What Online Business Presence Do You Need?

There are many ways you can promote your business online. Of course everyone wants to maximise their presence online to have maximum reach to potential contacts which could turn into clients. If however you have limited staff and especially if you work on your business alone then you cannot possibly have enough time to take care of your online business presence.

That is why many social media influencers especially those with big social media following hire people to assist them in handling their social media presence. Having an online media presence does not only mean publishing content but also means handling the people who interact with your online presence content.

I always check the online presence of the companies I intend to apply with. In one company I applied for they have a very angry customer who when I checked posted angry complaints about the company in several social media sites dedicated to evaluating businesses. The company has no knowledge of this and only became aware of this when I informed them.

Websites that Interact With Clients

Many companies have their own websites even many one man businesses can afford their own websites. However many websites do not really interact with their customers. They have simple contact information where you can send your messages to them and many do not even bother to answer back unless it is a sales query.

These websites also mainly post positive reviews about them and try to hide the negative ones. A well managed online business presence will not try to hide negative reviews of customers but would show the customers that they are addressing their complaints. This shows the other customers the level of their customer care and integrity.

Even a one person business should have time allotted to at least scan the publicly online messages sent to them by their clients and take special care of those with complaints before the complainers lose their temper and spread negative complaints of your company all over the internet.

You may have done nothing to the complainer but they may still be out to ruin your business by destroying your reputation. You might have a competitor eager to take customers from you at any cost or just a plain nasty person who is out to ruin your business and reputation due to their own personal reasons. Sometimes in these situations being silent is not the best option.

Websites that Showcase Your Specific Products and Services

Many online businesses have no problem with this especially with highlighting the features and prices of their products and services. There are however many online businesses dedicated to media content generation especially online content who are not specific with their products and services and lightly touch on their qualifications and their past or current clients.

Whenever I see many of these online businesses I take the information I need from their website and hop on to the next. Sometimes I would be so impressed with the website contents that I would check out who created the website content such as an article or illustration to try to know more about them. More often than not I would have to check at other websites to know more about them and their other works.

If I were a prospective employer or someone interested in referring them to a company who I know might be interested in hiring them for their services then I would naturally look at their Resume. To be precise I would need their Online Resume. With an online resume you get to show your qualifications for a job without having to apply for any company in the first place.

You can do this with such business social media websites like LinkedIn and even ordinary social media sites like Facebook but a busy person which most employers are these days will not likely spend much time going to these sites just to prove to themselves that you are worth checking out much further. This could be a wasted opportunity for these online content creators.

With an online resume you also get to attach hyperlinks to your important details like the companies you worked for, the educational institutions you studied with, the description of the education or training you achieved and so on. Even without contacting you these prospective employers or customers already established some form of communication with you.

This is like a one way interview process that prospective employers or customers can do without you having to do anything. Add to this you should also have a sample of your media content portfolio available online for them to review. This is like indirectly going for job interviews 24 hours a day waiting for some prospective employer or customer to hire you.

Active Social Media Presence

There are media content creators like me whose time is largely spent creating media content and there are still others who attend more to the business side of things. Whatever you do with your schedule however do not forget to set a specific time to managing e-mail communications and social media communications if you have one.

Checking e-mails should be the first thing you do everyday even though you might hate it. The most important messages of today are sent via e-mail and companies of today mostly do not call anyone anymore to speak with them. Letting e-mails pile up unread could land you or your business in serious trouble as you might miss opportunities or worse life altering messages.

Whether you hate or like social media interaction you need one in order for your business to grow. You must however be selective and only choose the ones that you can actively maintain especially if your clients start using it to communicate with you. Dead or inactive social media accounts can be a turn off for your clients. Do not start a social media account you cannot actively manage or you risk alienating people.

Take note that actively maintaining a social media presence can be overwhelming and for many converting their social media followers or audience to paying customers is not worth their effort. So if you are a one person business with limited time choose only the social media platforms that would give you the highest number of paying customers and not just followers or audience who might just waste your time.

Scan for Your Online Presence Regularly

You should scan for your online presence regularly just to see a snippet of what people can see online about your name or company. For example when I searched for my name online one of the top results still shows that I am still working for my old company. If a prospective client tries to call this company they would have wasted their time which could hurt my reputation.

Conclusion

You may not like it but almost everyone will be connected to an online presence especially people who are working or those who have a business. These days if you want to grow your business it is essential that you maintain an active online business process for potential clients to know you. You must also be vigilant for opportunities and threats that will come through your online presence.