In today’s ever-growing behemoth of online marketing avenues you can utilise within your business, its far less straight forward like back in the days of newspaper and radio campaigns. In 2019, it’s crucial you are utilising the extremely powerful and lucrative platforms available to you.
Depending on your industry, depending on your target audience, you can leverage online platforms to help showcase your business and get ‘known’ in your industry.
If you’re not known, if you’re obscure, if people can’t find you - it doesn’t matter how GOOD you are at something, the guy whose a con-artist who can get in front of people will always do better.
So here is 4 platforms that many business owners still aren’t utilising to help grow their business and beat the dangerous, lethal prospect of being obscure in your industry.
- 1. YouTube
Since it’s inception in 2005, YouTube has grown into a massive video-sharing platform with over 300 hours of content loaded every single MINUTE. YouTube is so powerful, its watched more now than general TV alone. So think about it, you can pay tens of thousands of dollars for a short video campaign on TV, or you can setup with a few hours your own YouTube channel with videos promoting and educating them about your product / service.
The great thing about video is how engaging it is. People love to watch video, its immersive and entertaining / informative if done right. A video will be watched many more times than an article written out like this would be.
With YouTube consider creating video content including:
- Product reviews
- Customer testimonials
- Case studies
- Informative Q & A videos
- Free value-add videos
And so forth… Just get in front of the camera and shoot a video. If you look at many of the worlds biggest and best business minds, they’re all creating in some cases videos using their smartphone.
You don’t have to spend thousands on video production.
- 2. LinkedIn
Still full of untapped potential, many business professionals still are not enlisted on LinkedIn, but more-so their business is not listed. LinkedIn gives business owners the ability to list their business on LinkedIn and furthermore have the ability to post and promote their business on LinkedIn.
Whether you want to post videos (from Youtube perhaps), write value-add articles (such as something like this) or want to promote a case-study… it’s a fantastic tool to get your business out there in front of other business professionals.
The great thing about LinkedIn again, is you are really refining who you are getting in front of. If you’re dealing B2B, then its fantastic because you can using LinkedIn’s advanced targeting features, to get your business in front of people in specific industries, job roles, locations and areas of expertise!
Many influencers are still heavily pushing the fact that LinkedIn is very lucrative in relation to the more saturated platforms like Facebook. (Which isn’t mentioned here because you probably are already be using it!)
- 3. Instagram
Instagram is great for selfie’s and sharing photos with friends and fans of hobbies and interests you share with others around the world, but it also has great potential for those in business.
If you’re in a business that deals with tactile consumer products - like Shoes and Shirts all the way through to Cars and Cameras, then Instagram can be a great way to showcase your products.
Instagram is engaging because it uses video and imagery, if someone wants to look at their favourite car or favourite pair of shoes - they can easily search using hashtag keywords to find what they’re looking for.
If you for example, sell a product that helps clean cars - then using Instagram you can post pictures of happy customers and their cool-looking clean cars!
Take another example - you may be a fashion designer. Using Instagram you can post images of cool things that you are working on and engage with other like-minded fashion lovers through Instagram.
Unlike LinkedIn, Instagram is more B2C (business to consumer). So again, its perfectly suited to those of you who sell a product (or even a service) that can be promoted via engaging content on Instagram.
- 4. Google My Business
Since it’s inception - Google My Business allowed companies to get their business location mapped on Google Maps. Nowadays its really developed into a full online profile comparable to that of Facebook and LinkedIn. Business owners can add detailed content to their profile including things like services offered, contact details, opening hours and other useful details.
One of the great things about Google My Business is you can get reviews loaded to your business from customers. These reviews are a CRUCIAL (emphasis on the CRUCIAL) way to get more people to your website from Google searches. A 2018 study showed that around 63% of people said they would research reviews before visiting a business through Google. So its imperative you get good quality 5 star reviews on your business listing.
Think about it. If you saw a business with 30+ 4 & 5 Star reviews, you’re going to be pretty darn confident that they are legit right?
Google My Business also has a posting feature where you can just like Facebook, promote what’s happening in your business. This again is very important, and can help people researching you on Google see that you are actively promoting and showcasing your business.
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If you aren’t utilising these platforms already, then you are missing out. For so long, I myself was screwing up by only focusing really on one platform (which was Facebook).
The great thing about using these platforms, is you can re-post some of the content you create on other platforms. Remember, each platform has a different tone and expectation to it. For instance - while Instagram and Facebook can be treated more lightly, LinkedIn is more of a professional platform.
Remember to consider how you convey your message on each platform.
