Power Up Your Online Presence

Given world events in early 2020, it’s clear that it’s important to be visible online. Many people have shifted to home offices while being “out and about” is discouraged. In some cases, temporarily illegal. People are going online – to social media and search engines – to find the products and services they are looking for. Will they find you?

 

While we can’t control world events, we can control what we do in response to them. Especially for solo-preneurs and small business owners, it can be easy to pivot and move in the direction of current circumstances.

 

 

Keep reading for some easy ways you can pivot and POWER UP YOUR ONLINE PRESENCE – Yeah

We’ll be talking about what works and what doesn’t. We want to make sure people can find you, and your products and services!

 

First, let’s talk about SOCIAL MEDIA.

 

 

A few of the most popular these days are: Facebook, LinkedIn, InstaGram, Pinterest, Twitter, and YouTube.

 

We both agree, choose 1-3 of these and focus your efforts where you will most likely find your best customers, clients and patients. If you are looking for those who are employed or own their own businesses, be on LinkedIn. If you are good with graphics, focus on InstaGram and/or Pinterest. If you know a lot of people on Facebook, set yourself up there.

 

It’s easy to see that the Holistic Chamber of Commerce (HCC) has a following on Facebook and I have 15,000 connections on LinkedIn. We started these accounts in the early days and they have had the most time to build a strong presence.

 

On the other hand, Charn is especially good on InstaGram and helps her clients with a presence there.

 

Especially if you are doing it all yourself, you’ll want to focus your time and energy. Frankly, the HCC can handle six (6) accounts because we have consultants who help us. Likewise, Media Stream has a team of consultants building websites and helping clients with social media.

 

 

 

Set yourself up with a few directory listings that give you hyperlinks that are “evergreen” and they will keep boosting your SEO over time. One of the advantages HCC members have is that our directory listings can be linked to a primary website as well as four different social media platforms (Facebook, LinkedIn, InstaGram and Twitter). All it takes is 15 minutes to get your directory listing optimized. Pretty powerful!

 

 

What is necessary to have on a bare-bones website? Consider these like you would a virtual “billboard” – Put one up so you can be found and seen as a professional, without too much upkeep needed.

 

When working with a web design team, make sure they have options that will work for you, from basic to advanced, and that they will teach you how to make updates on your own.

 

Make sure you get a professional site up first. You can always go back and add on when you are ready for high-level features and/or customization. Our HCC site has 5 levels of access (webmaster/tech team, staff, chapter presidents, members AND a public site that allows everyone and anyone to search for members and their events for free). Starting simple may make more sense for you.