6 Elements of Your Social Media Strategy: #1 – Who is Your Customer?

By Maria Peagler

Nov 08

Get Informed

To be successful in business, you need to be crystal clear about who your customer is.

Let's go even further: every decision you make hinges on knowing & understanding what ONLY YOU can do for your customer.

That requires you understanding exactly who they are.

Download this Social Media Strategy Template spreadsheet you'll use to build your unique strategy throughout these lessons:

social media strategy template spreadsheet

Download this spreadsheet to build your social media strategy

If you haven't already downloaded the companion social media strategy chart, you can do that here.

Get Trained

I'm continually surprised at entrepreneurs don't know the answer to this question. Or, if they do, they are often too vague.

Be obsessively specific when identifying your customer.

While we all would love to think everyone will want our products/services, it just isn't so. Identify your potential buyers down to their:

  • age
  • sex
  • education level
  • income level
  • what publications they read
  • what websites they visit
  • what their budget is
  • are they local or nationwide

Here you can see the answers to "Who is Your Customer?" for Socialmediaonlineclasses.com:

Who is Your Customer?

My Answers

What is their age?

Over 40

What is their gender?

Mostly women

What is their education level?

Bachelor's degree

What publications do they read?

New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal

What websites do they visit?

Small Business Administration, Social Media Examiner, Lynda.com, Udemy.com, YouTube

What is their budget?

Moderate: they are careful with their spending

Are they local, regional, national, or global?

Global

Even when you think you've identified buyers as much as possible, go further.

Traditional demographics often no longer apply in today's diverse cultures:

A 40-year-old woman may have:

  • a toddler at home​
  • no children at home​
  • be caring for teens and aging parents​
  • have children in college


Those life stages are quite different, and so will be her interests and purchasing decisions.

So while age and sex are a start, go further and identify the life phase your target audience is in. What defines them?

Here are three different Socialmediaonlineclasses.com members, along with their job titles. It helps if you can visualize your clients: these are real people who rely on me for their training. Can you do the same? Collect photos of your clients (or potential clients) and make them visible to you while you're going through this class:

Go Do It

To identify your customer, do this:

  1. Download the Social Media Strategy Template if you haven't already. You'll use it to record your findings from this lesson.
  2. Answer the questions for "Who is Your Audience?" in the spreadsheet.
  3. Further define your customers by identifying their life stage when they need your product.
  4. Find data on buyers in your unique industry by doing a Google search of your field with keywords like "average spend", "customer survey", etc. For example, by doing a Google search of "quilters average spend", the first result is a comprehensive survey done in 2010 of the size of the market, market niches that spend the most, and where they buy.

Congratulations! You've identified your customer, which will be crucial in targeting your social media and online marketing efforts. Everything you'll be doing will go back to this question, "Who is your customer?"

Recommended Resources

 

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About the Author

Founder of Socialmediaonlineclasses.com, Benjamin Franklin award-winner for independent publishing, award winning author of eight books, wife, mom, quilter and watercolor artist.

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(19) comments

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Andrew Grigoleit January 22, 2016

Good spreadsheet, real detailed as far as finding out the customer(s) and who your’s is. I liked it.

Reply
    Maria Peagler January 25, 2016

    Great to have you back Andrew! The spreadsheet really gives you clarity on your audience. 🙂

    Reply
Kevn Kumbalek April 9, 2016

Spread sheet was good…helpful. I had to look up what a social network was. Arrrrrr! Well now I know haha

Reply
Iv-Lee Kane September 6, 2016

Thanks Maria. That was excellent. Can’t wait to finish up lesson work and move on to lesson two.

Reply
    Maria Peagler September 6, 2016

    Fantastic Iv-Lee! This step is a crucial one for getting results on social. Bravo! 🙂

    Reply
Allan Dean Cox September 21, 2016

Just downloaded “The Social Media Strategy” . INVALUABLE.
After answering the questions got me looking at my business in so many ways from approaching customers and business owners to involving them when creating the products on a social level too, making them feel its there creation. Thank You :-). Allan

Reply
    Maria Peagler October 11, 2016

    Thanks Allan. It’s a great tool to guide you through your strategy session.

    Reply
cathymombo November 19, 2016

Hi Maria;
I clicked on ‘download the copy and paste templates” and paid for them, but not sure how I access them?

Reply
    Maria Peagler November 21, 2016

    Hi Cathy – I think you’re referring to the Perfect Social Media Post templates. You can access them in your Bonus Webinar Vault and download the templates from there. Best, Maria

    Reply
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