Market Reach And Engage With Your Niche On Multichannel Social Media

Every business understands the concept of ‘niche’ and providing products and services to satisfy the needs of the individual customer. Customised and bespoke are often the proud boasts of eCommerce. Similarly, ‘one size doesn’t fit all’ applies to the teeming search and social web where messages offered to the multichannel need to find the right ear in the right place at the right time!

All very obvious and straight forward yet it does often seem that many a social media effort is conducted in the brave hope that someone, somewhere is listening and interested enough to respond. So in a way, not very different from traditional ‘push’ marketing strategies and the scattergun approach.

One of the challenges facing businesses trying to establish a credible presence in the social networking spaces is working out how to integrate social engagement with everyday online marketing without it just appearing to be little more than self advertising in the place of the usual brand promotion routines.

Often the temptation to simply sell, albeit in a lowered voice, no matter what channel is being used may be the result of the increasing focus on closing up the gap between all channels. A typical example is the way email marketing has been adapted to link with and be part of social content sharing.

It’s easy to see how confusion can arise when businesses are being told to stop overtly selling on the social channels while at the same time their traditional marketing online must now rely more on social content and less on straightforward optimisation.

Essentially, site owners feel they are being confronted with changes on the web they struggle to understand in traditional marketing terms and processes. In reality, the social revolution online has simply been a way to bring the principle tenets of the internet back to their original intentions. That is, to offer a rich, relevant and valuable experience to individual search.

Social reinforces the customer-centric web where no matter how much data and content is online, it can be searched for and found by the individual user.

Identifying the right channels to seek out and interact with a desired audience is becoming more complex simply because they are more closely linked. A policy of engagement on one channel may not be suitable for another. Facebook is used primarily for social exchange among family and friends, not for product search. Businesses trying to be social on Facebook may achieve better results by simply offering their followers exclusive offers.

Social is as niche on Twitter and LinkedIn too. Messages and content need to be adapted by understanding why a channel is being used and what users expect to gain from the experience.