Social media offers an incredible opportunity to understand your audience.
You’ve been running your financial services company for a while now and things are chugging along smoothly. However you can see change on the horizon – new kids have appeared on the block and you’re starting to wonder whether just “chugging along” will be enough. It’s time, you decide, to think about what the future looks like given the changes fin services and fintech spaces have experienced only in the last few years.
How do I do that, you ponder? How do I even start to think about positioning my brand for the future? Luckily, if you’re already in the social media space you have data to inform your decisions. You’ll be able to see who your audience is, what the main issues they are facing are, and possibly even be able to hear directly from them about their ideas around how you can serve them better. What better way to keep your valuable clients than to give them exactly what they need?
Questions like what kind of company are we? and what defines us? can raise more problems than answers initially. However, it’s crucial to understand your company values and ethos, and where the company is at right now before you can work out where you’re going. What kind of company do you want to be? Does your company image correspond to the perceptions of your various audiences, and do you even know what those perceptions are?
The best way to understand the breadth and scope of the answers to these questions is to listen. Listen to your customers, listen to your employees and most importantly listen to your social channels.
Valuing social media as a listening tool
Social media is a great listening tool if you can shift your thinking away from seeing it as yet one more thing to do, to valuing it for the incredible opportunity it offers to understand your audience. Listening to what your customers and audiences are saying about you and your products or services can give you the data you need to tailor your offerings to the right customers in the best possible way.
If there’s a gap between your audiences’ perceptions of you and your own you will surely be made aware of this. How wide is that gap? and what will it take to bridge it? These are some of the deepest and most difficult questions to face but if you really want to future-proof your business and your brand then you’ll need to do some deep thinking.
You want your reputation to be distinct and to stand out from the crowd in your corner of your industry. Are you different or are you offering the same thing as everybody else in the space? You need to differentiate your message to the needs and values of each of your different audiences, and make sure that your messages and images are accurate and consistent with your brand.
Markets are incredibly niche
The way to do this is to find your value proposition. What is it that differentiates you in the marketplace from direct competitors that is valid, valuable and enduring? How does your offering solve your clients’ business or private problems? There will be something unique in your offerings – your expertise, your style, your technology, your viewpoint – that you can use to target and meet the audiences looking for your services.
If you’re struggling to work out what your point of difference is we can help you find it and convey it so your message cuts through and lands in front of the right people at the right time.
Get in touch if you think we can help.