A User’s Guide to Growing Your Business Online

When it comes to running an online business, social media marketing plays a very important role in fueling its growth effectively. This type of marketing strategy can prove to be useful as a majority of consumer base is found on social media, irrespective of the business that is being marketed. From food to automobiles, from transportation to Fast Moving Consumer Goods (FMCGs), and from education to the hospitality industry; every sector benefits from marketing its products and services to the general public thereby enabling growth and sales in both short and long run.

You may be exposed to a variety of marketing strategies, but no marketing strategy works better than promoting your offerings online. In this article, we’ll discuss a few simple yet practical ideas as to how you can aid your business in gaining traction through the use of online mediasuch as Instagram, Facebook and Twitter. Let’s take a look at these doable tips for promotion of your online business.

USING FACEBOOK TO GROW YOUR SMALL BUSINESS:

1.  CREATE YOUR BUSINESS PAGE:

To start off, create your business page on Facebook. This ensures that your business has a professional and strong presence on Facebook. This way you can effectively market your business and brand. Once users like your page, they will be able to regularly view everything you post through it and may be interested in buying your products/services. A Facebook page also gives you the freedom to customize it according to your business’ needs. There are several options you can employ to make the page look more presentable and informational. Be sure to add the following important pieces of information:

• Business address
• Contact information
• Website URL
• Business hours
• Product portfolio

2.  POST REGULARLY:

Creating a Facebook page isn’t sufficient for growing your business online. If you don’t post regularly, your audience isn’t likely to notice your Facebook page and you’ll be missing out on both current and potential customers. It is obviously advisable to post as much as you can to gain attention and attract your customers to your business page so that they are stimulated to make purchases. At a minimum, you should post at least once per day.

However, don’t just post anything that you feel like posting. Post good-quality content that is attractive for the customers. To ensure transparency, you can also show behind-the-scenes content such as giving your kitchen tour (if you are a restaurant) or an overview of your workplace as to show your employees working. This reflects on your organizational culture and is also instrumental in attracting potential employees to your organization.

By posting quality content on a regular basis, there are very high chances for your page posts to receive the likes and comments they deserve. When first-degree audience likes and tags its friends/colleagues/family members in comments, then your posts also tend to reach the people who are outside of your audience. This is a very effective and quick way to expand your business online.

3.  PROMOTE YOUR PAGE AND ENGAGE YOUR FOLLOWERS:

You can post on your Facebook page regularly and still not receive the traction it deserves. Why? One of the core reasons why your page still doesn’t get the attention it rightfully deserves is because you may be lacking followers. It is good to have as many relevant followers as possible. If the number of followers is not up to mark, then you can increase that number by sending invites to the people who regularly shop from you.

To increase your customer base, you can also create Facebook advertisements for your page. This is a fast method to gain more followers rather than sending invites on a one-to-one basis. This is a costly approach, but the Return on Investment is higher than you’d expect. You are likely to attain more followers with this approach and an increased probability of receiving targeted sales and leads. To ensure best results, the image of the advertisement should also be compelling and make an action call. 

These followers can then be engaged with the good-quality content that you post regularly.

USING INSTAGRAM TO GROW YOUR SMALL BUSINESS:

Instagram is also a very good platform when it comes to growing your business online as its visuals tend to create an enticing effect on the audience. This platform can be used to build a loyal audience, one which will only grow with your business. Instagram has around 500 million users and these strategies/tactics can help you to reach a wide network of audience that may just be interested and excited about your product/service offering.

4.  MAKE USE OF RIGHT HASHTAGS TO ENGAGE YOUR AUDIENCE:

With the use of just the right hashtags, you can increase your audience by up to 2x. You can post engaging photos to get maximum likes and comments and to keep your current followers engaged. However, to ensure that new followers are also there, you need to use the right hashtags. When hashtags appear with the featured content of your page, it only grows your audience. Some of the most famous hashtags which are trending on Instagram and may hold relevance to your business are as follows:

#repost, #follow, #like4like, #fashion (if it is a fashion business), #instagood, #love, #instabusiness, #mybrandname #trending

While these are just a few examples, you can customize hashtags according to your business and product portfolio. Make it look relevant and create a loyal customer base. Die-hard Instagram fans are likely to notice your business page and hashtags which can boost up your engagement in the long-run. Hashtags can also help you increase the number of followers and lastly (as well as more importantly) give a boost to sales.

5.  USE THE SFS FEATURE:

The SFS (or share for share) feature is a strategy where you share and also promote the work of other partners on your page. This is a two-way street; if you share other businesses’ content, repost their images and also tag them regularly, they will reciprocate this action and do the same for your business. This ‘cross-promotion’ of other people’s work is likely to increase your brand awareness, give your business more exposure and also build authority in your vicinity. 

USING TWITTER TO GROW YOUR SMALL BUSINESS:

6.  USE HASHTAGS, MENTIONS AND LIVE TWEETS:

While this task may seem daunting, this is what Twitter is all about. Twitter is a platform which is incomplete without hashtags. Hashtags allow the users to tag a word they can identify which will bring uncountable tweets together. These hashtags are searchable and you never know when your business might pop up when a customer searches up for a hashtag.

Twitter serves as a very resourceful platform which aids in delivering fast results for the businesses specifically when it comes to buying likes and comments. Make sure you try out the different features and remain very active on Twitter. If you are looking to grow your new business online, then these tips will come in handy and you can kickstart your business successfully, all thanks to social media platforms.

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