Hi, I'm Deidra Langstaff with Langstaff Marketing, and today I would like to talk to you about the importance of knowing your target audience for whichever social medium that you're working with. Nowadays, I see lots of small businesses that have Facebook pages, and I think it's wonderful that they're actually out there being engaged with their customers. Lots of them also have Twitter accounts, and they have people following them. Just in the past year, I'm seeing a lot more of those companies also get a little bit more engaged with LinkedIn. The one thing I want to caution everyone is make sure that you are not communicating to all three of those mediums in the same way, because the people who are on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn are not necessarily the same people. They're different target audiences, and they have different needs and desires and things that they want to get out of the relationship that you and your customers are involved in.

So, just want to make sure you don't do what a lot of companies try to do, which is to sync up their LinkedIn account, their Twitter account, and their Facebook account, so when they do make a post, that it's going to all three. Because, once again, those are not the same target audiences. When you're thinking about LinkedIn, especially, that is much more so a male‑dominated social media, definitely professionals. This group earns, actually, more income than any of the other audiences that are on Facebook and on Twitter. When you're communicating with those people, you want to make sure that you're highlighting your company in a way that people know what the capabilities of your company are, what your needs are.

Especially if you're looking for someone to hire or you're looking for a new resource for your company, those are the type things you're going to be discussing. You're going to be answering questions within groups that are formed on LinkedIn, whether it is a legal group, or maybe it's some sort of business or sales organization or group that you're a part of, really, to get more information. Whereas, with Facebook, it tends to be all about building a little bit more presence with your brand. Then, of course, with Twitter, it's all about education and possibly linking up with some great information that you can highlight in those few characters that you get on Twitter.

So make sure that all your target audiences are very well laid out with your three social mediums and that you are speaking to them in a language in which they can hear. Remember that marketing is everything and everything is marketing.