When you sit down to create social media content, who are you writing for?
I’m writing for Sue. She’s imaginary, of course, but she’s as real to me as my next-door-neighbor. And I think about her every time I create a piece of content for the Monterey Bay Aquarium Facebook page, Google+ page, or Tumblr blog.
Let’s fill in Sue’s biography. She works for a large technology company (or manufacturer, or pharmaceutical company—you pick). Sue gets to work at 8 a.m., and immediately begins churning out an impressive stream of e-mails. After all, she’s a good employee, and is well liked by upper management for her work ethic.
Sue works in a cube, and despite the convex rearview mirror she has affixed to the corner of her monitor, she’s subject to an annoyingly constant stream of eavesdropping colleagues, all of whom are just dying to find her with cat videos on her computer screen instead of an Excel spreadsheet.
But by 10 a.m., Sue’s fidgeting. She needs to be transported—if only briefly—to a place that’s far from the confines of that cubicle.
That’s when I enter her life.
A Place Where the Sun Always Shines
You see, even though Sue rides a desk in downtown Duluth, she loves the oceans. Not only that, but once—two years ago—she visited the Monterey Bay Aquarium, and it was an adventure she’ll never forget. When the snow blows in Duluth, she thinks about the cozy streets of Pacific Grove, the shops of Cannery Row—and of course, the towering Kelp Forest at the Monterey Bay Aquarium. It’s a common thing for her. She thinks about all these things—well, with my help, she thinks about them every damn day. After all, that’s my job.
So when the clock strikes 10 a.m., Sue takes a furtive glance in convex mirror, then pokes her head up out over the warren of cubes. Confirming that the coast is clear, and with the “Boss Button” close at hand, she quickly opens a new browser and navigates to the Aquarium’s Facebook page.
It may be snowing and 23 degrees in Duluth, but what she sees on her screen paints a different picture entirely. In Monterey, it’s 70, and the waves are rolling in and breaking against the rocks. Risso’s dolphins are jumping out of the water just offshore. A whale-watching boat cruises serenely past, its passengers craning off the starboard railing, looking for grays. In our Open Sea exhibit, two enormous sea turtles come over the exhibit window, as if to say hello.
Having gotten her attention with a photo of one of these things, I add a few choice words to create genuine longing:
“Missing the Aquarium right now? What do you miss most?”
Hopefully, this is tantalizing enough to make Sue hit the “Like” button, or perhaps provide a comment. Even better, somewhere deep in her subconscious, I’ve planted the seed of a future visit. With enough of these vicarious experiences, there will come a day when she chooses to reprise that trip she made all those years ago.
My Friend Sue
Sue and I have gotten quite close over the years. It’s my earnest desire to make her happy, providing content that will help her survive her working day—in the same way I count on social media to get me through mine. We both need brief, transporting experiences to catapult us into the weekend, and deal with the momentary tempests that we’re all, inevitably, confronted with.
We have a kind of pact, Sue and I. She needs a vicarious experience, and I want to foster a connection with the Aquarium, and our oceans.
A day never passes when I don’t try to uphold my end of our little bargain.
Get Personal with Your Persona
How do you make use of the persona in social media? Here are a few rules to live by:
· Get concrete data—and go beyond it. There are things we know about Sue, based Facebook Insights and research data: she’s about 30, and it’s been two years since her last visit. She’s uber-connected via her mobile phone and iPad. She’s passionate about conservation and animal rescue. She likes pets, enjoys exercise, and fancies herself to be a bit of a foodie. That’s what we know about Sue, and the other half a million people like her who are fans of the Aquarium across our social media vehicles.
TheThen, there is what we think we know, which may be even more important. She has an emotional connection to our oceans, and even from that vast distance, she longs to hear the waves and feel the sand underfoot. There’s a café on Cannery Row she likes, and she still remembers having breakfast in plain view of Lover’s Point and 17-Mile Drive. She likes to walk past Hopkins Marine station on the recreational bike trail to see the harbor seals gathering on the pocket beach for their little daily convention.
UseI use all these things to help paint a complete picture of Sue—a vital but necessarily imprecise alchemy of intuition, anecdotal information, and hard metrics.
· Imagine your persona, every time you write. Fix your persona in your mind each time you sit down to create content, design an app, or provide any other means of engagement for your social media audience.
· Aim to please: What’s your ideal audience after? Is it something cute? A great value? Or maybe simple escapism? Figure out what drives your peeps, then provide these things—in abundance.
· Make life easy: As a former print journalist, I’ve found this to be the hardest adaptation of all. Let’s face it: People in social media don’t have time to read 1,000-word stories. For sure, these stories—with artfully crafted leads and glistening prose, have their place. But you may find that your most successful content is a photo and 20 words, and can be absorbed in about one minute by the average nine-to-fiver. That doesn’t mean it’s not meaningful, or effective, or that it doesn’t involve artistry of any kind. It’s just short. Get over it.
Chances are, Sue—and thousands like her—will appreciate the brevity.