Vonwerk

Preparation is half the battle won, or so some say.

To maximize your results and save hours of time later, it pays to brainstorm your keywords ahead of time and have them readily available in a document or spreadsheet.

1. The keywords list

List A: Brand Keywords (Reputation)

What to find: People talking about you.

Your company name.
Your website domain.
Common misspellings of your name.
Your specific product names.
Your handles (e.g., @YourCompany) on every platform.
Names of key public figures in your company.

Even small companies have room for basic misspelling nowadays. The most common example is when your companies' name is a combination of 2 or more words ("GymmySearch"). You want to track "Gummy", "Gummy Search", and "GymmySearch".

List B: Competitor Keywords (Poaching)

What to find: People talking about them.

Competitor brand names.
Competitor website domains.
Common misspellings of competitor names.
Their specific product names.
Their support handles.

You will use these later to find people complaining about them or looking for alternatives.

List C: Pain-Point Keywords (The Problem)

What to find: People who have the problem but don’t know the solution yet.

The symptoms your product cures.
Example: If you sell sleep supplements, don't just list "pills." List "insomnia," "can't sleep," "waking up tired," and "brain fog."

List D: Buying Intent Keywords (The Action)

What to find: People ready to spend money.

Verbs and phrases that signal a desire to buy.
Common examples: "alternative to," "recommend," "looking for," "vs," "review," "suggestions," "pricing".

There is often a disconnect between how you sell your product and how normal people buy it. You speak industry jargon. They speak human.

If you sell "Asynchronous Video Messaging Software," nobody is searching for that. They are searching for:

"How stop having so many meetings"
"Video email tool"
"Alternative to Loom"

The Task: Look at your Keyword Lists. Are they full of buzzwords? If so, keep them, but add normal human keywords.

For "CRM," add "client list" or "sales spreadsheet."
For "SEO Audit," add "fix website traffic."

If you only search for the professional term, you will only find your competitors. To find customers, you must use their vocabulary.

3. The "Ignore" List (Refining by Discovery)

You cannot predict what keywords are a symptom of bad results. The only way to build a good "Ignore" list is through trial and error.

Do not try to guess what to exclude before you start. Instead, follow this cycle:

Search: Run your search with your main keywords.
Observe: Look at the results. Are 50% of them irrelevant job postings? Are they spam bots selling crypto?
Refine: Take the specific word that is causing the noise (e.g., "hiring" or "giveaway") and add it to your Ignore List.
Repeat: Run the search again.

We will touch down on this later again in "The Art of Search Refining" guide.

Common Starting Points: While every search is different, experience tells that these are common wasters you will likely end up excluding eventually:

Recruiting terms: "jobs", "hiring", "resume", "career".
Low-quality terms: "free", "subscribe", "join".
Spam terms: "crypto", "coin", "giveaway", "bonus", "airdrop".

Make sure you don't block wanted results by excluding words.

You will learn how to apply these exclusions using the specific syntax of each platform in the coming guides.

4. The Customer Avatar & Habitat

Having the right keywords is useless if you type them into the wrong search bar. You need to define who your customer is and where they go to talk about their problems.

The Avatar (Who are they?)

Don't overcomplicate this with age or location. Focus on their role and their state of mind when they have the problem you solve.

Are they a CTO looking for enterprise software?
Are they a new parent looking for sleep advice?
Are they a developer looking to fix a bug?

The Habitat (Where do they hang out?)

Your customer acts differently on different platforms. Think of these platforms as different physical locations; your customer wears a different "hat" in each one. You need to match your search strategy to their environment.

The following guides will introduce you to each major social media platform and how to use it:

Advanced Search Guide for Reddit
Advanced Search Guide for TikTok
Advanced Search Guide for X (formerly Twitter)
Advanced Search Guide for LinkedIn
Advanced Search Guide for HackerNews
Advanced Search Guide for Facebook
Advanced Search Guide for BlueSky
Advanced Search Guide for YouTube
Advanced Search Guide for Threads

Start monitoring just one platform. Observe the surfaced content for a week, and how well you could uphold your monitoring practice. Then, and only if you find that you have still capacity and were dedicated enough for taking action during the week, add another platform. After 2-4 weeks you should know whether this is for you or whether you may need professional help.

You may also jump right into our "Get 100 customers in the next 30 days" challenge, where we will walk through a day-by-day schedule to achieve the desired outcome.

Preparing your campaign