For the untrained eye, marketing in social media feels like a game of hit or miss in a huge arena of countless players. There’s just too many strategies to employ and we have our own personal limitations. How can you keep developing your personal brand? And more importantly, how do we ensure these relationships thrive?
Social media marketing involves carefully calculated experimentation to responsibly create a game plan but also strike opportunities when they’re hot. An analogous system would be the realm of online dating. Given the plethora of dating apps and users, how can you keep developing your personal brand and capture the audience that aligns with you—or in the case of marketing, your brand? Just like social media marketing, online dating entails a judicious process. There are many elements and approaches that can make or break your desired engagements.
And we’ll dissect them one-by-one through some helpful tips.
5 Tips to Optimize Your Social Media Marketing
1. Know your purpose.
When going on dating sites, one of the most important things to add on your profile is what you’re trying to get out of being there—whether it’s a relationship, some casual dating, or even a one-time hook-up.
Before going into absolutely anything, it’s important for us to know the reason we’re getting into it in the first place and to define an end goal we’d want to strive towards. This step comes before anything else since all content creation and strategies would be rooted in and driven by this. After all, in the context of dating, there’s nothing more annoying than interacting with someone who wastes your time by not knowing what they want out of the dynamic, since this can lead to blurry labels and unaligned expectations.
Besides defining the purpose, it’s important to understand how to convey it. Being upfront and clear about your purpose will let another person know if they want what you have to offer, and it contributes a huge deal to saving every party’s time and resources.
2. define your target market
We all have an ideal type, right? We want to know how to present ourselves in such a way that targets the kind of people we like. Some people have an entire laundry list of qualities they have to check-off, while others just have a general idea of what they look for in a person. Whichever category you fall under, it’s good to visualize the kind of people you want to attract. This step is vital because you get to filter out the people who wouldn’t vibe with you, and those who wouldn’t be value-adding to your experience.
Still need more insights on why understanding your target market is important? Find more info here!
3. Build your brand image.
Constructing your profile is one of the hardest and most time-consuming steps when it comes to using dating apps. You’d have to brainstorm what pictures to use, what interests to put in your bio, and maybe even add in a witty pick-up line or two. An important rule of thumb here would also be to ask yourself: “Would I swipe right for me?” or “Would my target market swipe for me?” If the answer is “no”, then don’t be discouraged. Make the necessary revisions and repeat the process until you eventually answer “yes”. This step would come much easier though once you’ve clarified your purpose and defined your target market since you can keep developing your personal brand that is in line with those two.
Check this out for tips on how to identify your personal brand!
4. Maximize your content calendar.
After all that swiping, some matches will definitely emerge. The question now is “How do we keep them interested and engaged?” Slow and dry conversations are usually the reason why connections die out, or why some people end up ghosting. We can’t really determine a set schedule for when and what to reply because it really depends on the market you’ve chosen to interact with—know what they want to see, all of course without forgetting to stay true to your own brand. During this stage, it’s important to take note of the things they seem to be more passionate about, and steer the conversation towards that.
5. Sustain engagements.
People will inevitably come and go in your inbox, and this is a result of seeing what ends up clicking. It turns into this endless process of trial and error of seeing what time they would usually engage with you, and what kind of content they seem to appreciate the most. The most important step here is to be flexible, without forgetting your purpose and your brand. In the process of this though, it’s also important to see which strategies you should give up, and which ones you should retain.
the marketing journey
As a fun experiment, let’s go through a simulation from start to finish of what it would look like to be on a dating app using the tips listed above. Online dating has also evolved during the pandemic and a lot of people like you might need some tips to keep developing your personal brand.
Know your purpose.
The sample persona we’ll be using is Tiffany, a girl in her early 20s who just recently graduated from college and is currently looking for a job. She lives near Katipunan and her interests involve travelling, cooking, watching anime, and listening to music. Due to the stress of transitioning into a new stage in her life, she wants to go on a dating app to look for something more casual. She can easily relay this by adding it to her profile or when she eventually matches with someone, she can re-clarify with them that she isn’t looking for anything serious.
Define your target market.
Tiffany doesn’t have an ideal type when it comes to visuals, but she wants to match with someone who is going through a similar transition in their life. She’s ideally looking for someone who lives within the same general area so it would be easier to talk with him and meet up. Overall, she wants someone who exudes boy-next-door energy, who shares similar interests with her, and is also looking for something casual.
Build your brand image.
Now it comes down to making her profile.
First, she has to pick the right photos. Tiffany would want to choose photos that display her interests, like pictures of her in another country, photos of her cooking, or even ones where she’s in cosplay or playing an instrument. Doing this would be an advantage since visually, potential matches can already see the things that she’s into without even reading her profile.
Second, she has to add a tagline or a short and sweet bio that encapsulates her personality.
Lastly, she should be mindful of giving just enough info to keep them interested, but not too much that there wouldn’t be any more points for conversation.
Maximize your content calendar.
During this stage it would be important for Tiffany to not spam or barrage her match with a bunch of texts. She can note the times he would usually reply and keep an even pace of conversation flowing.
Sustain engagements.
Now that she has someone interested, it’s important for her to retain her branding that she chose to present, but be flexible enough to accommodate what her matches like as well. If Tiffany realizes that there’s a certain topic that her match likes to talk about like the food that he’s made or the countries he’s travelled to, she should try and engage in these topics more. After mastering this, it’s a rinse and repeat process and she just has to do her best to keep those who are most beneficial to her journey.
Just like online dating, social media marketing can be a fun experience if we connect with the right people. As marketers, our brands do have their limitations and distinct images that may not appeal to all. What matters most is achieving our desired quality of engagements.
Sure, we may have instantly connected with a user who shares our hobbies, but if he/she can’t offer us an interesting conversation when that was exactly what we were looking for, why expend our time and effort for that one person? We have to be wise with our limited resources. Social media marketing involves developing your personal brand and also an eye to spot new opportunities.
Reciprocate responsibly and sustain your relationships in order to keep the best people in your audience. But first, know how to market yourself—keep it real and interesting—and you’ll surely get the ideal one to swipe right.
—Written by Danika Manalang and Samantha Sun