Learn about two personas marketers should target, even though they'll probably never become a customer.

Digest...

Though they'll probably never become a customer, there are two personas to whom you should still always consider in your marketing. These people can help you generate more inbound links, social shares, and email forwards, and can help you gain clout and boost your thought leadership credibility.

 

The Company Fan: Having fans that link to your content and share it on their social networks is an important part of any modern-day content strategy. In some markets, creating remarkable content for your buyer personas will naturally attract lots of links and social shares. [A] quick way to retrieve some information [on your company fan] is through a tool called FollowerWonk. Here's what you do:

1)    Visit FollowerWonk and search for your target persona.

2)    Copy the FollowerWonk search URL and paste it into TagCrowd. You will get back a list of other common words these people have in their Twitter bio. This could help you identify other interests that [company fans] have, giving you things they may link to or share on Twitter.

 

The Influencer: An influencer is another example of a persona that may not purchase a product from you, but can have a big impact on the success of your brand. They are the people in your market who can help get your content in front of a bigger audience with the click of a button, add social proof around your products, service, and content, and generally help grow your brand. The first step is to identify some real-world influencers who you can base your persona on. To do this, I am going to use FollowerWonk and compare my followers with two other [colleagues]. The next thing to do is segment your influencers into different categories and figure out how you can develop content they will actually care about.