If you’re not from Wisconsin this post might take a while to understand. Trust me, the analogy won’t be lost on you. If you are, or if you’ve visited one of our many farmers’ markets, you’ll know exactly what I’m talking about.
Cheese curds – the fresh ones, not the fried ones – are ubiquitously available at farmers’ markets in Wisconsin. They’re sold by the bag, and oftentimes literally hours old. So what can a bag of cheese curds teach you about social media? Glad you asked!
1.) They’re positioned to be sold to a very specific audience. Have you ever talked to someone about their business and they said, “Everybody could use my product/service!” No they can’t. You need to segment your niche markets with your social media channels & messages to target them specifically.
Cheese curds are not for everyone. They’re for people at farmers’ markets who are hungry right this second and probably not on a diet. Your ideal customers (those whom you’d like to replicate over and over) have very specific demographic and psychographic profiles. Build their profiles, and target your solution to solve their problems.
2.) Cheese curds are meant to be eaten right now. In a completely fake unscientific survey that I just made up, the average bag of cheese curds exists for 37 minutes before they’re completely consumed. Did you know the average lifespan of a Tweet is 24 minutes? (source: Wisemetrics) When you’re creating content for your social media audience, keep in mind that you have a very finite window of attention available. Regardless of the social media platform, the new stuff gets the most attention.
This is super important: if you’re just sharing things about how great your company is, why people should buy your stuff, and why you’re better than your competitors, you’re missing the boat. Creating timeless content (i.e. answering the questions of your customers) assures you can share those messages over and over on social media. It doesn’t need to be new, it just needs to be new to the person seeing it. Can you imagine a cheese curd vendor only selling their product for one week? No way. They’re back every week, and consistently delivering what their customers want.
3.) A bag of cheese curds is meant for sharing. They’re sold in a bag for a reason, right? You take what you want and pass the bag around until they’re gone. What you share on social media needs to be crafted that same way. Remember, the only reason people share things is because it’s going to make them look good…not you.
Oh, and please don’t forget to ask people to share what you’ve created too. Finish a great article and ask your readers to share it. By the way, would you be so kind to share this article? I can (almost) guarantee the people you share it with will be glad you did.
Want to learn more about asking for what you want? Find out how I got national publicity on Yahoo with one of my recent articles.