This morning, I had a complete conversation on LinkedIn. A friend connected with me regarding a company looking for some SEO guidance and we traded messages back and forth for about 10 minutes.
This afternoon, I will be speaking with a person from Brazil who will be coming to Canada in August for a vacation and wants to take our 2 day basic SEO course. Her preferred method of contact is Skype. Personally, I love Skype because I can hit the phone button anytime I don’t feel like I am getting my point across in type and have a verbal conversation. I can also hit the video button, if I am not in my pj’s☺, and give my contact an immediate feeling of intimacy. With video, the connection is much deeper. People feel they know you when you finally meet them in person.
While one of my daughters loves to connect on Facebook and I love the fact that I can see what she is up wherever in the world she may be, my youngest daughter is an email/text messaging person.
Prospective clients will tell us that they have no interest in dealing with people on Twitter or they feel that video is a waste of time but they reality is that you need to reach your target audience on their preferred choice of communication, not yours.
If you are not sure where your target audience is hanging out these days, you can search Google for your keyword term and list your top 5 ranking competitors. Once you have your list, you can visit each website and look for social media icons that will lead you to their Facebook or Twitter page. You can also search Google for their company name and usually, their FB or Twitter page shows up in the rankings.
Once you have uncovered your competitors’ social media tools of choice, head over to LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Youtube and maybe even iTunes to see if they have started campaigns, continued campaigns or bailed on campaigns.
You will find that some or all of your competitors have tried one or two social media platforms to reach their customers. They have already done your homework for you. Once you discover the strategies that your competitors have initiated, you can review and build better campaigns.
The key take away here is to be prepared to meet your target audience, wherever they are. Waiting for them to come to you will surely lead to the painful demise of your business.