The Benefits Of Embracing An Online Presence As An Entrepreneur

There’s been a massive shift in consumer behavior over the past decade. Previously, people and businesses trusted advertisements to lead them to the products and services they bought. Now, they have social media like Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. Many people now research a product extensively before buying it. B2B customers might research the company or even CEO before signing a new contract. This is a great opportunity for smart CEOs.

Entrepreneurs with zero social media presence are leaving money on the table. Being invisible is a very bad business strategy.

Set up a marketing plan
Like with any media plan, it helps to come up with a strategy. While it might be tempting to sign up for every app haphazardly, your focus is very important. Don’t bite off more than you can chew because it is easy to get overwhelmed. Inactive accounts can make your business look bad because it makes it look like you have no customers.

What do you want to accomplish? What do you want to drive home? Think of what your brand stands for and how to convey that to customers. Are you trying to drive them to take advantage of a seasonal sale or increase sales of a service contract?

A great example of a CEO who “gets it” is SpaceX and Tesla CEO Elon Musk. By following his posts on Twitter, you can see he is a passionate man and likes nerdy stuff. And when his experiments go wrong, he speaks to people on a practical and realistic level.

How to start
You should focus on only a few networks that fit your style. If you’re more visual, try Instagram or Snapchat. If you’re good at quips, Twitter is great. Longform is for Facebook, and traditional professional articles are for LinkedIn. Sometimes it can get overwhelming. This is especially true of dealing with comments. If your company is big enough, you can hire a community manager to provide assistance.

Try posting once or twice a week. Build a two way street for conversation and try to build rapport. You can also curate the news with added personal commentary. Try to invite some discussion, either from the crowd or other influencers.

Social media is here to stay. Businesses that miss out on this megatrend are losing out. While it’s not a cakewalk by any means, every business should have a presence.

Originally posted on KevinOrtzman.net.