Last week I asked you to answer two fundamental questions…. What to you want to gain from social media, and what are you willing to invest? I also asked you to define you target market(s) so you had some idea of who you are going to focus on. This process gives you a clear objective to follow through on and will help you shape your overall social media plan.
Now that you’ve created some expectations for your campaign, it’s time to do some listening and lurking. For the next week, I want you to seek out that target market you defined using the following methods and listen to what they are saying about you, your brand and your larger market. Not to worry if people aren’t talking about you (yet!). Expand your search toward your industry, market and especially your competitors. Watch all of them for 1 week (but don’t say anything yet!). Determine what people are talking about, who the influencers are, and what the competition is already doing in the social media space.
Here are your lurking tools for the week. Have fun!
Note: An influencer is someone in your market who isn’t necessarily a competitor, but has a strong “following” (twitter followers, blog readers, Facebook fans etc) and speaks on a topic related to your field.
To search general market & competitors:
www.Google.com – seems obvious but if you Google your competitors, you’ll find out what social media assets they are exploiting (i.e. Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, specific blogs etc). If you search your market keywords you’ll see where your customers are hanging out as well. Take a lot of time digging deep with this process and be sure to segment your searches by competitor or keyword. I handy trick is to set up Google Alerts for your key competitors and influencers, so you’ll be automatically pinged when they get a mention.
To search general market, competitors, customers and influencers:
www.search.twitter.com – this the search tool for twitter and a great way to use keywords to see who’s talking about what. Search your personal name; your company, your competitors and any keywords that relate to consumer talk related to your business. For example, I own Ladies Who Launch Los Angeles, so I would use this tool to search for “women entrepreneurs, LA”. If your business is geo-specific like mine, also consider using
• Twitter Advanced Search
• ChirpCity
• Nearby Tweets
• Tweepz
Note: with twitter, I’d recommend creating an account and start following these folks as you go through the search process so you don’t have to seek them out again later.
To seek out your customers specifically:
www.ning.com – this is a great site for reaching out to existing social groups that crowd together to discuss a specific topic. For example, if you’re a small business coach, there are TONS of small business groups that you can join. Make an effort to create a basic profile and join at least 3 groups in your field. It’s not the easiest site to navigate, but it’s worth the extra time to figure it out.
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