How To Use Google Adwords to Define Keywords For Targeting Your Audience

Engagement is the cornerstone of social media. Brian Solis even wrote a book on engagement, which I do recommend reading if you’ haven’t already. Having engagement being one of the most important parts of social media it’s perfect for outreach marketing efforts. Outreach marketing is the action of seeking out individuals or companies with shared interest in what you or your company has to offer. There’s a handful of organizations that use outreach marketing in parallel with direct sales, but more than often people/organization use it for larger goals such as branding.

Generally speaking, weather it’s an organization or a individual plan an outreach marketing campaign online there are two main stepping stones that need to be defined before you start; who is your target audience, and what is your method of engagement. Selecting the right target audience is quintessential for a successful outreach marketing campaign. Moreover, the right type of engagement will make our break your campaign. Sadly, these two areas are where companies and individuals constantly fall short.

So, before starting your next outreach marketing campaign  through social media take a look at how SEO experts have been identifying their target audiences over the years. They have learned many tricks and tips that help them become very pinpointed on their keyword searches and audience identification on the internet.   .

Defining keywords & audiences

No matter what kind of social media monitoring tool you use for your marketing efforts, choosing the right keywords is a vital step. The use of social media monitoring tools to help sift through the noise of the social web to identify conversations that you want to engage with, choosing your keywords and targeting the correct audience goes hand in hand. Personally, I like to break my keywords into to two different sets, Primary and secondary keywords.

This next part might be a little intuitive but, let me explain further. Primary keywords are the terms directly related to the industry that you are looking to engage with. For example, if you’re searching for energy saving devices you would select “energy devices” as a primary keyword. You further extend your primary keywords by adding terms, such as, “residential energy devices”, or “commercial energy devices”.

To help you identify your primary key words there are tools out there what will show you the most searched terms. Simple changes in your primary keywords can make dramatic changes in the volume of conversation that you pull. I highly suggest using Google AdWord’s Keyword Tool to help identify the most popular terms in the industry that you’re searching.

Here you can search terms, competitor websites, and the tool even gives your suggestions by industry if you have no idea where to start.

As you can see above when I searched for “energy devices” it will show me the total global and local searches on this term. In addition it will bring up other suggestions for that industry and and that keyword that might be better to use that what you originally thought. Some examples from my search were “energy saving devices”, “energy saving products”, and “energy saving solutions”. All of these can be added to the primary keyword list.

When selecting your primary keywords, remember not to use your specific brand name. Outreach marketing is aimed at finding individuals that have never hear of your company before. Primary keywords are used to find the broadest audience. However, if your keywords are too ambiguous then you may need to refine your key words with secondary keywords.

Secondary keywords are still related but may not include the exact descriptions. For example – using the “energy devices” as a start you might want to refine this keyword to “energy saving tips”, “:energy saving tools”, “home electricity monitoring”. Plug these terms into the Google’s AdWord’s Keyword tool to help you refine your secondary keywords..

Engagement strategies

Now that you have the first step done you need to define an effective strategy for engaging each person. Sending out messages with comments like, “Me too, I like to save energy as well, visit my website” or “Buy my device it will help you save energy”, is not going to cut it. To properly engage consumers you need to implement two things, a “click” factor or a “response” factor..

Think of a click factor as an incentive for the user to click through a link. For instance, a link to an article, product or discussion board that will provide value or solve the person’s problem (ex.. I noticed you were trying to save money, here’s an article with some tips to reduce your energy costs”. Do not always point directly back to your site unless it will truly help solve the persons problem. Think of this as a conversation started usually if the link does add value they’ll respond with “thanks” or “do you have any other suggestions” which will give you the opportunity to start talking about your company. Again, remember, don’t sell!! Add value you to the person that you’re talking to.

A response factor is an incentive for the user to respond and engage in dialog. This strategy is perfect for putting a personal touch on a brand. One of the easiest ways that you can utilize a response factor is to ask a question. “How are you currently trying to cut your energy consumption?” Utilizing the response factor is perfect for branding; however, it can require more time and engagement because the goal is having a value added conversation.

When implementing your next outreach marketing campaign in social media, always try to define your keywords and engagement strategies first. The time spent prior to jumping in the conversation will save you tons of headaches and more importantly save you time and money in the long run.