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How To Get Your Business Noticed In 2018

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#WOCinTech Chat

It is the start of a brand new year and with that comes fresh motivation in all aspects of your life. Sure many people give themselves goals and targets or even set new year’s resolutions to kick off the year in style, but much of this focus can be on your career or even a business. January sees the chance for you to take your business to a new level. Looking at the figures from the last twelve months, highlighting your highs and your lows, your areas of growth and the areas that could do with a little more attention. Which is why I thought now would be an ideal time to share with you some of the fabulous ways you could get your business noticed this year. Focusing on internal measures as well as how to get your business seen in the right way, I hope some of these options give you something to think about for the next year of business.

Using social media to your advantage

Social media is huge and can be massive for any business. While it can really be a great way to promote your business, there is so much competition out there that you also need to use the platforms in the right way. So here are some of the ways you can take advantage of social media with your business in the next twelve months ahead.

Focusing on growth

It’s common knowledge, that the more followers you have the bigger your reach and success will be on social media. But the trick is to have an organic following. There is a lot of “buy followers” or accounts that swear to up your numbers overnight, but is this really going to send the right message to those potential genuine customers? An organic following can be created, and it just means you need to be authentic with your uploads, be consistent and post genuine and quality content. As well as using it as an opportunity to advertise and promote your business products and services.

Engaging more with followers

Engagement is key to being successful on social media, which means that you need to start commenting back and responding to likes, shares and comments on any of your posts on social media. Many platforms like Facebook, Instagram and Twitter have direct message features, and often people use these to get in touch with questions they may have about your business. It also shows that you have taken time to comment back or even thank people for likes and shares, which goes a long way in regards to service for the future.

Creating a voice and showing an insight into your business

You may also want to consider creating a voice for your social media and giving an insight into your business. Instead of just sharing status updates or words, why not share the odd image. Facebook and Instagram have features such as live video clips, which can be a great way to give insight into your business as a behind the scenes sort of format. People love feeling that business is actually a person, or people that care, which could entice them to buy or use your company services in the future.

Running Competitions

Running competitions is a great way to try and increase following and engagement on your social media channels. A simple retweet or share of a status, r even a tag for other potential new followers to get involved can be a quick and easy way to bring some attention to your company or brand.

Support your local community

A lot of people are liking the idea of supporting local communities, which is seeing a rising trend of people going back to their local high street or using local business instead of larger corporations and this could be used in your favour. If you have a premises local then great, start drawing in the trade, but if you are online based you can still become the expert in your niche within your local community by advertising more locally. While you can concentrate on leaflets through doors or local radio, there are other options to consider.

Sponsor local events

Many towns or villages have a lot of local events and they are more than likely screaming out for some support in some way. It may be a donation in return for some advertising and sponsorship, or it could be simply donating prizes for raffles. You can go as big or as little as you want with it, but it’s a great way to be seen within your local community.

Work with a charity

Another great way to support your local community is to consider working with a local charity. The beauty of this working relationship is that each side can benefit. In return for advertisement, you can sponsor and become affiliated with the charity. Fundraising for them and offering donations not only helps them but also helps you in regards to getting seen by potential new customers.

Placing focus on your website

So much is done online these days that we can’t come away from the fact that more people are going to the internet. We shop online, seek answers to questions instead of referring to books, and we simply want to share aspects of our lives through social media platforms. So all businesses really need to be part of the digital world in some way with a decent website that is user-friendly while still being informative. We get impatient with slow websites or frustrated when things aren’t advertised correct or there is incorrect information. So working on your website could be the key to cracking the digital empire in the future. Which is why you may want to focus on some of these areas.

Thinking about your branding

Your branding is key to your website and digital presence. Often it is the first thing that draws attention to your website and business in a digital format, and so it is important to ensure that your brand stands out. This might mean that you want to think of a rebrand, maybe a new logo or a different color palette and strapline for your business. The small investment could have a big impact.

Adding new and exciting features

It is also important to ensure that your website is easy to use but also has all the required information a potential customer or client needs to complete a transaction with your company. An e-commerce site needs to be functional and hold the right level of stock quantities with the right prices. You might want to think about additional features like an online brochure or booklet that could hold all the information for a customer without overloading your website pages. That is where websites like InstantFlipbook.com could come in handy. Page loading is key to ensuring that you keep the interest of your customer, so keeping images good quality but easy to load up on your pages is key. When it comes to your website you need to make sure that all content is relevant and correct. This ensures that you are able to keep validity with your customers and also enables you to build up that trust.

Taking time to appreciate your colleagues and employees

The people you have around you, working each day on your business and vision. Be that your sales department, your accounts keeping things in check like cash flow and ensuring invoices are paid on time. Your service team members maybe. Your investors, or even yourself. Everyone deserves to feel appreciated within the workplace. Often making this a high priority not only makes the working environment better, but it is also good for business.

Job satisfaction and communication

While you can’t control how someone feels about their job, you can ensure that you do your utmost to ensure that they feel some form of job satisfaction, and one of the biggest ways you can do that is through communication. It might be discussing targets and sales growth, or simply pointers to help improve performance. It is vital to ensure that you have people working for you that want to be there, as this then gets portrayed to the customer. Often these people are your frontline and voice of your business, invest in them to ensure that they are giving off the right impression.

Happy employees mean recommendations and referrals for business

Finally, happy employees can often mean that they talk about it during their spare time. This is golden advertisement for you as word of mouth cannot be bought or strategically sorted. It comes from genuine happiness and passion. If you have happy and fulfilled colleagues and employees then they will equally, without realizing, promote your products and services. Be that just talking about what they do, or even having the products and services themselves in which they can then spread their satisfaction to others. It’s good business.

I hope that some of these options has gotten you inspired to consider trying some of them this year.

Photo Credit: #WOCinTech Chat

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    UrbanGeekz Staff
    UrbanGeekz Staff
    UrbanGeekz is the first to market tech blog focused on covering content from a diverse and multicultural perspective. The groundbreaking videocentric multimedia platform covers technology, business, science, and startups.
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