Marketing Isn’t Natural, But It Doesn’t Have To Be Difficult!

Contributions from:
ARchie the Bot, WE Researcher,
Mitch Rezman, SEO Content Creator,
Michael Roach,  Marketing Strategist and Speaker,
Christopher S. Penn, Cofounder, BrainTrust Insights.

I will bet that you’ve heard incredible success stories around using social media to market content, be it:

• blogs,
• podcasts,
• events
• and everything you can imagine.

I also bet if you are being totally honest with yourself, you are reading this article because despite your savviest words and conversation-worthy visuals your efforts just have not hit the expected mark.

In fact, according to a study by Rival IQ, the engagement rates on the three majors in social media (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter) are less than 2% of total followers. But although this number seems low, ROI success is still achievable when you switch your mindset to delivering the RIGHT message to the RIGHT group.

Rival IQ’s Survey to 1,800 of the most engaging brands and companies:

Graphs via rivaliq.com 2019 social media benchmark report – Tweet this

Most successful campaigns started with an idea, add in a bit of strategic guessing and a pinch of experimentation based on educated guesses. If they could do it, so can you. Landing your great content is a result of great audience targeting!

Like it or not, content marketing has always been a matchmaking game! Even though ‘Content is King’ it’s the ‘Relationship Queen’ that runs the castle. – Tweet This

How do you move from a great guess to an educated one?

• Design content to answer the questions your people are asking, today.
• Use technology to find relevant groups where your people chat.

Begin by answering these 3 questions:

• How well do I know what my audience needs?
• Is my content written to feel inclusive?
• How do I know I’ve found the right groups to promote my content?

1) How well do you know what your audience’s needs?

Consider this. Those that are in your current social network are likely familiar with your work and topics around your work. Because these people already know you. The ones you really want to get in front of are likely online right NOW, asking questions and searching for answers. These are answers you could provide.

I like people.

I feel comfortable asking my social media followers questions. I can use polls, surveys, contests, games and more questions to learn from them. I start with the followers that engage with me the most.

I then ask Google to search for these ‘questions’. I often find new people, asking the same questions. I follow them to their groups and introduce myself. I get CURIOUS again.”

– ARchie, the Wildfire Effect Robot Researcher ( hint he manages my @WildfireEffect Twitter)

So how does this work for audience profiling? Search engines are designed to match questions with answers, ‘frequently searched phrases’, (the same phrases that auto-populate is the search bar) help you design content your desired audience will value. Use the search engines data to design lead generator campaigns, search for blogger/influencers, connect with video channel admins, Find niche social media groups OR just design content that bring your people to you.

“Start with Facebook groups, subReddits and Pinterest – all have defined ‘communities'”

-Mitch Rezman, SEO Content Creator Web Developer eComm,  superezsystems.com

• Soovle will make it easy to sort ‘frequently searched phrases’
• Competitor Ads become very valuable when you assume they have already done the targeting and Headline work. “copy that”
• Quora is a site designed for people to ask questions.
• Trends.google.com will compare keywords phrases,
• Keywords Everywhere (for Chrome), helps you see HOW OFTEN a question is asked

2) Are you writing content in a way that is inclusive?

If you have read any of my Story Marketing posts then you will be familiar with how I value the importance of making your audience the hero of the story.  This is because whenever we read content on the web we do so by painting our own needs and interests into the story.

It’s just human nature.

If content feels like something we value and if it’s phrased with the language we use often among our peers, we trust it. When we trust, we read further, we share. If sharing is part of a campaign plan than your content needs to be relatable.

A carefully crafted headline can keep you focused on your audience’s interests. Try rewriting your content using these conversational starters to empathize and direct the tone to the needs of your people.

• Don’t you hate it when___?
• What kind of ___ are you?
• How to _____
• Does our _____ story remind you of _____?
• Join us as we uncover ____
• _____ never happens to us.

3) Are you promoting content to the right groups?

Imagine this scenario:

You have managed to get a world class photographer for your photoshoot. The kind that has photographed, Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie and Kevin Costner. You have set up the publicity shoot at the location of the iconic fountain from the Friends sitcom. Your content is going to be magazine-worthy! YOU are excited.

But your content is supposed to reach today’s teens. They dream of Noah Centineo and Lana Condor sightings and will never be impressed by stars of the 1990s. That is unless you can also get the photographer to include Selena Gomez or a Kardashian.

In this scenario, it’s not that your content isn’t amazing, I’m sure it is. This is a case of great content being placed in front of a group that will never appreciate it. Content to audience matching is your most powerful asset. Try these techniques to uncover the right groups.

• Scan popular eZines your audience is likely to read. ( when in doubt, ask for an Advertising demographics sheet. The eZine knows). Now use their headlines to discover valuable topics and interest groups.
• Did you know Facebook Search is smart? Try” Pages liked by people who like my Page” and see what comes up.
• Find a Subreddits along your content themes, now see what this community has upvoted. It’s a clue.
• Keep track of your fans, profile 50 looking at the last 5 posts they shared, do any themes emerge?
• I use Google to find “Fan profiling 2019 ‘ YOUR TOPIC'” and see if a trend study comes up. I find trend studies are a good way to anchor expectations and narrow fan profiling searches
• Next to directly asking fan groups. There is really no better approach then filtering social media conversations based on keywords and analyzing the results. #tags are great but not the only way.

“One technique I use for learning what audiences on social are checking out (beyond hashtag searches), are advanced search operators on Twitter. There are a few that are particularly useful when finding groups around topical areas/themes:

…filter, min_faves, min_retweets…

Use these with hashtag and keyword combinations and they produce interesting results.
Example Twitter search queries:

filter: verified min_faves:25 CRM
filter: verified min_faves:25 “customer experience”
filter: images min_retweets:75 Starbucks coffee

When you get results, find a tweet of interest and see who’s engaging with the tweet.”

Michael Roach,  Marketing Strategist and Speaker  michaelroachcreative.com

Then, there are always digital ads: Sometimes you do not need to build a relationship with your audience. Sometimes technology does the profiling. Your website or conversion metrics (like downloads, shopping carts or event sign-ups) will indicate if you are on track on not. In fact, when you are marketing at scale, technology is the only way to do it. It’s not for everyone, but if it is for you there are digital marketing specialists out there that can help ensure the technology is set up correctly.

• Social Ads by interest/ look-a-like targeting
• Retargeting Ads

One of my favourite techniques is link retargeting. Every link I share on social is tracked; when you click on it – REGARDLESS of where the link goes – it enrolls you in an audience I can then show ads to. I track my links by broad categories – B2B, B2C, etc. – so that when I need to run focused ads later, I can.

Christopher S. Penn, Cofounder, BrainTrust Insights

So in conclusion, modern social media and search tools have made it easy to learn a great deal of information about your audience groups. Before you jump down this ever-expanding rabbit hole. Think of what you want to know, and play a game with yourself to get to the answer in the fewest searches.

You will be surprised by what insight you can pick up.