As we discussed in our last Social Media blog, if you hope to be successful in business these days, you must learn to use social media effectively. In order to do that, you have to know where your customers are.

One problem with attempting to successfully market on social media platforms is the proliferation of popular sites. Just when you think you’ve finally figured out what to do and where to do it, the scene shifts, and you’re left spending time and money on the “wrong” site.

For example, a recent report found that 25 percent of Americans have deleted Facebook. Does that mean you should abandon that once-popular platform? Not necessarily, because research shows that Facebook, with well over a billion users, is still far and away the most popular social media site in the U.S. So, even though a quarter of former users appear to be abandoning it, that still leaves 75 percent of Americans who are frequent users. But are they users that will most benefit your business? Let’s face it, there are only 24 hours in a day. You can’t spend all of your time on social media and still have a life—or even a business.

This is where the social media management experts at 101 Management can help. We stay on top of such developments and can help you find the best places to target your time and advertising. Meanwhile, here’s a look at how to find your customers and make the best use of your time on social media.

Check the data

One weird trick—ask!

Before you can connect with your customers, you have to know which social media platforms they’re on. One good way to do that is to ask. You can create a two- or three-question survey to post on your website, or include it in your email newsletter, asking which platforms your visitors prefer, including where they are most likely to share content.

Alternatively, you can interview several of your most important clients, either by phone or email. If you create a brief list of questions and ask if they’d be willing to help you out, you’ll find they’ll be flattered by your interest. And if you reach out to them personally, you may also uncover a wealth of information and ideas that can be useful in several areas of your business.

 

Target your platforms

If you’ve received useful feedback from your customers, you know which platforms will yield the most results for your investment of time and money. If they were all over the social media map and you can’t graph a solution that narrows it down to just a couple platforms, you’ll have to use other criteria to decide where to focus your energy.

There are two ways to do this: Pick your favorites and/or those you feel most comfortable with and concentrate on those, or use the analytics provided by the major platforms: Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat, LinkedIn, and Pinterest. These important and informative marketing tools allow you to learn volumes about your customers, including age, sex, location, preferences, and buying history, along with other valuable information that can help you target your ads more precisely.

 

Check out your rivals

If you’re still not sure of where to post, another possibility is to investigate the more successful competition in your niche. To do that, seek out influencers—that is, popular experts in your field—who are on the various platforms and see how many followers they have on each of those platforms. If the majority of their followers are on Instagram, for instance, that may be a good indication that you should focus your most of your energy there.

 

Be flexible

Finally, don’t be afraid to switch platforms if you find a certain one isn’t producing the results you’re after, either in terms of followers, customer engagement, or conversion rates, assuming those are your goals. But give it at least five to six months, though—effective social media marketing is not an overnight process.

 

These days, you cannot afford to ignore social media, but you shouldn’t be either intimidated by it or consumed by it. The social media marketing experts at 101 Management, Inc., can help you craft and implement a social media marketing strategy that will increase your engagement rates to help maximize profits for your business.