Sometimes your customers find you online by commenting on your blog or joining your Facebook fan page. But what if you’re getting started or you’re looking to find other places where your customers hang out? How do you go about finding your customers online?
Search for your product and company names
Using search (Google, Bing, Yahoo, Technorati, Twitter, etc.), look for mentions of your product and company names (hint: also look for your own name). If you use Google’s blog search, you can subscribe to the rss feed for the search results so you can keep up to date as to when you’re mentioned by others.
Check out Industry Publications & Associations
Just about every industry has at least one major publication or associations, which usually have a website. They may also have a social network, forum or community of some kind where you can connect and see what’s going on (remember to do a lot of listening).
Look for specific social networks & groups
Check out Facebook, LinedIn, Ning, etc. for groups that may be pertinent to your industry (remember you’re looking from your customer’s point of view). You can also use a tool like Knowem or FindaSocialNetwork.
Search for Questions to Help Answer
A great way to connect with potential customers and to offer them assistance in a time of need is to search for people who need help answering a question you can help with. LinkedIn’s Questions & Answers is a good place for this, as are Google blog searches, Blogger and WordPress searches, and more general searches. Of course, the trick is to figure out what your customers may be asking (maybe ask them?).
How do you find your customers online?
(photo by oddsock @ FlickrCC)
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Technorati tags: social media, public relations, brand, marketing, branding, social networking, business, reputation, customer service
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