When one social media profile is not enough…
A dear friend of mine, Juliet Foster, is both a (fabulous!) photographer and a photography teacher. She is grappling with creating her online marketing plan and asked me how to deal with the two different areas of interest, especially on social media sites where she was considering creating accounts. My short answer was that she should set up and maintain two different accounts – one for each focus.
There numerous reasons why, but the key is that they have different ‘ideal clients’. As a photographer, she specializes in headshots for professional women. As a photography teacher, she is looking for amateur photographers, male or female, of all ages. And since the goal is to be where your ideal clients are and to provide them with content that they will find valuable, she really needs to create two different profiles.
Setting up two accounts will allow her to keep her content focused on topics of interest which is extremely important as content of value is what will keep her followers engaged. It will also allow her to search out people based on her ‘ideal client’ profile. And by creating focused, keyword rich posts, she will be FOUND by those potential clients as well.
That said, this is a lot of work – even doing this for just one business, on one site, is work – multiple profiles on numerous sites can be overwhelming. My advice is to have a well developed presence in one place, in her case, maybe two, rather than scattered, ineffective profiles in a bunch of locations. Her goal should be to offer valuable content, posted regularly, while still leaving time for responses and replies.
So here were my suggestions:
- 1. Define the ideal client for each group – know who they are, where they hang out, who they already respect/follow/friend.
- 2. Once she does that she can identify which site(s) she needs to be on in order to reach and to be seen/ found by these people.
Twitter might work well for both groups but since she needs local connections, she may want to consider Facebook. LinkedIn may work for meeting professional women (there are lots of groups there that would be a good fit) where she could post a series of headshot and beauty related tips for them but having a ton of loyal LinkedIn readers in Wisconsin is not going to be valuable to her so she really needs to have a clear plan. - I HIGHLY suggest setting up only one account for each, to start, and think that two on the same site might be easier to manage – ie: two Twitter profiles or two LinkedIn rather than one on Twitter and one on LinkedIn.
- Once she decides on the site, she should create profiles for each account. The name (handle) and bio should be keyword rich and topic specific if at all possible. And while she could use the same image, she may want to consider two different ones.
- She should make sure to have a series of tips for BOTH accounts ready before she starts – this way, she will have content ready to go and will give people a reason, right away, to friend/ follow or link with her.
- There are many services (Social Oomph is my favorite) where she can schedule her posts in advance. Plugging in those first content rich tips and scheduling them to post over time will get her started and allow her to visit regularly and focus those visits on interacting rather than just posting content. Creating valuable, keyword rich posts, in advance, is also a good habit to get into rather than trying to both post and interact regularly.
I do hope that you found this case study helpful. Please let me know if you have any questions and call (212.664.1872) or email LMD@LisaMarieDiasDesigns.com when you need help developing an online marketing plan for YOUR business!
