This article contains a guide on the seven (7) tips to increase your online presence as an individual, business or a career person.
The word, social media is no longer new in the eyes of many people. Even kids are not left out. In fact, daily, we spend hours engaging in social media activities. Different individuals are on social media for different purposes, which range from having fun and interacting with different trends, down to doing business, which is the most common reason lately.
So, whether you’re a service-based or online business, having a strong online presence is very important. Have I confused you with the word “online presence?” Pardon me.
I understand you might be wondering what that really means since virtually everyone uses the internet for various online activities. Well, as the internet evolves, the definition of a strong online presence does, too.
Online presence may or may not exactly be what you think. Practically everyone might be active online, but the fact is, that doesn’t equate to having an online presence.
An online presence is all encompassing. It covers your visibility and reputation online. There are a lot of reasons why you need a strong presence online, especially if you’re a business or a career person. Before we proceed to the ways in which you can increase your online presence, here are few important reasons you need for an online presence as a business owner and career person:
WHY YOU NEED AN ONLINE PRESENCE AS A BUSINESS OWNER OR CAREER PERSON
1. To get discovered
As an entrepreneur, having a strong online presence makes it easy for customers who may not know that you exist to discover you at every given time. The same is applicable to a career person.
2. To gain trust from customers
Another important reason for having an online presence is to gain the trust of your ideal customers. Invariably, you will be seen as a legitimate business.
In times where a lot of fraudulent activities go on online, a lot of people are skeptical to transact business with an unknown person. Organizations are equally skeptical about employing just anybody without an online presence.
These people are more comfortable to release their money and contract to a person whose details can easily be seen online, hence, the need for an online presence.
3. It saves cost
As an entrepreneur, you don’t necessarily need to run social media ads if you have a strong online presence. When you have become popular across various social media platforms, you are likely to attract more clients and make more sales organically. This way, you don’t get to spend heavily on ads.
4. Generates more conversions
It is easier for a person who gets seen consistently to get stuck in the minds of people. Research shows that it takes an average of seven encounters with a business before a lead becomes a customer. In other words, an online presence is what will enable an ideal customer to be able to buy after some time.
With all of these in mind, the next big thing on your mind is probably how to enjoy all of these advantages. Here is how:
7 WAYS ON HOW TO GAIN AN ONLINE PRESENCE
1. Get Active on Social Media Platforms
There are numerous media platforms in existence and this has made life very easy for businesses and career people. From Facebook to WhatsApp, Twitter, Instagram, Tiktok, LinkedIn and lots more, there is no reason why any individual or business should not be active on one or two of these platforms.
Being on social media is however the first step to get a strong online presence. Having a page or personal profile is not enough to do this. Hence, here are few ways to do that:
- Provide useful content in your pages and personal profile: To build your online visibility, you have to stand out from your competitors. One way to do that is to create valuable, interesting contents and relatable articles that will attract readers and target audience. So that means publishing quality posts regularly, responding to comments on those posts, and it means doing this consistently. This is the difference between a profile and a presence. If being able to have this type of engagement means only having one profile, then so be it. Better to have one vibrant profile than to have three that are subpar. And precisely why it’s important to only take on the number of profiles you can manage.
- Be sociable: It is not enough to drop contents. You need engagements on these contents. One way to do this is to get sociable, interact and engage on other people’s posts, answering direct messages, sharing content from other sources, and more. Using guest posting on another media or community with a strong online presence is another way to reach more potential customers and audience. You can also accept guest posts on your own blog. Writers are always eager to share their publications with their audiences
2. Get a Website
To some people, this should be the first way to have a strong online presence especially as an entrepreneur. But then, not everybody would subscribe to this because it is considered to be expensive. So for starters, I would advise this comes later, when the business can comfortably afford it.
Regardless, having a website without being active on some social media is almost fruitless. Your online visibility will now be determined by whether your website has a human element to it.
In other words, developing a web presence means engaging in one or more social media networks such as Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. By doing so, you are getting your connections on social media to interact on your site.
No matter how people find out about your business, their first thing that crosses their mind is to visit your website. Many consumers won’t consider a business without a website. So with that being said, here’s how to use your website for an optimal online presence.
Optimize your website to increase your online visibility on Google and other search engines: Optimizing your website is not much of a big deal. So, don’t overthink it. The major thing is to use appropriate keywords on your pages and also follow any other Google recommendation. This is advisable because when a potential customer searches for products or services your company offers; you would be in the top list to be suggested. That’s the importance of keywords.
Make your company information clear: Your business information should show the following:
- Company name
- Location
- Contact information which should include phone number, email address, etc.
- Overview of products and services
- Operating hours and more, depending on preference.
However, ensure that this information is in the appropriate and very accessible place on your website. You never know when a visitor will be ready to do business with you. Therefore, don’t make it hard for them to find this valuable information.
3. Get On Platforms You Can Manage Effectively
To a lot of people, being on every social media platform is an automatic online presence. But pardon me to burst your bubbles, having an online presence is not about the number of social media platforms you’re on. Online presence is about quality, not quantity. Therefore, choose the platforms that your target audience are actively using, and engage on such platforms.
4. Post Contents That Trigger Emotions
While this may not be really compulsory, it is important to make quality posts that are capable of stirring emotions. Emotional posts are known to get more engagements and shares. This simply triggers social algorithms to display your posts in users’ feeds, thus increasing your online presence.
5. Carryout Social Media SEO
Like websites, Facebook and other media platforms are searched on a daily basis. Thus, you should include popular keywords in your profiles and posts.
You should also use hashtags in your posts to improve your social media presence, but treat them as you would keywords.
6. Run Social Ads
Till date, a lot of individuals and businesses still underestimate the power of social media ads. In the real sense, social ads can be used to improve your online presence because ads have higher reach and engagement rates than organic posts. Social ads can come with more effective targeting as well as more creative freedom.
7. Leverage Email Marketing
The goal of having a strong online presence is to constantly be in the minds of your audience or ideal customers, in the case of entrepreneurs. Hence, having a presence in the inbox with email marketing is another way to achieve more online presence. It doesn’t only stop at social media and websites. Go the email way.
The advantage that email marketing has over other channels is that your recipients have willingly opted in to receive your emails. Yes, your social media followers have opted to follow you, but feeds are infinitely more crowded and competitive than email inboxes.
As unbelievable as this may sound, most people check their email every day, some as much as 10 times a day. I know this because I’m one of such people. However, this is not enough to get people to click on your mail. To achieve this, you need to pay attention to the following:
- Your mail should have irresistible subject lines: This is the first thing that a recipient sees before opening the mail. A good subject line will give you a stronger presence in your subscriber’s inboxes and a better open rate.
- Segment your list: Segmenting your audience makes it possible to choose targeted words. This makes collecting data separately on audience segments easy, and also, you can further refine your messaging.
CONCLUSION
Ideally, we exist in one place as humans but with the internet, pardon me to say that we can become “omnipresent,” meaning you can be in multiple places at once, places your current and potential customers are spending most of their time. Having a strong online presence allows your business to get discovered by old and new customers. The more contact you have with your audience, the more you can build your trust, reputation, increase brand awareness, and most of all, increase revenue.
As a career person, a strong online presence brings more opportunities to you. You get seen by industry experts. As an entrepreneur, you get seen by more ideal customers.
Depending on your intentions and what you do, ensure to build on the right platforms that suit you, and make the best of it. So, if you haven’t considered the importance of an online presence, go back to your drawing board and begin to apply these tips.
Be more active on your social media platforms, create engaging and relatable contents consistently, engage on your posts and that of others, encourage sharing of posts, leverage social media ads, use the right keywords on both your profiles and websites, if any, although it is one important tip to consider as a business owner. Having a good website is the highlight of it all.
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