Today, businesses that seek growth in their online presence need to give serious attention to social media marketing efforts, and invest considerable time, manpower, and other resources towards their campaigns on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Instagram, among other sites.
But the job of social media community managers should not stop at creating content for publishing. They should also be able to contribute to market research, by using the data culled from their accounts. They should help the marketing team understand the target market, to be able to provide relevant products and services. Here are some of the valuable information that can be gathered through social media:
The demographic profile of the target market. Social media is typically able to offer some information about the location, age, gender, and affiliations of internet users. These details are useful in that they should serve as cue for more marketing efforts to be spent on drawing particular segments of the population that are not being reached by the existing campaigns. It can also lead to rebranding, in the event of a discovery that the business is greatly popular among a market not previously explored.
The language of the target market. A crucial part of succeeding on social media is the use of language relatable to the followers. What types of posts do they tend to publish? What jokes appeal to them? How long does a post need to be for them to finish it? What words do they appear to use all the time? These should find their way to the next set of marketing materials. Do they like images or funny memes, or do they prefer links to articles? Are they into emojis?
The industry influencers. Businesses should look for two kinds of “influencers”: the experts in the field, or the people who possess solid professional knowledge and/or training about the industry, or the people who have proven themselves to be discerning consumers. If the product in question is a fashion collection, the first group would include editors of style magazines, while the second would be the celebrities who are deemed stylish by their followers. In some cases, an influencer is both (for example, Anna Wintour, for the clothing industry). When a business knows who their target consumers look up to, they will know what kinds of aspirational thoughts they have, and hopefull, the kind of products and services to offer.
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