3. Identify which social media platform to focus on
3. Identify which social media platform to focus on
1. Answer the customer's question of "What are you?" to identify your commercial category and build familiarity with your audience.
If it is immediately not evident to you, then think of a Google Search your potential customer would do to find your website. If you are just starting up, then treat this as a hypothesis you will validate and refine once you actually start selling.
2. Decide who your target customer segments are - such as SMB marketers, CFOs, or parents - and describe them with a cohort title, age range, gender, life stage, values, and other variables relevant to your category.
When defining customer segments, the best answers are data-driven. Base your customer segments on real people and businesses who have bought from you in the past.
3. Decide which geographic market you want to compete in.
If your service and products are easily scalable, this can also be defined with language. For example, you may want to target Japanese speakers.
4. Decide what kind of price positioning your brand will adopt against your competitors, such as mass, premium, or luxury.
There can be a lot that goes into pricing strategies, but the most common types are value-based (perceived value) and cost-based (all cost per unit + profit margin). There’s no need to go into too much detail, all you need is a simple idea of your price positioning to help you identify a social media platform.
5. Go to Local Insights on Datareportal.com, select the region or market most relevant to you, and research their social media platform usage.
For example, if you target the US, the US-specific report tells you there are 240M social media users, or 72% of the population, with a growth rate of 3% YoY. Looking deeper into the report, you would see that the most-used social media platforms are: YouTube (81.9%), Facebook (73.8%), Instagram (56.6%), Facebook Messenger (55.7%), Twitter (43.2%), Pinterest (35.4%), Snapchat (32.1%), Linkedin (28%), and TikTok (25.8%).
6. Decide which social media platforms to test for effectiveness with real marketing experiments based on your commercial category, price position, audience geography, and consumer behavior.
If you are a marketing team of 3, don’t set up more than 3-4 marketing channels in total. For example, a typical B2B marketing team would test a blog, newsletter, Twitter, and LinkedIn. Resist the temptation to be part of every platform. Remember, there is a LOT of audience overlap between social media platforms – most people who use TikTok also use YouTube. The quality and total reach of your marketing campaigns is far more important than the number of channels.
7. Start following thought leaders, actively participate in conversations, and learn the ins and outs of your chosen social media platform.
Keep in mind a conclusion can only be drawn if you measure the effort related to the social media platform paying off at least short-term. For example, website visitors or branded Google Searches increasing, indicating intent. The ultimate metrics to focus on are Profit per Channel and Customer Lifetime Value per Channel.