Page 148 - Social Media Marketing for Dummies

You can also use it as a research tool. For example, if you sell wedding invitations,
you can use Instagram’s search capability to find wedding photos that may
include invitations. The idea is to use it as your doorway into customer’s lives.
Before the Internet, friends and neighbors would regale each other with stories,
using slide carousels in their living rooms. Think of Instagram as a grand view
into everyone’s living room. If you want to see what kind of shoes people are
wearing when they travel or millions of other things, you’ll find that here. If you
think creatively, you can get an enormous amount of information on Instagram.

Getting niche-savvy

In addition to picking the right major social networking platforms for your
business, you should investigate niche platforms your customers may frequent.
Convert with Content has a useful listing of niche social networking sites that can
be found at https://convertwithcontent.com/60-niche-social-networks-
marketers/. For more information on niche platforms, see Chapter 16.

See if you can find something directly related to your audience. The sites cover the
following subjects:

» Books
» Business Networking Professionals
» Family

» Friends
» Hobbies and Interests
» Media
» Music

» Mobile
» Shopping
» Students
» Travel and Locals

For example, if you sell eco-friendly baby toys, you may want to check out
CafeMom, shown in Figure 7-6. It’s listed in the Family category and can be found
at www.cafemom.com/. Here, you can read about what types of toys moms are
looking for and what they’re currently buying. If you engage in a low-key, respect-
ful way, you learn a lot without offending anyone. Any kind of “hype-y” sales
pitch would not be appropriate here.

132 PART 3 Reaching Your Audience via Mainstream Social Platforms