Choosing the right social media site to engage for your business can mean the difference between incredible success bringing in tons of new business and wasted hours of fruitless frustration. The big question is how do you choose the right site?
Target Market
The first thing you need to know is your target market. What does your ideal customer look like?
No matter what your business is you really should spend some time thinking through the perfect customer for your business. Even though your business can theoretically serve everyone you want pick a narrower target.
It’s a classic case of “less is more.”
You’ll reach more people, and make more money if you focus in on a segment of the marketplace rather than trying to reach everyone. Trying to reach everyone is a recipe for reaching no one effectively.
Choose your niche and write out as detailed a description of the ideal customer in that niche.
Once you have that person defined you can do some research and figure out where they are online. When you figure out which social media site your target market is spending the most time on you can engage that community. That’s a whole lot more effective than just diving into a site because it’s the biggest or “hottest” thing right now.
Ask Existing Customers
It seems obvious, but one of the best ways to find potential customers online is to ask your existing customers where they spend time online. You can conduct a poll or take a survey.
Or you can just have your sales force ask your customers.
Something as simple as this can be a great way to discover “target rich” social media sites that you might not even be aware of.
Look at Demographics
Taking a look at the demographics of the various social media sites can give a good idea of what types of people spend the most time on the different social media sites.
One great tool for this is Quantcast. Just type in the domain and then click on the “Demographic” link.
For example, a quick look the LinkedIn demographics shows that site attracts more men than women. Their user base tends to be older, more affluent and hold more advanced degrees than average on the web.
Contrast that to the YouTube demographics. The YouTube community tends to be younger, have more kids in their households and have less college education than average.
When you know who your target market is, you can look at the different social media sites’ profiles on Quantcast and get a feel for what communities might be best to focus your efforts.
Personal Preference
Another thing to look at is your personal preference, because it doesn’t matter if a social media site has nothing but your target market there if you hate the site so much that you won’t actively engage the community.
You’ll end up better off choosing a site that is less “target rich” because you will gain the most from where you put in the most effort. A site that resonates with you, will be more “fun” to engage. And that means you will be more active on the site which will give you a better return over the long run.
Bottom line? Use the site that has the highest concentration of your target market. Engage that community consistently over time and you’ll see better results than if you just randomly jump on the most popular sites.
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