Do You Know Your Customer’s Many Facets?

Most marketers know to segment their online users. Many social media marketers know that they have to identify the online locations (communities) where their customers participate. But very few marketers know that they need to understand the different aspects that these customers present online.

We all have different aspects to our personalities. Like a diamond, while we may be the same person, different parts of our personality shine more in different scenarios. The working mom shows more of her professional personality in the office and more of her fun side at the school Halloween party.

The same is true online. If your social audience is the working mom, you need to understand not only what communities that woman is participating in, but what part of her personality she’s presenting in that community. Knowing the role your customer is playing in a given community allows you to develop an effective strategy.

Let’s take that example of the working mom. You might determine that you can reach working moms in certain LinkedIn groups and Twitter communities associated with mommy-bloggers. A little research reveals that they use the LinkedIn groups to demonstrate their expertise and present a very professional, buttoned-up version of themselves on LinkedIn. But they use the Twitter communities to share information and to provide emotional support for one another. They discuss the challenges of balancing work and family in this environment.

If your product is emergency childcare for working mothers, you won’t get very far bringing up the topic in the LinkedIn groups. Women aren’t going to want to talk about their childcare needs in a group where their focus is showing their cool, professional, capable persona. On the other hand, the supportive Twitter environment is perfect for discussing childcare challenges.

Here’s a simple matrix you can use to capture the facets of your customers.

For example:

Notice the quotes. It can be helfpul to come up with quotes for each community, as a way to summarize the persona your audience presents.

Creating a matrix like this can help you to decide what social offers to provide in each community, and how you can engage in each place for maximum benefit to your customers and your business. So, the next time you start segmenting your online customers, remember to look at all their facets!