Wasp Barcode Technologies: The Barcode Solution People

How influential is your new business online?

You have started a new business, set up a fantastic new website, signed up to various social media sites and developed a blog. Whilst you sit there feeling pretty pleased with yourself for the amount you have achieved with setting up your new business, what do you do now with the online marketing platforms you have in front of you? One of the biggest mistakes some new businesses make is constant sales posts across social media, bombarding anyone who shows you the decency to follow or like your business, on how they must buy your fantastic new product or service. When you first begin to use social media no one will know who you are, what your brand represents, or what you do. We all know people buy from people they like, and more importantly trust, so why do some new businesses think this will be any different with social media? Let’s go back to basics; to start you need to build relationships and trust. How you will achieve this is by developing a realistic social media strategy that focuses on what you primarily want to use social media for. Once you have decided on this, you need to determine what you want to say, how often you will post, and more importantly how you will build your influence. By growing your influence, you are building your authority and credibility amongst your community. You want to be seen as the expert in your specific field of business so people will look to you when they want information within that particular subject. The more influence you have online, the more successful your return on investment is to your social media activities. In the recent Technorati’s 2013 Digital Influence Report more than 90% of the brands surveyed have a presence on Facebook. This was followed by 85% on Twitter and Google ranked lowest with only 26%. Blogs also ranked relatively low with only 32%, however, the report shows that “according to consumers, blogs are more influential in shaping opinion than Twitter, and when it comes to affecting purchase decisions, more important than Facebook.” Taking this on board, it would suggest people are choosing blogs more favourably when looking for information online or to make a purchase. With this in mind, if you blog regularly with content that creates value to the reader, you are more likely to be influential online and become a trusted source of information. Strengthen your influence, by promoting your blog across all social media platforms and your online community will grow. Being influential online does not happen over night, but if you keep creating and sharing compelling content, eventually people will listen. Good luck!