Be Your Brand

by Regan Hillyer

  When you combine the “Job Title” category with “Workplace,” then you can pinpoint your key audience with precision. Imagine, for instance, searching for only CEOs at Fortune 500 companies, or targeting real estate agents at the top five firms in town whether you’re a small business, huge brand, nonprofit, or government agency, your perfect target audience will be found on Facebook. Frankly, I’ve yet to find an organization anywhere whose target audience isn’t on Facebook. Be sure to listen, find, and engage your share of hundreds of millions of people across the world—the share that makes sense for your organization.

  LINKEDIN: FOR MAXIMUM IMPACT, TARGET PROFESSIONALS ONLY

  While Facebook may boast hundreds of millions of total users LinkedIn boasts tens of millions of professionals and business users. If you’re in the business-to-business space, it’s well worth looking at specific targeting options on LinkedIn. Such information provided includes the obvious, again, age, gender, and

  location—but also utilizes criteria that allow you to determine exactly who your audience should be, based on job title, industry, seniority, and company size. Software marketers might target information technology professionals. Financial planners might target C-level senior management in markets where they have offices. We use LinkedIn to target senior marketing professionals in New York, Boston, and Chicago, the cities where we have offices. Also, the reality is, there are still some professionals, especially senior ones, who aren’t on Facebook, and if you’re going to find these folks at all online, LinkedIn is a great place to start.

  FORGET DEMOGRAPHICS: TARGETING ON TWITTER

  We’ve been talking about the amazing demographic targeting capabilities of Facebook and LinkedIn’s ad platforms, but what about targeting people based on actual needs they have expressly shared? In other words, who cares about people’s age or their job title or interests if you know that they are looking for a service or product you provide? You can find such people using Google, but the current leading platform for finding conversation is Twitter. All tweets are, by default, public. There is an immensely high volume of Tweets every day—more than 95 million. By utilizing Twitter, your target audience becomes based around what people are actually saying, not simply what you glean from demographic research. Say, for instance, you’re an entertainment lawyer, or you’re in the marketing department for an entertainment law firm. You can target movie producers or actors or others you think might need your services. Or you can do a Twitter search. In this example, a search with the keywords “need entertainment lawyer” yields three people.

  KNOW YOUR IDEAL TARGET AUDIENCE / YOUR IDEA TRIBE

  The last few decades have brought numerous improvements in marketing intelligence and research. But until now, you may have had no need to identify your target audience so narrowly. For example, you might know your audience loves playing sports, but perhaps they prefer one sport to another. Or young women love your product, but you didn’t know that 21 to 22-year-olds are far more likely to buy it than 23 to 24-year-olds until you did the appropriate Facebook or Twitter searches. Now that you can target so precisely, you can always survey and research to learn exactly who the audience for your product and service actually is. While some businesses have narrower and more well-defined target audiences than others, you can always refine the notion of who is part of your ideal audience. You will likely find that there is more than just one group of people who are looking for your goods or services. Huge, global brands, for example, have certain categories of customers that are more common than others. Perhaps female lawyers spend more on your product than stay-at-home moms, for instance. If you don’t know specifics, you can always ask, too. If you have 1,000 Facebook fans, ask what their favorite sport is. If you find out for some reason that 9 out of 10 of them prefer baseball, you might consider sponsoring a local little league team. Social media will help you find your target audience and provide you with further insight about this group.

  PUT AN END TO WASTEFUL SPENDING

  This is a common phrase about advertising among key marketing executives: “Fifty percent of my advertising works. I just don’t know which 50 percent.’’ Search marketing and social media have rendered it possible to target exactly the people you know are your customers and best prospects, not people you think are based on intuition and vague understanding of market research. You can continue to media your marketing and advertising dollars on less targeted-focus and awareness, or you can be narrower but much more potent. When tapping into that unique target audience, you’ll never again want to waste precious marketing dollars on less accountable, out-of- focus media targeting. This is just the beginning of the conversation, remember, we’re not talking about advertising repeatedly in the hopes of eventually finding the right person at the right time who may happen to need to buy your product or service. We’re talking about defining and finding the narrowly-targeted correct audience and then beginning to engage them in a conversation, so that when they are ready to buy, you’re the obvious, logical choice. If you’ve targeted them correctly and then engaged with them along the way, when it comes time to buying, they won’t even need to search, and they certainly won’t need to respond to a television or radio ad. They’ll already know you, trust you, and like you, so they’ll turn right to you. And of course, you don’t need to be peddling a physical product. Take, for example, Likeable’s work with the Fibromyalgia & Fatigue Centers (FFC) and the steps we took in helping people afflicted with Fibromyalgia and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and the F connect.

  THINK AND ACT LIKE SOMEONE IN YOUR TRIBE WOULD

  Do you like being disrupted? Do you enjoy when you’re reading something online and a

  pop-up banner ad gets in the way of the next paragraph? What about when you’re working on a project at the office, the phone rings, and you answer to find a sales guy on the other end of the line trying to pitch his wares? When I speak at conferences, clubs, and meetings, I often tell my audiences, many of whom are marketers, to place themselves in the role of the consumer. I then ask, “How many of you listen to and enjoy radio commercials?” No hands. “How many of you watch and enjoy television commercials?” A couple of hands usually come up at this point, and normally, upon further review, these people are, in fact, ad guys. “How many of you use and enjoy Facebook? Here, hands shoot up in the air, anywhere between 50 percent and 90 percent of the room. Is this because Facebook, or social media as a whole, is the newest, shiniest product in town? I don’t think so. I believe it’s because people fundamentally want to use media for themselves, and connect with others, not to be interrupted. Think about how you feel when you receive or experience the following: Direct mail magazine ads, TV ads, radio ads, packaging (i.e., “Free Toy Inside” on the cereal box), flyers handed to you on the street, billboards off the highway, automated messages when you’re on hold, telling you to visit the company website, mobile/text messaging ads, ten minutes of ads before the trailers even start at the movie theater, e-mails constantly arriving in your inbox from marketing lists you don’t remember signing up for, telemarketing and cold-calling to your home and office, advertisements and marketing ploys that are found just about everywhere we go. From the television in our living room to the stall in the public bathroom, from a drive down the interstate to a walk through the city’s streets, from your phone line at work to your personal cell number: nowhere is safe from ads. And while some ads are funny, interesting, and even compelling, consider the consumer’s viewpoint, you’ll agree that most are simply disruptive and unwanted. So what’s a marketer to do? How can you possibly avoid joining the endless parade of marketing and advertising disruptions in the quest to find your consumers? All you have to do is stop thinking like a marketer and start thinking like your consumer.

  UNDERSTANDING WHAT YOUR TRIBE REALLY WANTS

  With every Facebook message you send out, with every tweet you post, even with every e-mail or radio and television advertisement you write, ask yourself the following: Will the recipients of
this message truly find it of value, or will they find it annoying and disruptive? Would you want to receive this message as a consumer? If you respond that, yes, as a consumer this message is of value and you would indeed want to receive it, then it is one worth communicating to your customers and the world. On the other hand, if you cannot see any true value to the consumer or you believe the message will only be an annoyance, then it’s simply not worth sending. Why spend money, time, and effort only to contribute to mass advertising, marketing, and information noise that the consumer does not want or need in the first place? Sure, you might generate some Web traffic, phone calls, awareness, or even sales with any message, but you can run the risk of eroding your brand. Even if you generate sales from traditional, sales-heavy marketing messages and tactics, in the long run, the organizations that will win are the organizations that engage in positive, useful communications with their customers and prospects. Today, the most effective way to do so is to utilize the tools offered by social media.

  1. How long ago was the content posted? In order to use this edge, you’ll need to determine when your fans, friends and prospects are more likely to be logged on and using Facebook. Your customers are teenagers, for instance and you shouldn’t share content during afternoons when they’re at school. If you are targeting the nine-to-five office crowd, sharing content in the morning may be to your advantage, as many Facebook users in audience are likely to check their pages as they settle in at their desks. your customers are mostly teachers, you’ll want to share updates between 3 and 5 P.M., when they’re likely working but not in front of their classes. In general, however, more users are logged in on weekend days, and since fewer companies are working then, weekends are the best time to share content.

  2. Does this user interact with you often? If a user “liked” your page through a Facebook ad but never visited that page and didn’t have friends who interacted with your page, the user is much less likely to see any of your content updates. If the user visits your page from time to time, has liked the occasional post, or has even viewed photos from your company, your chances of showing up in his or her news feed increase dramatically. Keep this setup in mind, as this is why getting likes initially on your content is so very important—once you get someone engaged, a dialogue between you and the consumer or prospect is created, one that can be built upon and continued

  3. How interactive are the engagements with the post? This edge is the simplest and most worth focusing on. Facebook’s algorithm determines the level of interest or relevancy of an object based on the number of comments and likes it receives. The greater the response to the object, the more likely it is to show up in users’ News Feeds. Of course, this is a powerful content cyclical concept: if a piece of Facebook topic receives enough comments and likes, it will rise to the users’ News Feeds, where it will be more likely to generate an even greater number of responses. If, on the other hand, the content doesn’t quickly catch on, it won’t rise to the top of users’ news feeds and will remain virtually invisible. Have you ever heard of Edge Rank? If you haven’t, then you need to read closely.

  HOW TO MAKE EDGE RANK WORK FOR YOU

  Facebook’s News Feed algorithm is nothing short of revolutionary. Imagine if television commercials people didn’t want to watch disappeared or if direct mail that the first few recipients didn’t open stopped being sent out, never making it to your door. Consider how much you would pay to have e-mails people didn’t respond to positively remain out of your inbox. Facebook has effectively created a system that filters out all the junk the user couldn’t care less about or, worse yet, will respond to negatively. This situation forces companies, and individuals, to think incredibly carefully about the content they share— it’s a great thing for users and a powerful tool for marketers and advertisers who understand what their consumers want and don’t want. Let’s look at an example. Conglomerate A is a global sneaker brand that has spent millions of dollars in advertising to grow a Facebook fan base of one million fans. Your similar, though much smaller, organization has far fewer resources and currently has only 5,000 fans, half of whom happen to also be fans of Conglomerate A. Conglomerate A shares a traditional marketing message with its fans: “Check out our new running shoes on our website and buy them now!” Only a handful of people click the Like button or comment on the content. Since the company has failed to engage its audience, only a few hundred people will end up seeing the update, as it will not be moved up into users’ “Top News” feeds. Your company, however, shares a link to your website with the following update at the same time as Conglomerate A’s “Click ‘Like’ if you’re excited about the weekend! Anybody going running?” Here, you attempt to engage the user with a more personalized, friendly, and less demanding message. You are not just telling them to “go buy shoes.” Your update then generates comments and likes, enough to stay at the top of thousands of people’s News Feeds for a day. This placement, in turn, generates greater clicks and higher sales. More importantly, the comments left lead to a conversation that will aid your success in the next update you share. You’ve outdone Conglomerate A; while it was busy marketing, you were thinking like your consumers, engaging them, and building an invaluable audience.

  UNDERSTANDING WHAT YOUR TRIBE LOVES

  The important question is, what do your consumers truly want? Consider what they care about. What do they value? What content will get them to authentically click “like” and increase your visibility among users? Mind you can’t just keep sharing updates asking people to like the content, as that would quickly get as annoying and disruptive as many of the traditional marketing tactics you’ve grown to know and hate. For the answers, look to what you already know about, and if you don’t know something, ask! Consumers, for instance, say you have a male-focused customer base. You suspect these consumers are big sports fans, but you’re not sure what sports or teams they are most interested in. You could simply ask on Facebook, “What’s your favorite major sporting event of the year? Who did you root for this past season?” If your fans overwhelmingly say the Super Bowl and provide their favorite football teams, you’ll want to share content about the sport in the future, even if your product has nothing to do with football. If you were your consumer, what would make you click Like or leave a comment? An appetizing photo? A funny video? The fact that nobody knew about you? One thing users are sure not to respond to positively is a press release about your latest earnings statement, new hire, or new product. There may be an audience who cares enough about this information to warrant sharing it elsewhere, but that audience is not the group to target on Facebook. The Facebook audience doesn’t care. Facebook, Twitter, and all social networks are not broadcast media—I can’t stress this enough, engage, don’t broadcast!

  Action Items:

  1. Write down what your typical customer likes. Try to avoid writing things your customer likes about your company or products and instead focus on their interests. What sort of content would make you click the Like button if you saw it as consumer friendly? Write down 10 examples of such likeable content.

  2. Take messaging that your organization has used in written marketing materials in the past and rewrite it for the social Web, making the material more valuable or interesting to the audience. It should be short and sweet, and something you’d want to receive if you were the consumer, not something you have wanted to send as the marketer.

  3. Create a plan for how you might create valued content not just for social networks, but for all marketing and communications content. What would you change in your e-mail marketing, direct mail, Web content, and ad copy if you thought like your consumer instead of a marketer? Can you create better content in all of your communication?

  ENGAGING YOUR TRIBE

  So what does “being engaged” really mean? To be engaged means to be genuinely interested in what your customers have to say. You have to want, even crave, feedback of all kinds because you know it gives you important data to build a better organization
. Each individual at your company has to provide his or her full attention, mind, and energy with the customer or task at hand while maintaining the mission and core values of the organization. Anyone can send out an e-mail or a Facebook or Twitter message, but it takes commitment and focus to actually connect with people. You simply can’t “be engaged” on the social Web because it’s “the thing to do” now, or you read about it in a book, or you think it will lead to increased sales. You have to authentically believe that being active in growing your social network will lead to deeper, stronger relationships with your customers. You have to be interested in your consumers and prospects, and the creation of a solid bond with them must be your goal.