Strong Online Presence

For the new small business owners of today, there was a time long ago when you had to send out flyers or pay for newspaper or television advertisements to reach and inform people about your product or services. 

Primitive yet effective, these ancient techniques are still in use today; local, state, and national politicians still mail out flyers and postcards; you can still see 15 second commercial ads for a neighborhood service or dealership, and newspapers stay full with local advertisement.

However, in today’s social media driven world, we can get all that information and more from just one place – the Internet. You can buy an ad within Facebook and be seen more than those old methods combined.

With a small start-up, we understand that media advertisement may not be within the budget. But with these five strategies, you can build an impressive social media presence for your business that won’t cost you a dime.

Build Engagement
It’s not enough to just make a social media post and then leave it alone; it also won’t matter how many followers you have if they don’t have an interest in what you share. The goal here is to get your followers to converse. Your posts shouldn’t be just for the sake of posting, but have the purpose of getting people talking, leaving comments, and replying.

You want to interact with your audience, and that interaction will lead to other people wanting to interact with you as well. Engagement is half the battle – have your audience talking with your business and talking about your business.

Increase Your Audience
There are a million and one things you can do to build your business, but if you only have a few people to see those things, or none at all, then what’s the point? You need to have a target audience, which typically are your main consumers.

With building an online presence, many small business owners have found success by guest posting on other pages, being featured to write on an authority website like Huffington Post, CNN, etc., or having interview podcasts. If you find those methods difficult, you can always just find where your target audience is online, and demonstrate why it’s best to follow you.

Avoid Feeling Envious
In this digital age, anyone can easily flaunt their success – they have a right to. It could be in a social media post, a podcast, or anything that shows an achievement in the same area that you’re struggling with. And while you may feel a little jealous, remember that worrying about someone else draws focus from yourself and your goals. You can simply acknowledge that person’s success, and then keep it moving with your own grind of building your business.

Have Indisputable Value
Remember the first tactic about building engagement? Well, this strategy goes hand-in-hand because to promote an engaging audience you must have quality content – no posting for the sake of posting. When audiences see your posts, they should be seeing valuable information. So put in some genuine effort towards the content you create; it should be good to the point where others are talking about what your business is doing.

Keep An Open Mind
You have to understand that there is no failsafe blueprint to building a dominant online presence – what may worked for others didn’t go well for you, while other things played to your advantage. Successful small businesses have owners who are constantly learning their craft.

It’s your responsibility to figure out what works for you, or experiment with what worked for others. With the right amount of effort and a repertoire of social media techniques, you can increase your small business’ exposure without having to invest much money in advertisements.

Of course, a process such as this isn’t achieved overnight. And there are other obligations you are accountable for with your business like federal compliance. Get more time to file your business tax returns with an extension from ExpressExtension. With our FREE downloadable app for iOS and Android devices, you can quickly e-file your business tax extension form 7004 from anywhere, and get back to how well your social media posts are trending.

Contact our live customer support team in Rock Hill, South Carolina for any questions or assistance with e-filing your tax extension. We’re available at (803) 514-5155, Monday through Friday from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. EST, or send an email to [email protected].