In the Social Media Gold Rush, We Can Forget The One Thing That Will Guarantee Us Success

Social media marketing is rather like a gold rush, right now. People are coming from the four corners of the earth to try to win some gold. Small and large businesses, alike, are pulling out their pick axes. Some are definitely striking it rich but some are just digging in the dirt, and contradictory advice is coming from all sides.

But that's not necessarily the fault of your local social media expert, because the really fun part of the process is this: the major social media sites keep digging up that gold and moving it. Of course! I would, too, if I were them.Their goal is to make more profit through advertising. Our goal is to get the word out there without spending too, too much money. Hmmmmm....

Folks who enjoyed serious success early on have now found their gold has been moved. For example: SEO providers have been optimizing the heck out of websites over the last few years, carefully sprinkling keywords everywhere, streamlining the look and the feel of the site (many sites look exactly alike these days), and generally doing a great job. So why is Google throttling the traffic to these sites? Well, it's kind of like going into a casino and knowing how to count cards. Eventually, they kick you out.

The game is changing drastically it seems almost minute by minute. Even as a blog get posted, its advice is going stale (I guess including this one!). Business might feel pressured to jump and jump fast to adjust their marketing strategies and through it all forget one important thing.

What's that? Their Customer. The one person who can really tell a business what they should be doing.

In these crazy times, we need more and more to get back to the basics of marketing.

1. Who is our Customer?
2. What does s/he want?
3. What does s/he need?
4. How is s/he finding what s/he needs?
5. Where is s/he looking?

Answering these questions will give you a much clearer idea of how to use social media to market to your Customer. Your approach can be thoughtful. Your website can be designed to appeal to the very folks you are trying to attract.

For example, if you are a personal trainer offering exercise coaching and you determine that over 65% of your potential clients are women 45-55 years old, you might choose Pinterest as a marketing platform because Pinterest is most popular with women. You might soften the lines and the colours of your website. You might promote yourself in terms of the bikini body as opposed the six pack.

Or if you are a clothing manufacturer and you determine that your customers are mostly male, 18-24, you might consider Tumblr, a micro network that attracts teens and youth. You might update your site to be quirky and interesting to young people.

Your Social Media Director or Consultant should be talking, all the time, about your clients and what they're doing online, what sites they're visiting online. Because if your Customer is there, then that's where you want to be too. Avoid turning over too, too much dirt to find the gold. Follow your Customer.

Jacqui Burke is a Social Media Consultant based in Toronto, Canada. http://www.jaybirdsocialmedia.com

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