Customer-Centric Marketing: How to Keep Your Audience at the Heart of Your Social Media Strategy

Customer-centric marketing is all about putting your customers first – prioritizing their needs and interests when planning and executing your marketing efforts. This customer-centric approach to marketing helps you meet your customers’ needs, provide positive customer experiences, build relationships with your customers and drive customer loyalty.

An important part of a customer-centric marketing strategy is a social media strategy that also prioritizes your customers. Here’s how to keep your customers and target audience at the center of your social media efforts.

Know your audience

First things first: know your audience. It’s hard to provide a customer-centric social media experience if you don’t know who you’re talking to. What pain points do your customers or target audience have? What are their interests? What do they care about? What are their favorite social media platforms, and what kind of content do they prefer? Once you get to know your audience, you’re able to cater your social media efforts to their specific needs and interests.

Post with intention

Actively using social media is a great way to grow brand awareness, share information about your products and services, and build relationships with your audience. However, when it comes to content, prioritizing quality over quantity is key. Getting in front of your audience is important, but posting just for the sake of posting won’t help much. Make sure your content provides value for your audience and that you’ve put thought into how each post supports your social media and marketing goals.

People can usually tell when a post has been thrown together hastily. Maybe the image is mediocre, or there are spelling errors in the caption. Perhaps the post isn’t relevant to your audience’s needs, so they keep on scrolling without interacting with your post. You may be posting frequently, but if you aren’t posting quality content, you won’t get the results you’re looking for.

Instead, take time to consider your goals and what content you can share that will help you reach those goals as well as provide value to your audience. Posts that are well thought out and relevant to your audience will perform better than random posts you throw out just to have something in the news feed.

Recognize that it’s not all about you

You know how annoying it is when someone only talks about themself? The same is true on social media. Don’t be that company that only talks about how great you are; instead, talk to your customers. Have a conversation with your audience.

When creating posts, focus on what you can do for your customers, not just the reasons why they should buy from you. What are your customers’ paint points, and what information can you provide to help solve those pain points? How can you improve your customers’ lives? How can you make their day a little brighter?

Aim to provide content that provides value, informs or educates your audience, entertains or inspires your audience, or humanizes your brand. For example, if you sell office décor, you could provide tips for setting up a home office in a way that promotes productivity. You could show a behind-the-scenes look at how your products are made with quality and customer satisfaction in mind. Ask yourself, “What do my customers care about? How can I make their lives better?”

You can still share posts that promote your products and services, just make sure that not every single post is a sales pitch. People want authentic conversations, not to be constantly sold to.

If you struggle to come up with content ideas, try writing down “content buckets,” or content categories. For example, you might have an “education” bucket, a “company news” bucket, a “promotion” bucket, and more. Then, write down post ideas for each content bucket. Remember to think about your audience’s interests and needs as you come up with ideas. When planning next month’s social media calendar, refer to your handy dandy list.

Also, consider what kind of content your audience prefers and where they like to consume that content. Videos on TikTok? Blog posts shared on Facebook? Infographics on Instagram? When planning and sharing content on social media, be sure to think about the content topics, types, and locations that work best for your customers.

Engage with your audience

Social media is meant for two-way communication. Engaging with your audience is crucial to a successful customer-centric social media strategy. Don’t just post to social media and call it a day; take time to talk with your audience and customers. Ask questions in your captions to encourage conversation in the comments section. When people leave comments, reply with thoughtful responses. Liking a comment is good, but leaving a response is SO much better. You can take this a step further and go to their pages and comment on their content, too – don’t simply wait for people to come to you! Taking the time to engage with your customers and show you care is a great way to build relationships and foster positive attitudes towards your brand.

Provide exceptional customer service

Yes, social media is a great place for sharing fun content and chatting with your audience, but it’s also a great place for providing customer service and improving your customer experience. If someone asks a question about your products or services, responding in a timely manner can make them feel heard and cared about. If a customer needs help – maybe their order was never delivered or they’re unhappy with their purchase – take time to work with them to resolve the issue. If someone leaves a “negative” comment such as a complaint, don’t simply ignore it or delete it. Instead, invite that person to send you a direct message so you can learn more about the problem and provide a solution. Providing customer service via your social media pages helps meet your customers’ needs, build trust, and provide an excellent customer experience.

Need a customer-centric social media strategy? Let’s chat!

Knowing how to create a customer-centric social media strategy is one thing; putting it into practice is a whole different ball game. Social media takes time and energy – two things you don’t always have. Healthy Dash of Social can help! From content creation to social media management to community management and so much more, we can take care of all your marketing needs. Click here to view our services and schedule your free 30-minute call.