A strong involvement in the digital world can massively boost business and connections for both SMB’s and larger corporations. At the moment, 57% of small businesses use social media to promote their marketing. This is proof enough that digital interaction has a significant positive effect on business, but only if it is used in a productive, engaging way. Here are 7 simple objectives that you should be striving for in order to get the most out of the constantly evolving world of digital media.
1) Be Accessible
Seems obvious enough, right? If you make sure your company is as easy as possible to find on the internet, then potential customers or industry connections are more likely to find you before they find your competitors. This means that they are more likely to look into your business, giving you the golden window of opportunity to show them what you can do and secure their attention or custom.
2) Have Good Digital Customer Service
There are a couple of really simple actions you can take that massively boost your level of customer service. Obvious things such as making sure you reply to posts/comments/tweets promptly and in a positive manner will give your company that much-needed edge in the minds of your followers. Tips for this could include getting emails when someone tries to interact with you.
3) Provide Useful, Relevant Content
This does, of course, get more difficult as time goes on, but it is extremely important to provide your audience with content that is engaging, informative and helpful. Different types of content naturally attract different groups of people, so you need to think about your target audience, topics relevant to them and styles that they will be more drawn to. Guides and How-To’s attract people who want to feel like they’ve gained something from your content, whereas prompting a debate on a relevant topic or piece of news attracts people with similar interests and goals.
4) Adopt An Appropriate Tone In Your Content
Again, this really does depend on your target audience, so be prepared to adapt to a tone appealing to them if you are not naturally within their social group. There are a number of factors to consider, but a couple that I would class as vital are Age and Social Background. If you want to attract a younger audience such as teens or young adults, they may possibly relate better to a more informal, chatty tone. An economically active audience may find a more formal, informative tone more appropriate as this can seem generally more reliable, intelligent or informed. However even with more formal tones, it is normally important to show some personality in your writing to make it more relatable.
5) Be Personable
That leads me onto my next point, appearing personable. In short, people like to know that you’re human. Seemingly insignificant things such as addressing them by name when you reply to their inputs, or occasionally delving into more expressive punctuation such as exclamation marks (advance with care, you don’t want to scare them off) can make the interaction seem personal and more intimate. Most customers are more likely to return to your business if they felt that you genuinely cared and put thought into your engagement.
6) Have A Responsive Website
This one is fairly self-explanatory. It’s important to ensure that all of your customers can access your website from whichever device they have at hand. This means making sure your website is optimised to be accessible via mobile phone, laptop, tablet etc. Generally speaking, if customers try to access your website via a device through which they cannot efficiently use your website, they will not hasten to visit it from a different device.
7) Network, Network, Network
Both the business and digital world are constantly expanding so rapidly that it is vital to constantly be making new connections in order to promote your company. One really good way to aid this is through hash tags, as long as they are kept relevant to the subject of your content. This automatically links you to other people and companies that are talking about the same subjects, making it easier for you to network with people with similar goals.