Social media is great, there is no doubt about that, I got my business off the ground using it. It is a great cost effective medium for start up businesses to use to get brand recognition because anyone can do it and you can do it for free.
However for that exact reason your messages can be lost in the ocean of messages that people see and the big question therefore is, “How do you stand out?” It takes a long time to build brand recognition and to generate a following of people to “like”, “tweet”, “share” your brand. So many people I talk to about online promotion think that if they build it they will come, when in reality it is far from that. Being a social platform, social media requires you to be social but more than that you need to follow the rules of that platform in order to get your message to more people. Facebook call this reach, reach is how many people saw your message. The more news feeds your message appears in the more likely someone is to see it and therefore the further your brand’s reach will be. Sounds simple, hey? Well the reality is that even if you know that, you’re still a long way from reality. If you want your business to appear in the news feeds of your fan’s friend’s pages then you need to talk to a company like SLAM Strategy, who understand how the platforms work.
So while people are busy looking at how Facebook can be their next big thing to help them with the growth of their business, many are choosing to ignore the realities of online and that is that 90% of all online searches are done using Google.
If your business isn’t coming up in search results for the words that relate to your businesses products or services then you are invisible to anyone searching for you. This can be the difference between your business thriving or failing; it’s as simple as that.
If you have the budget, you should firstly be looking at creating a sound and profitable Internet strategy around generating sales through Google. There are many businesses out there that can perform your Adwords or your Search Engine Optimisation. The reality is that what makes an online strategy successful has very little to do with the Adwords or optimisation work itself, but more to do with making sure you are implementing the right strategy for your business and that it takes you to where the real money is made.
