. Instead, they use your services while they need to before moving on with the next stage of their life.

If you’re to secure your company’s long term future you must remember to keep hunting for new clients. This means once more finding interested parties to converse with before enticing them to use your services. It also means a lot more conversations.

As you set about expanding your reach, remember: the right conversations with the right audience cannot harm your business and, in reality, can do a lot of good.