Hello! My name is Humberto Valle and I'm the founder of a globally recognized digital marketing agancy www.Unthink.me - I love questions like this and I think I will write an article on this topic after helping you out here. :)
So thank you for the idea.
As a marketing strategist, it is my job to help our clients find their niche and market fit - this is harder than most poople make it seem and when hired I always my clients to give me control as if I was them - push a change and then they decide whether to keep it or not - and that's because as a consultant, if I find something that must be done and still have to try to convince the client to execute - my findings would never see daylight due to the fear of uncertainty and lack of strategic focus.
While many people think they have focus, the truth is that most don't. I would assume that about 99% of entrepreneurs and or small business owners lack focus and that's the core reason why they can't grow. You see many of us think of ideas and reflect on the possibilities but very few write those ideas down and with everything set aside (including ego and exhaustion) decide which of those ideas are worth pursuing regardless of the uncertainty level.
With that said; finding your niche requires a lot of focus, you may have already come across your niche while you were brainstorming since I would assume you did that before asking us here.
The idea first is to go through an exploratory excerceise:
One of the easiest DIY approaches to finding your niche is making a list of the things you have done in your past, what type of jobs or hobbies have you had, which one lasted the longest, why did it last more? would you take that job again?
Did you deal with anything during those years that would give you a lot of writing content if you were to write about? such as how to cope with x employee, or boss, or certain industry specific ways of life?
Have you dealt with hard situations that typically affect a lot of other people?
When you were young, say high school, what was the one thing you really wanted to do?
Is this what you would do if you were independently wealthy?
Even if you didn't follow through that, do you think that right now your life experiences plus training can help you be an asset to those in that profession? would you be happy helping them?
Are you in a particular situation right now that not many go through?
Are you a stay at home parent? Do you like cleaning? helping others with physical related labor? Such as you could coach related to decluttering and cleaning as a symbolic apprach to life or destressing - if you want to work from home, go visit others, like cleaning and have a lot of current free time (so that you work around what you have now not stress trying to make it happen)
This segways me onto market fit -
If you have an idea of what you may enjoy for ever, is there a large enough demand for that in your city?
Are there any current groups that may help accelerate your brand awareness ?
Do people in this typical demographic afford paying for a coach?
As a person - are you quirky, serious, monotone, shy... what?
based on this what marketing approach would you be most comfortable with? video, writing, podcast, presentations, groups, blogging, etc. - how will you deliver your service?
On Social Media Marketing
Not everyone is naturally good at social media, and the truth is too that you don't have to be in all social media platforms either, maybe just pick one and be really good at that one - pick the one where your target market is right now?
Maybe you have to be on twitter, maybe linkedin,
maybe facebook, maybe some other social network not on app... (demographic, buyer personas and market fit are completely different excercises)
At the end of the day social media marketing is just a way to distribute and start conversations on the content you are creating, maybe elsewhere- like bloggers who use social media only to share what they've published on top of their good SEO practices.
On getting started -
Start with always asking "why?" whatever question you start with, keep asking why on your answers until you really can't come up with any more basic child approach answer. Creating a buyer persona for example on married couples would go a long way if you already know you want to deal with marriage -
keep asking yourself why you want to help, then ask why again, and again. Use this fundamentaly whys as your positioning and pitch/value proposition on your websites and description, etc.
If you need a website, I would love the opportunity for us at www.unthink.me to help you with that, if you also need hosting feel free to use code "Unthink" at www.unthinkhosting.com - and if you need any help on anything we discussed here today, please feel free to email me directly at humberto@unthink.me
Thank you and have fun!
First figure out what you want, the direction you want to head, what you're trying to achieve.
Then find a mentor on that aspect to help you move forward.
For example: if my goal is to build a successful blog in the next sixty days, getting a successful blogger to mentor me is the best option.
Hope that helps.
