Part 2- Finding the One : Your Target Audience Online
In the previous article we looked at the number of Malawian users on social media and the possible reasons why some Malawian brands do not attend to them. In this article, Part 2, we will delve into how you can identify your ideal audience as an entrepreneur focusing on the Malawi market and which social media platforms are best suited for reaching your audience.
Just because a popular network exists, it does not mean you must spend your marketing and advertising efforts there. Why is that? As long as there is humanity, new social networks, and their relevance will continue to mushroom. Therefore, as an entrepreneur, you need to focus your resources on where you can make the most impact for your business. Therefore, it’s business social media presence will vary. You may know of a handful of social networks but there are many more, some specialized for a particular type of users e.g. women in tech, start-up founders, farmers and much more.
Therefore, before you jump into creating that Facebook page for your business or starting a Youtube Channel etc, there are a few things you need to do. The most important thing you can do is identify your ideal customer.
Identifying Your Ideal Customer
If you have watched Criminal Minds, CSI or any television show that’s about catching dangerous criminals, you have most likely heard of the concept of “profiling”. In fact, profiling is an element of what Cambridge Analytics utilized to help Trump win the election ( profiling and big data). Essentially, the premise is you determine (quite specifically) who is most likely suited for your products or customers. Many entrepreneurs think that means anyone with money but that is not necessarily the case.
The truth is you would happily take anyone’s money. Yet the reality is that there is a specific type of individual that identifies with your offering and your brand most of all. Your job is to discover who that is and monetize from this understanding. This is a crucial step for entrepreneurs because we sometimes spend energy and time dealing with people that just will not buy our products because (unknowing to us), they do not fit our ideal customer profile. Customer profiling requires that you determine things like the age range of your customer, gender, education level, socio-economic background, interests, social activities, income level and much more. Some helpful articles on how to actually do that can be found here, here and here.
Profiling allows you to be very targeted about spending your marketing and advertisement kwachas. The fallacy is that this is very complicated and very expensive. It does not have to be. Personally, psychoanalysis is a huge interest of mine, especially when it connects with big data, commerce or politics. From a practical point of view, 11 years of doing business have allowed me to accurately profile my ideal customer: I know the kind of jobs they work, the kind of car they are likely to drive (if they drive at all), part of the city they live in, age range and even income bracket. Sounds a bit creepy but it is incredibly helpful to know for both of Afrineur and Shekinah Invest (my businesses).
So, assuming you know who your ideal customers are, you need to consider your goals for your online marketing and advertising efforts. Thereafter, you need to look at which social media platforms you should be on.
Identify Your Goals
As in anything, it helps to be clear why you are reaching out to these potential buyers. Making sales seems like the ultimate end game but there are many other reasons worth reaching these people for. If you would like to build a customer base, create brand awareness for an existing or new product/ service, find business partners and tap into new markets, these are possible goals you can have alongside your need for additional sales.
Now you may be wondering:
Does Your business have to be on *every* social media platform?
The straightforward answer is N.O. No, your business does not have to have a social media presence on every social media platform. The main reason it does not have to is simply that your customer is probably not everywhere. Additionally, it is simply impossible to be on every social media platform unless you are a large company. There are so many social media platforms out there (some well known; others, obscure).
I will add something that many may debate me on: you also do not have to have an “active” social media presence on some of the well-known platforms. What do I mean by this? Well, no one likes to stumble across a business page on social media that they think offers what they need, only to find that that page was last updated 4 years ago. It looks like a graveyard of lost dreams.
So my advise to MSMEs would be:
- Decide on 2 or 3 platforms you can actively maintain
- Reserve the handles (account names) on the platforms you deliberately chose to remain inactive on. For example; you could choose to have an active Facebook page and an active Instagram account. You could then choose to have an intentionally inactive presence on Twitter. You would accomplish this by creating your Twitter account with your business’ name’s handle (username/account name). Then branding your page using your company logos, banners, and colours. Lastly, create a pinned Tweet that says something along the lines of “We are currently not active here but we have a vibrant presence on Facebook (@username) and Instagram (@Username), follow us there.
If you know that you currently do not have the manpower to maintain several accounts, do not kill yourself trying. Put it in your plan to increase your active presence over time but secure your username. There’s nothing more annoying than stumbling on some random business having the username you would have wanted.
We are certainly not done here. I feel it’s important to look further at this issue, especially in terms of which platforms or ideal for what type of business. If there is enough interest on that, we will probably explore it further. What are your thoughts on the matter? There’s so much room to learn. Please leave a comment.
Want to discover more about Maclean Mbepula? Find her on Linkedin or here on Medium. She’s written 3 books (one in entrepreneurship from a grassroots perspective (“Challenge Accepted) and 2 poetry books which are available for purchase on Amazon or you can sign up and get the kindle versions 100% FREE.
Originally published at https://www.linkedin.com.
