I recently read up on an Ad Age/Ipsos survey that researched digital media habits and preferred platforms and content. This information is essential to social media marketing. If a brand cannot cater to the needs of their audience, then it becomes extremely difficult to be effective online. The study came to a few conclusions about what online users want companies to offer and where...

We can see here that the most important communication outlined is deals/coupons and customer service. The preferred medium to receive this information is through Facebook, the most popular, with 41%. Surveys like this help navigate businesses towards creating successful social media strategies, but are not the online resources we have to gauge what users want.

There are many great applications that are available online that allow brands to connect to the customer and give customization and choice. Big Time Pulse is an application that lets brands set up a profile page to gauge what type of communication customers want to receive and containing what type of information. RBC is one brand that uses it to connect to their customers.

An application like this can help brands more directly target their customers and ensure that the messages they are sending have the maximum impact.

Timely is another application that aids tweets in achieving maximum impact on Twitter. This application takes your tweets and publishes them at the time of day when they'll get the highest retweets and mentions! The idea here is that there are certain times that your audience are most likely to read the messages you post. Instead of guessing the time when most of your followers are active online, you can take a more calculated approach.

The last tool I'll mention for understanding what your audience wants online, is a new one for Facebook: questions. The new Facebook Questions tool allows brands to find out what your target audience/fans are thinking through posting a multiple choice question with set answers. This can help find out which product is most popular, which service customers appreciate most, and gather other information by being interactive. The best part is that as soon as a person posts their answer, it appears on their profile and friend's newsfeed. So not only are you reaching your own fans, but your fans friends as well.

So their you have it, three different tools that aid in discovering what your audience wants, and customizing to their social media habits.