Do You Know Who Your Customers Are

For those of you looking to use social media towards a business end, do you really understand your customer base? Do you understand how things like conferences and blogs and making media relate to bringing in business?

In media making, there is often a triangle:

1. The people who want what you’re talking about.
2. The people who want to know those people.
3. You. The media maker.

On this list, your customer is #2.

#1 is your community.

You can sell into your community, but in media making, the bigger opportunities are in the folks who want to know your community.

And then, there’s the rub, because unless you’ve built that covenant with your community, you cannot just let loose #2 all over your community. It would be BAD. Capital B. Know whether you’re building a community or developing a marketplace. SOMETIMES you can do both, but that’s not the norm.

Food for thought.