Is your business visible enough to the prospective customers, vendors, and employees in whose hands its fate rests?
If it’s not actively managing its presence on these eight platforms, the answer is a resounding “no.”
Perhaps that’s not what your resource-strapped enterprise wants to hear. Unfortunately, it’s a fact of life — one that’s only likely to become more urgent as your industry grows more crowded and competition for impressions, engagement, and sales increases.
You’re ready to do what it takes to boost your company’s online visibility. You don’t have a choice. Here’s how to make the process as painless and fruitful as can be.
1. LinkedIn
LinkedIn is the preeminent social media platform for businesses in North America. If you don’t yet have an active LinkedIn profile, drop what you’re doing and create one. We’ll wait.
Good. Now that that’s done, take full advantage of LinkedIn’s capabilities:
- Access to millions of thought leaders, including top leaders in your industry
- Private and public LinkedIn groups where business leaders and organizations can discuss matters of mutual concern (and burnish their own credibility)
- Publishing tools that make it easy to broadcast short- and long-form updates and content
- Social features that bring you closer to your employees, customers, and industry peers
LinkedIn Premium is even more feature-rich. For most small and midsize businesses aiming to increase their market visibility, it’s a slam dunk.
2. Crunchbase
Crunchbase is one of the most popular business directory sites on the planet. With extremely high domain authority, your Crunchbase profile is basically a free entry on the first page of Google’s search results for your company name. It’s also a great venue for conveying key details about your company. The Crunchbase profile for InsureOne, a leading insurance broker, is a great example.
3. Medium
Medium is a blog-in-a-box, but better. Like Crunchbase, it has high domain authority, allowing users to reach audiences far wider than would be possible through their own personal blogs (though, as we’ll see, it’s important to have a branded business blog in your corner as well).
For inspiration about Medium’s possibilities, look to the thought leaders you’d like to emulate. For instance, billionaire entrepreneur Mark Cuban’s Medium profile is rife with insights about business and technology; yours can do the same.
4. Facebook
You most likely need no convincing that Facebook is a worthy investment of company time and resources. Do you know how to get the most out of your Facebook company page, though? If you’re not —
- Publishing multiple short-form updates per week
- Running contests and giveaways for loyal customers
- Joining (or starting) interest-specific Facebook groups
- Posting video and other multimedia content to your profile
— then you’re not utilizing Facebook’s potential to the fullest.
5. Yelp
Yelp: It’s not just for restaurants any longer.
A well-curated Yelp profile can burnish any organization’s reputation, not least because it’s the Internet’s most visible source (other than Google and Facebook) for unbiased customer reviews. Cultivate positive feedback by:
- Asking every customer to leave a five-star review after a completed sale
- Offering to make right any less-than-perfect experience
- Adding the Yelp sticker to your shop window and/or website
6. A Branded Business Blog
Your branded business blog is most likely to be on “receive mode,” at least to start. That is, the channels already listed here are likely to serve as funnels for its traffic. The narrow end of those funnels must lead to compelling content that your customers and prospects find valuable — and shareable, more importantly.
7. YouTube
If you’re not on YouTube, you’re doing video wrong. No need to invest in professional-quality equipment: Intimate talks and presentations filmed with a smartphone camera will suffice.
8. Twitter
An active Twitter feed is a powerful ally for your brand. More than any other platform, Twitter is a place to let your company’s true colors shine, as Patagonia’s Twitter feed exemplifies.
What Is Your Business Missing?
If your business isn’t reaching the audiences for these eight high-visibility platforms, it’s missing something. Full stop.
Fortunately, rectifying that omission is as easy as creating a free profile (or a few), or adding a new domain to your existing web hosting account. Your multichannel marketing apparatus will be up and running before the day is through.
Then again, creating these properties is just the start. If you really want them to make a difference to your marketing and branding campaigns, you’ll need to invest real resources in them. That means creating original content, posting regular updates, sharing third-party content that’s likely to resonate with your audience, and more.
As onerous as that sounds, you can’t afford not to make these investments. At least, not if you want your company to stay one step ahead of the competition in a crowded marketplace.