How to Find Your Niche Market Using Social Media

Are you wondering how to find your niche market and build your startup? Read on to find out how social media will help you do just that.

Your customers are out on social media asking questions about your industry right now. So you need to know how to find your niche market in these conversations.

It sounds simple enough, but like anything in digital marketing, it takes strategy or you’re just floundering.

So right now, we’re going to show you how social media can provide the most valuable market research you’ll ever see.

Make No Assumptions

When trying to learn how to find your niche market, keep an open mind. If you’re in the business-to-business space, you might assume that Facebook is of little to no use to you, and you should focus most of your time on LinkedIn.

That absolutely could be true, but you can’t afford to follow that path without knowing 100%. Do your research ahead of time to either prove or disprove the viability of a given social network.

Because here’s the thing, your decision-makers are on social media. It might not be for work purposes or to represent their brand, but they are there.

Social Research

If you’re a software startup business, you might not think you’re going to reach your target market on Facebook or Instagram.

However, the person in charge of making a purchase decision probably scans these networks while they’re on the train on the way to work. And if your competition is making the same assumption about these networks, you have a golden opportunity to get in front of a decision maker’s eyes.

So do your research. You can do the grunt work yourself by looking on every social media platform to find any hashtags or conversations that could be related to your business.

Or, you can outsource your social research to a digital marketing agency that might have access to social media monitoring tools.

Also, this is not something you’re going to do once. Markets tend to shift, so you need to stay on top of the conversations on an ongoing basis.

Find Your Voice on Social Media

It’s a common misconception that creative agencies will determine your brand’s voice. Wrong.

Others assume the top-level stakeholders of an organization know the most about the company and the target audience, so they should determine the voice. Also wrong.

Your customers are the ones who will determine your brand’s voice. Your customers are telling you exactly what they want to hear. Once you figure out how to find your niche market on social media, use the same conversations to determine your brand voice.

These social conversations give you an unfiltered account of what your target audience’s pain points are, and what keeps them up at night.

What to Look For

Pay close attention to the words they’re using. This will give you a list of key terms you need to use in all of your marketing materials, not just your social media.

Find out what questions are being asked on social media, and make a list of them, word for word. It doesn’t matter if your customers are using the correct terminology. These are the words they are using, so these are the words you need to mirror back.

Use them to fill your brand playbook and define your voice. These key terms need to show up in everything from your social posts, to your print ads, to your PPC ads.

If You Lose a Customer, Don’t Lose the Lesson

Your target audience and former customers are also using social media to give you an unfiltered account of what their frustrations about you and the competition may be.

Reading these comments can be a bit jarring, and a decent shot to the ego. That doesn’t reduce the value of this feedback.

Don’t run from negative comments and hate-Tweets. Take them, then take them apart to find out what you could’ve done better.

Also, read the negative comments and posts about your competition. If you’re selling similar products, these comments are a cautionary tale of what you need to avoid.

Can I Poach on Social Media?

This raises the question of “if I see somebody trashing and leaving my competitors, should I swoop in on social media to get their business?”

The viability and ethics around doing this are highly debated. Some companies consider it a “dirty pool,” while others say it is 100% fair game.

This is really a conversation that needs to happen at the top level of your company. Stakeholders need to decide the policy on this and put it in the social playbook.

Because if you’re against it, the last thing you want is for a social or community manager to go rogue and try to convert one of your competition’s irate customers, if you feel this isn’t in line with how your brand should use social media.

Leave the Sales Pitch at Home

It’s not enough to know how to find your niche market on social media. That’s just phase 1. Phase 2 is knowing how to interact with them.

Write this down as a steadfast rule that will never change: people hate to be sold things on social media.

If you participate in a conversation and give them the hard-sell, you’re extremely likely to alienate the people involved, and maybe even get yourself blocked or banned.

You’re on social media to listen, interact, and educate. Never sell.

Your expertise should do the selling for you. If you can be helpful and personable when people are asking questions about your industry, you’re establishing yourself as an industry expert.

If you have real conversations with real people, the leads will follow.