Posts Tagged ‘target audience’

There is a new feature offered by Outlook and LinkedIn where, if you use Microsoft Outlook, you can now have more insight into the people with whom you email.  Basically, once you download the application, you will see a summary of the contact’s most recent LinkedIn activity, status updates, accepted connections and e-mails. You can sort these updates by news feed updates and RSS articles about this person; If you are not yet connected on LinkedIn, you can click “Add” to add them to your network.

This feature is a great way to keep closer tabs on your LinkedIn network, and is helpful in building your marketing lists, as well!

To learn more about this integration and to download the feature, click here.

As anyone who participates in social media knows, Twitter has a great capacity to educate and influence a large amount of people on a daily basis.  Businesses have definitely picked up on the effect Twitter can have on their bottom line, and, as an estate planning attorney, you should be tweeting regularly, reaching out to your target market.

There are some tools you can use to help maximize your Twitter use, and make sure you are following relevant people, and, more importantly, to make sure your tweets are reaching your relevant audience.  Below is a list of a few you might want to check out:

• http://www.twellow.com – Industry/keyword search directory
• http://wefollow.com/ – Find new followers based on your inputted keyword
• http://justtweetit.com/ – Find other “Tweeters” with similar interests
• http://mrtweet.com/ – Get relevant followers by recommending them and discover people relevant to your current needs
• http://www.socialwhois.com/ – helps you decide whether to follow someone or not
• http://whoshouldifollow.com/ – suggests people who are similar to those you already follow

The Facebook ‘Info’ tab is an often overlooked and underused section of your Facebook page.  But people really do click on that tab to learn more about you!   The info tab is the perfect spot to place geographical information about you and your practice, so anyone visiting your page will instantly know if they are a good candidate for your practice.

Plus, Facebook pages are SUPER searchable. Google loves them!  So be sure to put your city and state on your Facebook profile and fan page so you have a better chance of being found when people are searching for you.

Through my experience in working with estate planning lawyers, I have found that before launching a social media strategy, it is critical to identify a very specific target market.  Do you plan to reach out to mothers of young children? How about couples in their 50’s or 60’s nearing retirement?  Maybe you would like to focus on senior citizens?  This is something you should decide prior to launching your social networking campaign, because your audience dictates your entire social media marketing strategy. You need to be where they are.

But what about passion?

Another critical component in choosing the audience is to identify your passion. You are an estate planning attorney, so I know you are passionate about making sure families take care of their loved ones by having a good solid plan in place.  You need to also think about where your passion lies when choosing your target market.  Are you passionate about ensuring parents get to make the ultimate decisions regarding their young children?  Are you passionate about making sure people near retirement age protect what they’ve worked to build up their whole lives?

Maybe your passions run the gamut from young families to senior citizens; if so, you need to think hard about where you would like to focus your practice, taking into account other factors, such as your geographic demographic (median income levels, age of the community, etc.). If you’re having trouble choosing a specific target market, here’s a helpful article on the subject: http://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/article-29950.html

Once you have zeroed in on a market, you need to do a little research to find out where they spend their time online.  Specific Facebook groups are a good place to start, but there are literally thousands of other places to reach your audience online!  Niche social media networks – sites where people with common interests congregate online to share ideas and views – abound on the web; here’s just small sample of what’s out there: http://traffikd.com/social-media-websites/.    This is where the importance of narrowing your target audience really comes into play; the more specific you can be with your target, the better chance you have of reaching them online.  And what better venue than a site where all of the users are potential clients for you?

After you’ve identified your target audience and done some initial research on where to find them, you’re ready to identify and establish your social media objectives, which I’ll address next time.