In order to connect to your customers in a more personal level, it is crucial to reach the right customers, at the right time, and with the right manpower.

In their social media marketing strategies, many companies are taking customer-focused messages and tailor them into content for every channel. This approach can be effective, but it underscores content and channel first with the assumption that the needs of the target audience don’t vary.

But in reality, your audience has varied communication needs based on their position in the buying cycle. In a customer-centric approach, it reverses the creation of content to prioritize customers. Begin with the need of the customers and then develop the social media strategy, message, and resources around the customer. Personalizing content according to the changing needs of your audience can enhance engagement.

Understand Buying Cycle Stages

The journey of the buyer starts before buyers consider themselves as buyers and even extends even after the purchase. The goals and behaviors of the buyers change throughout the buying cycle, even among the same target customers. The behaviors and needs of consumers may vary if they are not in the market to buy, once they become engaged in purchasing, and once they become actual paying customers. Hence, it is ideal to make sure your pre-buying, buying, and post-buying messages with the customers are customized.

Connect the Right People to the Right Customers

Next, you need to involve the right people in the social media marketing campaign. Different employees are best suited for interacting with buyers in various stages of the purchasing cycle. These people may come from different departments of your business.

Once you involve employees outside the marketing department, personalized interaction with your audience can become more scalable. It is now easier to delegate social media tasks across different departments to the most suitable person.

Customize Your Social Media Content to Buyer Personas

You can tailor fit your social media content and divide the social responses according to three customer personas: pre-buying persona, buying persona, and post-buying persona.

Pre-buying Persona

In this stage, you need to find people who are interested to buy your products or services, but have not already bought anything from you. The goal is to seek and entice these people. You need to search for people using the right keywords not only about your company but also your competitors. Develop social media messages that will encourage growth of your fan base, and keep track of the conversations to engage with those who are responding to your messages.

Buying Persona

For this stage, seek for customers who are actively searching information about your products or services. Your marketing team could help these people, but sales representatives could provide more relevant engagement.

If you have an online retail store, for example, you can empower your sales team to engage with customers through social media. If you are a B2B company, you can empower your sales representatives to address the needs of the potential customers. The goal here is to convert prospects to customers.

Post-buying Persona

This stage is focused on keeping your customers satisfied by resolving any problems they may encounter and further providing assistance relevant to their purchase. In this stage, customer service agents are ideal in supporting your customers not only through traditional channels (phone, email, chat) but also on social media. The goal is to satisfy customers, lessen negative comments, and promote positive feedback.

Developing a customer-centric approach for your social media strategy takes time, and requires money and effort. Entrusting the task to a reliable social media marketing agency is highly recommended.