As a business, you’re always serving someone in some way. Regardless of what you do– if you’re a solar panel provider, a clothing boutique, a consultant, a clown-for-hire – you exist to fill a need or desire of some sort.
Think about it: If no one needs or wants what you’ve got to offer as a company, you won’t be around for too long. Your relevancy and longevity depends on someone else seeing value in what you do and it’s up to you to show them that value.
But conveying your worth isn’t as simple as showcasing your story and talking about why you’re so great. That’s certainly a part of it, but it’s not everything. Instead, the most successful businesses know to position themselves as mere supporters to the main characters in their story: the customers.
Look at it this way: You cater to your customers or clients by providing them with what they need in order to be successful and satisfied. If they achieve their goal, however great or small, then you’ll have achieved yours.
Accepting this as a truth and designing your marketing practices around this frame of mind will make it much easier to make the right decisions and help you reach your goals more organically.
Now that you know the importance of seeing your potential clients or customers as the hero of the story, here are some ways to communicate effectively using social media.
Identify Your Customers and Their Needs
This seems like a pretty basic step, but it’s also extremely crucial.
Sometimes identifying your client is easy, while in other instances it may be difficult to pin down exactly who you’re targeting. Whatever the case may be, putting in the work to clearly identify your customer is an important first step that can lay down the foundation for everything you do as a company.
Once you’ve done that, figure out what it is they need, how you can provide them with that item or service, and convey the message that you’ve got what they desire.
Talk to them, not at them
A relatively recent change in marketing practices encourages pulling in business through relationship building, creating a robust brand personality and sharing stories instead of bombarding people with ads and overly self-promotional content.
A great way to do that is to talk to your customers. On social media, ask questions, respond to comments and messages, and build your storytelling skills. In short, get a conversation going.
This helps engage your audience, catch their attention, and make you and your content more memorable than plain old ads that people tend to just scroll past.
Perfect Your Balancing Act
While giving your audience the kind of content they care about is important, you can’t just do away with promoting yourself altogether.
This is where the balancing act comes in. Talk about your products or services and explain why they’re great, but angle it in a way that shows your potential customers why those things are great specifically for them. Put the focus on their needs and wants. Position your offerings as the solution they’ve been seeking.
When you let them know you understand what they’re going through and show them how you can help them, you’ll be much more valuable than if you’re just tooting your own horn.
As a business, you put in a lot of hard work, time and commitment. But keep in mind the simple fact that you exist because of your clients, and you’ll be on the right track to making your company soar.
