Few small businesses offer products or services that carry a widespread, universal appeal. Instead, they tailor their marketing and advertising efforts toward specific niches and customer profiles. Though many entrepreneurs view social-media marketing as an opportunity to rapidly expand their consumer base, it’s often a better idea for businesses to focus on finding lucrative niches. Indeed, the key to success with digital marketing lies in finding, engaging, and converting digital leads into sales. To that end, today we’ll focus on the first aspect of this three-pronged approach and discuss how businesses can locate profitable opportunities on social media.
Let Consumers Find You
One of the best ways to create an online marketing strategy –– particularly with an emphasis on social media –– is to create a content network. Traditionally, marketers have viewed social media as an initial “touchpoint” between businesses and consumers. And while that can certainly be the case, professionals can also direct leads to their social-media profiles from their own web pages. By creating a diverse, rich, and compelling array of content and posting pieces to social-media outlets like LinkedIn, for instance, companies can create their own “niches” and attract interested leads from a variety of sources.
Conduct Competitor Analyses
New business owners may be reticent to admit it, but their competitors can make sound marketing decisions. In fact, you can almost guarantee that your most successful rivals already execute dynamic social-media tactics and understand how and where they should engage with consumers. Fortunately, there’s nothing stopping you from analyzing how your competitors approach social media. By examining their rivals’ efforts, business owners can determine which niches are the most saturated and which are largely ignored. From there, a company can decide to attempt to outshine their competition or explore untapped opportunities — either of which could lead to the discovery of a new niche platform or demographic.
Explore the Web
No single social-media platform enjoys a monopoly. Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, Pinterest, Reddit, (etc.) all offer users different experiences, and, as such, attract different kinds of users. Businesses that want to carve out their own niche need to be willing to explore the far reaches of the internet to uncover social-media sites that cater to their target demographic, field, or industry.
The Bottom Line
Regardless of whether you’re trying to promote an RMS POS system or a new line of microwave ovens, there are ways to ensure qualified leads find your business online. At the end of the day, it’s more beneficial for marketers to prioritize generating sales than garnering followers. Gaining popularity on social media isn’t a bad thing, of course, but tangible sales matter more than likes, shares, or follows. Keep that in mind at all times, and you’ll be sure to form a social-media plan that works for your company!
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