T HE B U S I N E S S O F S OC IA L ME DIA
What Businesses Don't Know About Social Media Karen Albert
As a social media strategist, I teach a strategic approach to using social media. One of the most effective strategies is identifying your target market. While traditional marketing strategies say that knowing your target market helps to craft a more impactful marketing campaign and message, it also helps to know what other businesses are serving that target market. These other businesses that service your target market can then become collaborative partners and an extension of your sales force. In 2013 I worked with a real estate professional in Los Angeles. “Joe” was fairly new and was struggling with building his business. He knew he had to be on social media (as all real estate professionals do) but didn’t want to be just like all the others. As you can imagine, the Los Angeles real estate business is not an easy one to break into and even harder if you have little to no experience. What was Joe’s unique differentiator? What was Joe’s target market?
Social media is constantly changing, updating and developing. It continues to change how we receive information, and it’s revolutionizing the way we work. Abundant resources provide instructions and guidance on how to use social media, but what they tend to overlook is how businesses should be using social media to connect and collaborate with other businesses.
After spending time with Joe and looking at what made him unique, we uncovered the fact that Joe absolutely loved animals. He and his wife were loving pet owners. They spent their weekends at dog parks or hiking with their pets. They were vegan, had a recurring donation to SPCA, and were foster parents to two kittens. After realizing how much of an animal lover Joe was, we decided to make that his differentiator. We branded Joe as the “animal lover’s real estate professional.”
You may be wondering why we would want to Joe traded in his Jetta for a Toyota 4Runner and connect with other businesses on social media turned it into the perfect transportation vehicle for since most of the time our efforts are focused on pets. He had leashes, treats, collars, water dishes, connecting with a community of consumers.
25 ENTREPRENEUR PLATFORM MAGAZINEUMMER 2018
