Local Conversation Targeting
Enter the local digital conversations your dream customers already follow
- Difficulty
- Easy
- Time to result
- ~weeks to results
- Steps
- 6
- Confidence
- 94%
Local Conversation Targeting replaces broad social reach with deliberate participation in geographically relevant discovery paths. Start by defining the precise area and service combination you want to own, then create narrow hashtag variations around both. Next, identify complementary stores, venues, suppliers, and destinations that your ideal customer already visits or searches. Use their relevant public hashtags and geotags when your content genuinely belongs in those conversations. This creates multiple routes through which a nearby prospect can discover the business, even when each individual tag has modest volume. The ethical boundary is important: adjacent brands serving the same customer in a different way are useful conversation partners, while hijacking a direct competitor's proprietary hashtag is misleading. The intended output is fewer irrelevant impressions and more qualified local visibility.
Origin
Extracted from The Jasmine Star Show through an example showing how a Newport Beach interior designer could use local hashtags, stores, and geotags.
Core principles
- 01Specific local relevance can outperform broad reach
- 02Small hashtags can contain highly qualified audiences
- 03Adjacent businesses reveal where dream customers already gather
- 04Shared customers justify cross-category targeting
- 05Direct competitors' branded spaces require ethical boundaries
How to run it
- 1
Draw the Service Boundary
Specify the city, neighborhood, region, or travel radius within which customers are commercially useful. Avoid targeting a geography broader than the business can serve.
Pro tip Use the location terms residents actually use, including common abbreviations.
Watch out A large geographic label may attract attention from people outside the practical service area.
- 2
Build Location-Service Combinations
Combine each location term with the service, category, and customer intent. Favor precise variations even when their post counts are comparatively small.
Pro tip Include both formal place names and local shorthand.
Watch out Do not add irrelevant location tags merely because they are popular.
- 3
Map Adjacent Customer Destinations
List stores, venues, suppliers, and complementary providers used by the same dream customer. Prioritize places with public social activity and clear relevance to your work.
Pro tip Trace the customer's activities immediately before and after buying your service.
Watch out Shared geography alone does not prove that audiences overlap.
- 4
Enter Relevant Conversations
Publish content that naturally relates to those destinations and include appropriate local or adjacent-brand hashtags. Make the connection intelligible to someone encountering the post for the first time.
Pro tip Demonstrate how your service complements the tagged destination.
Watch out Irrelevant tag insertion can appear spammy and damage credibility.
- 5
Layer in Geotags
Geotag your own location and other legitimate places in the customer's local journey. Use geotags to become discoverable where nearby prospects browse.
Pro tip Rotate among a focused set of highly relevant places rather than tagging everywhere.
Watch out Never imply a relationship with a location that does not exist.
- 6
Respect Competitive Boundaries
Use another brand's conversation when you serve the same customer differently and the content is relevant. Avoid a direct competitor's branded hashtag when it could mislead prospects.
Pro tip Apply the test: shared customer, different service, honest relevance.
Watch out Do not impersonate, ambush, or create false affiliation with a competitor.
In the wild
Jasmine proposes that a Newport Beach interior designer combine Orange County and interior-design hashtags, then identify upscale local furniture stores used by the same ideal client. Relevant posts could use those stores' public hashtags and geotags, allowing shoppers browsing local furnishings to discover the designer's complementary service.
→ The designer inserts the business into highly relevant local discovery paths without relying on large generic hashtags.
Common mistakes
Chasing Large Generic Hashtags
High post volume can produce broad but commercially irrelevant exposure. Local businesses often benefit more from smaller, precise tags.
Tagging Without Relevance
A local store or venue should appear only when the content genuinely connects to it. Otherwise the tactic becomes spam rather than participation.
Hijacking a Direct Competitor
Using a direct competitor's branded hashtag can mislead customers and violate the framework's ethical boundary. Target complementary businesses instead.
Is it for you?
Best for
It is best for local retailers, consultants, designers, photographers, hospitality businesses, and other geographically constrained services.
Not ideal for
It is not ideal for businesses whose customers and delivery model are entirely location-independent.
From the transcript
“when you can use geographic hashtags and geotags, they are truly the most powerful tools.”
“I would be inserting my account into local store conversations where I think we share a dream customer.”
“If it's the same dream customer and we service them differently?”
From the episode
Turn Procrastination Into Your Purpose