Something that we can all agree on is that your business needs to be online these days. From independent retailers to consultants and even authors, if you still want to have a business this year, you have to be online. But how do you do that?
There are five things you need to do asap to make this transition happen as seamlessly and as effortlessly as possible.
1. Create your social media profiles
At a minimum, you need to have a Facebook business page. There are 2.45 Billion active people on Facebook on a monthly basis, with half of them being active daily. You’ll use this business page to communicate and market to your potential clients.
Secondly, you’ll need to create a second profile on either LinkedIn or Instagram, depending on your type of business and your clientele are. For instance, if you’re an artist, you would be better off an Instagram. If you are an accountant, you would choose LinkedIn.
2. You need a functioning website
Having a website is crucial if you want your business to be viable online. On your website, you need at least five pages: A “Home” page with some information about what you do, an “About Me” page, a “Work With Me Page”, a “Testimonials” page and the critical one is the “Blog” page. This gives people a place where they can research you.
When you have this up and running, you’ll be able to start to populate it with content that is relevant for your audience. You need to blog, sharing hints, tips and pieces of advice that helps your audience overcome challenges and problems that they have.
3. Change the way you do business
A lot of businesses have a somewhat traditional way of delivering what it is they do, and it’s time right now to change that. If you normally deliver your services in person, you can change to online.
You could use free programs such as Zoom to host meetings, to hold and run your events and even to do your sales meetings. If you have a team of people, we’ve seen the rise in businesses utilising this technology with great success.
4. Add value
Something that is crucial online, is that businesses are adding value to their audience in the form of creating content. For instance, if you run a skate store, you could share videos of how to choose skates online and how to measure your feet. You could even put together a video series on how to skate inside!
Adding value online shows your audience that you are knowledgeable and that you care about their plight. That you can be trusted and that you are there to build relationships with them – just the way you would have in the “offline world”.
5. Use your online presence to generate enquiries and sales
The big thing that you need to do in business is generating revenue. otherwise, you’ll end up on the Corona Scrap Heap, and nobody wants that. With all the work that you’re doing now being present online and adding value, it’s now time to monetise that.
By posting regular, consistent and helpful content on the platforms that we’ve discussed above, you create goodwill with your audience. Let them know what the next steps are, which could be to download a “how-to” guide (which they’ll give you their email address for) or you can invite them to purchase something and offer them an exclusive voucher or a bonus when they buy.
Nicola Moras, social media and visibility expert and author of “Visible”, a guide for business owners on how to generate financial results from social media and digital marketing
