Having a website has become something of a requirement for
businesses these days, due to the global paradigm shift where more and more
people are integrating online activities with their lives. Besides this
fundamental reason of going where the market goes, there are also great
benefits to having an official site for your business.
Starting a website is much cheaper than building and
maintaining a brick-and-mortar store. There is no need to look for an excellent
location, pay the lease, take into account overhead expenses, etc.
You can reach a much wider audience not partial by time or
any borders, making market expansion much easier and opening up more room for
growth. You also get to showcase your products, as well as significant
information about your business to customers, establishing your credibility
while making it suitable for your target audience.
Social Media as a Conduit
Of course, there are still some truths in promoting an
“offline” business that relate to the online world. Merely having a website does
not guarantee effectiveness. You need to be able to show your proficiency and
uniqueness in the industry, and you need to begin a good relationship with your
customers. The best way of pursuing these goals is through leveraging the power
of social media.
Creating accounts for your business for social media
platforms like Facebook and Twitter is good, but these are just channels to
your major website. Social media is simply a way for people to connect to your
website to consume your content and ultimately make purchases. You just have to
make sure that your website has excellent social media integration.
Here are five ways to seamlessly fit in both assets:
“Content is king” is a phrase that will never get old
because content is accurately what people are looking for online, especially in
social media. People are constantly sharing with their huge networks of family
and friends all sorts of content that they consider interesting, whether it’s a
news article, an opinion piece, a funny picture, or an inspiring video. Their
connections, in turn, share it with their own networks, and so on. The amount
of people you can reach with killer content is astounding.
Therefore, you need to generate content that will make the
rounds within these social media channels through shares, retweets, pins, etc.,
and you need to be talented to do it in a regular fashion. There is no
guaranteed way to achieve this, but the best way is to merely create great
content.
Social media platforms are built with connecting people in
mind, but you can follow their template with your website by allowing for some
level of communication with your website’s visitors. This can be done through a
blog with a comments section, a forum where they can discuss your
products/services, or a customer review feature where you let people send in
their critiques of your business’ offerings. You can even let visitors leave
comments on your content using their Facebook accounts for fuller integration.
By giving your customers a way to express their opinions,
you also give them a sense of belonging with your company. They will feel that
you care about what your customers think, establishing a stronger connection in
the process.
- Eye-Catching Titles and Images
Some truly great content doesn’t reach its full potential,
because of poor titles that don’t right away grab people’s attention when
browsing through their feeds. Other great content that tackles technical and/or
multiple subjects are not being read, because of the lack of compelling
pictures that break up the repetitiveness of text.
• For titles, you want something that addresses a concern
while being straight to the point. It has to fix your target audience’s gaze
when they’re quickly scanning on their Smartphones or computers.
• For images, you want something that explains your points
in a clearer fashion while maintaining the tone of your content, and more prominently,
your brand is known for. You can really just focus on creating content that is
purely image-based (e.g. infographics) to simplify complex concepts and
highlight important facts.
Due to the fast-paced nature of today’s Information Age,
people now wait for a good level of convenience when surfing the Web. They want
to be able to share things they like through their multiple social media
accounts without having to deal with the relative hassle of opening up new
windows or tabs and copying and pasting URLs. Social buttons are the answer to
that problem, making it much easier for people to show their interest in a
piece of content to the rest of the world.
These social buttons can also work in your favor, because
they usually show the number of people who have expressed positive sentiments
about particular content. Once these numbers climb, it can be even easier for
people to take in, because they will think the content is worth checking out,
attributing it to the number of people who previously did.
Rich Site Summary or RSS is nothing new, but it is a tool
that has found even more use now that there is so much more content being
produced and shared throughout the Internet. Use it to syndicate relevant
content you have on your main website to micro sites targeting more
concentrated niches. This way, you don’t have to be publishing the same content
on multiple sites.
While an official website serves as a foundation for
creating an online presence, social media allows for even wider coverage for
your business, and gets you even closer to your target viewers. By integrating
it with your website, you understand the full potential of doing business
online.
