Why Brands Need Buyer Personas for Social Media

Brands Use Social Media To Get What They Want

‍If you're using social media for your brand, you probably want people to listen to your brand, like your brand, and engage with your brand. You have specific ideas of what you want your audience to do. How do you get your audience to do what you want?You could…

• Directly ask them
• Indirectly ask them
• Incentivize them with prizes
• Guilt them
• Trick them

There are a lot of ways to potentially get your audience to do what you want. However, these tactics of influence are problematic and not very reliable.

‍There's A Better Way for Brands To Get What They Want

‍Dale Carnegie, author of “How to Win Friends and Influence People," understood the idea of influence very well.

“Personally I am very fond of strawberries and cream, but I have found that for some strange reason, fish prefer worms. So when I went fishing, I didn't think about what I wanted. I thought about what they wanted. I didn't bait the hook with strawberries and cream. Rather, I dangled a worm or grasshopper in front of the fish and said: "Wouldn't you like to have that?" Why not use the same common sense when fishing for people?"

When brands use social media marketing, they're essentially fishing for people. And many brands are so fixated on their strawberries and cream (my brand, my objectives, sales, etc.), they forget people aren't on social media to be sold to. No matter how great and life-changing a product or service is, people don't go on social media to hear about it. People are on social media to get something they want.

‍The Secret to Social Media Influence for Brands

If you want to influence your audience, you have to give your audience what they want, not what you want. All people are motivated by their own desires. Every action is a result of this. People are motivated by self interest and don't care much about what others want.Here are some examples of self-serving tactics businesses use on social media that don't provide any value for consumers:

• “Let us know if you saw our presentation at the conference by liking this post"
• “Like our Facebook page and share it to help us get new fans"
• “Check out our other social media channels!"
• "Tell us why you like our product!"
• “Read our FAQs!"
• “Go to our website!"

These types of tactics do not foster authentic brand interactions.

‍If you want to influence your audience, you need to talk about what your audience wants and show them how to get it.

‍This requires knowing your audience very well. You need to master your buyer personas.

Who are they? What do they want? What do they need? What motivates them? What scares them? What are their objections? You need to develop social media buyer personas for your brand. Until you can paint a complete picture of your audience, you won't be able to truly appeal to them. It's no different than our personal relationships: we must invest in understanding a person in order to truly connect with them. If you want to get social media ROI, you need to create persona-driven content to build your community.

Brands must continually fight the temptation to push the company's agenda. They need to look for meaningful ways to reach their audience and give them what they want. They have to maintain focused content creation. When brands provide true value for their audience, they become loved, appreciated, and needed. When your audience needs you, you've done your job. If your brand needs help creating buyer personas for social media, contact our brand development agency.