This article is part of our Know Your Customer Series. Use the links below to read all issues.
Issue 1: Learning about Your Customers’ Purchasing Behavior
Issue 2: Why You Should Segment Your Market
Issue 3: 7 Ways to use Social Media
Issue 4: Who Do Your Followers Follow
Issue 5: Essential Tools to Help You Learn About Your Audience
There are many places online where you can gain valuable insights about your customers. One of the best is social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
Here are 7 ways to use these platforms to learn more about your audience.
Customer Profiles
Look at your customers’ social media profiles. You can find a great deal of demographic information such as age and location. You can also get insights about what they like or don’t like and their core values.
Look at Content
See what content your audience posts and shares. They’ll often start discussions or ask questions that can give you a great deal of information about their interests and concerns. Read all the comments other than just the original post to see what others are saying as well.
See Who They Follow
Look at which other businesses and content creators your customers follow. This serves two purposes: you can see what other companies they buy from and what they like, and you can get an idea of how to set yourself apart. You can see who your direct competitors are and make your offerings unique. If you’re lucky, you can find a gap in the market that you can fill.
Create Opportunities to Engage
Create opportunities for your audience to engage with you. Post opinions, tips, and questions, and encourage your customers to reply. Create social media groups and encourage your audience to discuss there. Look for features on each platform such as surveys or contests where you can get people involved. Give them challenges such as taking a picture with a certain theme. Whenever you have a point of contact with your customers, you can use this to learn more about them.
Promote Other Content
Whenever you publish a blog post or YouTube video, tell people about it on social media. Experiment with a mix of topics and see which your audience goes for. Your analytics will tell you which pieces of content are getting the most interest. Look for engagement as well, such as likes and shares, to see what people enjoy.
Make Yourself Available
Make sure your customers know they can contact you on social media and you’ll reply to them quickly. They’ll private message you with questions or concerns that you can then address. Social media offers another way to be in contact and offer two-way communication.
Use Social Media Tools for Insights
There are social media tools available that can give you insights into your followers. Tools like Buffer, Hootsuite, and Meet Edgar offer a wide range of analytics. They can get the above data for you and analyze it, and can also reveal insights you can’t find on your own.
You can never know too much about your customers since they are the foundation of everything your business does. It is no exaggeration to say that knowing your customers is the key to your business’s success.
Do you want more strategies for learning about your customers? Check out my workshop Know Your Customer Workshop, which teaches you the A to Z of creating an effective customer profile and helps you achieve your business goals. KnowYourCustomerWorkshop.com