First Steps To Taking Your Business Online

Social Media can be a great free tool to use when it comes to marketing your business and engaging with your customers. Taking your business online can be a scary thought if you're unsure about what you're about to get yourself into. Here are 5 things to think about when preparing yourself to take the jump and go online. 

How confident are you using social media?

If you’re going to get the best out of your social media accounts, it’s important that you have a basic understanding of how social media works. If you don’t feel the most confident then it’s time to start getting some research in about what you’re going to be using. You could start reading a social media blog online or even find some free workshops. If you don’t feel like you have the time or interest in finding out more then it might be in your companies interest to hire someone who will thrive in this.

Find what social media platform is right for you

The benefits social media can have on a business can be massive, which makes it easy to panic and think you must sign up to every single social media account available. Whilst one social media platform might be working well for one company, it might not turn out the same for you. It’s all about finding what tools are going to work for you. If you run a finance company then chances are your audience isn't going to be on Instagram, whereas if you run a baked goods start up the visual aspect of Instagram could be a beneficial tool.

Who is your target audience?

You should be trying to tailor the type of content you’re putting out there to what your target audience wants to see. Who is your target audience? This is for you to work out, you need to sit down, think about your service or product and who will be the primary person you’ll be selling to. Finding your target audience won’t just mean you’re engaging your audience a lot more but also will save you time when it comes to thinking about the type of content you want to create.

Monitor your presence

The biggest mistake people make is producing a lot of content for social media without monitoring what they are getting back from it. Facebook and Twitter offer some free and easy analytic tools that will allow you to see the basis engagement you are receiving from your content. The analytic tools will help you see which type of content popular and what content people might not be seeing.

Keep engaging

Creating content can sometimes be a challenge but once you find yourself in the swing of things it’s important that you continue to engage your audience by posting regularly. People follow you because they are interested in your business and what you have to say. You don’t have to be a master on Photoshop to produce content but it’s really important that the content you do find yourself posting is updated often. You can use tools like Google Alerts that follow your industry news which is also a good way of keeping yourself audience but also yourself in the loop.