With the ever growing e-commerce websites and social media and digital marketplaces, it has become extremely important for brands and businesses to be present online. In the pre-covid times, there was still some room for people to consider buying or investing into a company’s service or product through word of mouth or physical presence, but after the pandemic, online is the first place where people prefer buying from. This makes it all the more important for businesses to work on their online presence.
Ways to improve social media presence:
- Using appropriate platforms: Small businesses are literally spoiled for choice when it comes to choosing a platform for marketing, given so many options like Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, Pinterest etc. Targeting all of them in one go could be a bit overwhelming initially, instead a better approach could be starting with ones which have a larger and ideal audience for the business. You could gradually advance to other platforms once things get rolling.
- Find an ideal audience to engage: The foremost thing to acknowledge here is, everyone is not an audience. Most of the businesses are pretty clear right from the start which particular audience they are targeting. This clarity helps in figuring out many more aspects like platform, content, brand voice etc.
- Establish the goal: Be clear with what you really want to achieve with your online presence. For instance, the expected outcome for a product based business would be different than the one who provides service. The clarity of outcome will help you in creating a social media strategy.
- Research the trending content type: Understanding the current trends and connecting your brand with them will always make you stand out and increase the audience engagement. Finding the current trend largely depends upon your target audience. Something which people of age group 18-24 will connect with might not resonate with people of age group 35-40. Thus, the research needs to be consumer specific.
- Be consistent with the content: The saying ‘out of sight is out of mind’ holds great value when it comes to building social media presence. If your brand is constantly visible in the news feeds, posts, reels etc. your chances of consumer conversion are higher. To attain this, it is highly advisable to have a content calendar in place and adhering to it.
- Go beyond advertising: These days’ people are looking for brands which add value to their lives. Beyond just selling, indulge with your audience. This could be done by offering them some freebies or some offers or educating them around your brand, though not explicitly. Buying your product or investing in your services should not be the only motto of the audience to visit your social media handle.
- User analytics to monitor the engagement: Many online tools like google analytics can help you understand user engagement. The results from the analysis helps in deciding the further steps.