Social Media Success: Are You Engaging Your Ideal Clients?

Following is the latest in a series of guest columns on achieving social media success.

You’ve likely heard social media described as a giant networking event. The problem is that not every person in attendance qualifies as your ideal client. Your job as a travel seller is to figure out how to find the right kind of prospects via social media.

Answering these four questions will help you figure out your social media game plan.

1. Where are your ideal clients hanging out?
Every network serves different groups in different ways and each one naturally attracts different types of people. Ask yourself who your ideal prospect is and start researching where they hang out most.

For instance, moms between the ages of 30 and 40 have a strong interest in Pinterest. They also congregate in Facebook groups and on family-related Facebook pages. So these are likely better places than LinkedIn or Twitter for engaging with this demographic.

2. What are your ideal clients talking about?
People use social media for three main purposes – education, information and entertainment. You’ll have much more social success if you find a way to join existing conversations. This builds trust, and trust promotes sales.

When you consider what to post or how to start a discussion, look at what your ideal clients are already discussing. Then, ask yourself how you can add to that conversation.

For example, if your ideal clients love to talk about food, consider sharing recipes and cooking tips from around the world. Or highlight some of your favorite culinary tours and the foods they offer.

3. How are your ideal clients consuming information?
Are your targets time-strapped and very visual? Do they prefer bite-sized tidbits of information? Or, maybe videos are more their style.

Once you know how your audience likes to consume information, you can deliver the topics they want in a format that appeals to them.

And the more you do that, the greater your connection power.

4. How are other businesses interacting with your ideal clients?
You’re not the first business to compete for consumer attention on social networks. If you’re smart, you’ll keep an eye on companies with similar target audiences to identify what’s working for them and what’s not working.

With this information in hand, you can build your own plan with ideas inspired from others’ proven ideas.

For guidance on how to find the answers to these questions about your ideal clients, check out my post: Mission Intelligence: What do your client really want on social media?

Sophie Bujold is a social media strategist and speaker. Sophie’s passion is helping travel professionals make sense of social media and learn how to use these technologies to achieve greater business success. For social media tips and content ideas, grab your copy of her Giant List of Post Ideas. (It’s free.)