From broad to specific. Public to personal. Over the past several years, marketing has transitioned from a discipline that broadcasted general messages to a wide audience in the hopes that something sticks, to one that zooms in on the individual.
Thanks in large part to social media, marketers are able to identify audience members and deliver highly targeted messages that resonate on an individual level. Here are five ways that marketers can use social media to personalize their marketing.
1. Use big data to learn about all aspects of your audience’s lives
What brands do your audience love? Where do they shop? What time do they check in to Twitter, and on what device? Are they more concerned about price or quality when they make a purchase? Your audience shares intimate details about their lives on social media, and big data has become the best way to tap into these social insights. The more data you have about your audience, the better targeted and personalized you can make your messages.
2. Identify key audience members
Some members of your audience are going to be VIPs – those who engage with your content most frequently, share it with their networks, and are loyal to your brand. Monitor who is most active across your social channels and amplify their activity. You can offer them rewards for sharing, or give them early access to your content. They will appreciate the attention, and you will reinforce their brand loyalty.
3. Develop cross-channel strategies
Social media can be used to personalize marketing on other channels as well. The insights you gather from social media can be used to create better ads, blog posts, events, partnerships and other activities.
4. Scale one-to-one efforts to your audience at large
Personalization doesn’t have to mean small-scale. Brands can use social networks like Twitter and Facebook in tandem with other cross-channel efforts like email marketing, to send personalized messages based on trigger points and group characteristics. In this way, brands can scale their personalization efforts to encompass their entire audience – without diluting their message.
5. Create buyer personas for better content and targeting
In order to scale personalization efforts, brands must create buyer personas that represent the exact center of their target audience. Social data about habits, behaviors and preferences can inform these personas, and they can then be used to create more compelling content and better distribution methods.
Consumers want ads, marketing messages and offers that are relevant to their lives. They want something just for them – marketing that speaks to their unique needs, desires and preferences. And by using social media, this is exactly what brands can now deliver.
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