As you work to build your brand, startup or small business, it is only natural to focus on ways to use online and social media resources to your advantage. Whether you want to increase sales or improve brand awareness, the internet is a bountiful resource. It is just figuring out the best ways to tap into it.
Here are four simple ways you can maximize your online presence to build your business.
1. Invest in a Professionally Designed Website
Whether you hand someone your business card bearing your website address, or someone finds you via social media or another website, your own website gives you the opportunity to make the first impression you’d like to make most. Designing a professional looking website helps set your business and brand up in a positive light for potential, new and returning customers.
Not only is the appearance of your website important, but so is its functionality. Make sure your website operates efficiently and is user-friendly to keep visitors on the page and pleased enough with their experience to further investigate your business.
2. Promote Your Business Via Social Media
According to Statista, 79 percent of the U.S. population has some type of social media profile, which means that becoming social media savvy is crucial for business owners in today’s marketplace. Choose the best social media platforms that appeal to your target audience, and focus on those.
Social media is a useful tool that reminds followers about your brand everywhere from once a few times a day to once a week. It is also offers you an informal way of connecting with industry peers, customers and prospective customers. You can show off your commitment to customer service by openly answering questions and complaints while also offering perks through contests and giveaways.
3. Develop and Command Authority Through High-Quality Content
Providing fact-based information relevant to your audience’s needs and desires is vital. Each time a visitor comes to your website or social media page, they are often searching for more than just a hard sell. They want more information about your product or service, but even more, they appreciate you providing value through meaningful content that can help them in ways beyond investing in your brand.
Focus on original content in the form of infographics, blog posts, webinars and SlideShare presentations to define your company as an authoritative source of information in your industry.
4. Build Trust Through Integrity and Transparency
There is more to building authority and trust than designing the perfect website and cultivating a high-profile social media presence. You need to build trust with your audience, whether customers or future customers, but confronting any potential issues in reputation head-on.
Customers want to do business with a company in whom they have faith in a its mission, values and business ethics. Some companies continually need to face scrutiny of their business, whether such scrutiny is warranted or not. For instance, Amway has built trust with customers and partners over the years in spite of the strange and untrue myth that Amway is a scam. The company has enjoyed great success since 1959 by conducting business ethically, selling quality products for a fair price through their own unique platform with integrity and transparency.
Maximizing your online presence requires a combination of technological savvy in building your website and developing a strong social media presence, but it also requires providing a sense of authority and trust through strong content and business transparency.
