Knowing your target audience is vital to any social media strategy, which requires identifying your ideal customer in very specific terms.  Many businesses try to target anyone who they think may be even remotely interested in their product.  This can lead to social media presence that is spread way too thin for the company resources (this isn’t a good branding or product strategy either).  It’s best to concentrate on the ideal customer and find the most appropriate 1-3 places online to connect.

To identify the ideal customer, think of job titles or occupations they may have.  Try describing an individual that would purchase your products.  What do they like to do?  What interests them? Why would buying your product solve a problem or provide a benefit?

Once you have your ideal customer in mind, it will be much easier to investigate places they may already be online.  Look for discussion groups, industry associations and publications that may interest your audience.  We’ll discuss finding your audience in more depth in a future post.

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