Who To Think About When You Post On Social Media
Using our social media platforms for our travel business looks a lot different than using our platforms for just ourselves. No longer is Facebook just about sharing silly cat memes. While I do believe it’s important to incorporate who we are and show up authentically as ourselves in our business accounts, we must remember this one crucial point…
Your social media account is about them, not you.
And if it truly is about them, then the thing we must be really clear about is who they are. Once we know who they are, it will be easier to understand what it is they want from us, and we can think about what we are posting from their point of view.
It’s easy to think our work is over once we have decided on a niche. Say you are a romance specialist and decide that your target market is brides looking to go on tropical honeymoons. If that is where you stop, the type of content you put out on social media and how you share information still might fall a bit flat.
I’m going to suggest you to take it a step further — actually I’m going to ask that you get extreme with it.
Tell me the one person you are posting for. Tell me who your ideal client is.
People often balk at this idea for many reasons. For starters, it seems difficult. How are you supposed to know all this information about a made up person?
And then we think to ourselves that we have the ability to serve a larger audience than just this one type of person. There are more people we are overlooking if we just focus on the one.
But I believe the opposite is true.
Your message becomes so much stronger and your social media efforts are far more effective when you do this. People will begin to really connect with your message because it seems like you are speaking directly to them.
I’ve included a detailed list of questions you need to answer about your ideal client in my Social Media Plan, because I truly believe it is a crucial first step to strategically understanding what you are going to post and why you are going to post it.
Once you have outlined who this person is, I want to give you 3 ways to uncover important information relating to your ideal client that is going to help you better understand who they are and how you can best connect with them on social media.
Some might call this stalking… but I prefer to label it research.
3 ways to uncover information relating to your ideal client
1. Follow your ideal client: You need to find them online and follow them: See what they are posting about, keep up with who they engage with, know what other types of pages and accounts they follow, and begin to understand what things matter to them. If your ideal client does Whole 30, you’ll certainly know about it. If they go crazy over the newest jogging stroller, you’re aware. This is your best information source.
2. Follow people in your industry you look up to that serve your ideal client: This is the best way to get inspired ideas for content, in my opinion. Start to take notice of the posts that get the most engagement. See what kinds of images they share that work. Notice what they do well, and then take inspired action. We don’t need to invent the wheel each and every post.
3. Follow other brands and people unrelated to travel that your ideal client follows: There are many brands out there that serve our people. And they do it well. Understanding who you’re ideal ideal client is and what they relate to, what motivates them, what matters to them, etc. is far deeper than where they want to go on vacation next, or what their favorite hotel chain is. Why are they a fan of Toms shoes? How come they are such a die hard Stephen Curry fan? There is a goldmine of information here.
The point is to understand this ideal client, and then begin to post things on social media so that they find you, are attracted to what you are sharing, and begin following you. But before that happens, you go out and find them.
If you are ready to begin implementing an effective social media strategy that gives you a step-by-step plan to getting more engagement on social media, check this Social Media Plan out. I believe you will find it extremely helpful.