We’re currently living in an interesting time, where the worldwide pandemic situation has pushed small businesses to transform their brick-and-mortar stores to semi-digital or even fully-digital stores.
As a small business owner, where should you begin? What steps will you take in order to stand out? Here are a few tips on how to embrace digital platforms for your small business.
Select and create your social media
The first obvious step is to create social media pages for your business. But you need to select which ones you’re going to use that is appropriate for your market.
For example, if you’re into food business, Instagram might be a good platform for you to showcase what your food looks like. If your target audience are millenials, Twitter and even TikTok might be the best for you. If your business is more on the classy and formal side, you might be inclined to choose Facebook and LinkedIn to showcase your products and services.
Plan and create your content
In the world wide web, content really is the key for you to gain a proper following. It’s not a build-and-forget type of situation. You need to post regular content on your social media, or else, your pages will look like they’ve been abandoned and empty, and your visitors – who could have been converted to customers – will look elsewhere.
Your content doesn’t necessarily have to be cinematic or super stylish in quality, as long as it is clean and well-presented. Perhaps you can start with a simple blog series, or a selfie-style explainer videos. As long as you provide information relevant to your business, it’s always a good starting point.
Create a website
Most businesses, especially in the Philippines, think that simply creating a Facebook page is enough to start a digital business. However, the benefits of having your very own dot-com website is undeniable.
Your business will look more credible if you have your very own your-business-name-dot-com website.
Plus, you’re also in full control of your website. Think subscription forms, promo codes, embedded chat box for customer support, embedded map, photo gallery, blog section, and so on – and you get to control what they look like and how they function on the website you fully own.
Your own website can act as a hub to all your social media. It will be the one-stop-shop for all the information your potential clients want to know about your business. It’s arguably best equivalent of having a sort of brick-and-mortar store in the digital space, so to speak.
Consult a website expert
Consulting a web expert might sound like another extra cost that would be otherwise free if you just do the website building yourself, but it is surprisingly affordable.
Celeste Graphics offers affordable website services for your small business, and checks all the boxes you need in order to build and jumpstart your online platform, such as mobile website compatibility, search engine optimization (SEO), setting up Google Analytics, and integrating your website with all your social media.
Celeste Graphics even offer FREE basic logo design with their website services, which is perfect for startups, or even long-established businesses with a need for a logo design refresh.
Plus, Celeste Graphics will guide you on how to optimize and maintain your social media presence and website, since training is included FREE with their website packages.
Consultation is FREE of charge, so check out Celeste Graphics for their affordable website services.