Starting a Business in a Small Town? Here’s How Social Media can Help You Get the Buzz

Growing up in a suburban area makes it kind of difficult for me to buy things because the place has limited resources and stocks of items. Also, it is far from everywhere and if I use Uber to go to the city, it would be very expensive (since it is far). However, looking at this from business perspective, you can actually find both advantages and disadvantages when it comes to opening a business in a small town like this. You may be familiar with the disadvantages, right, difficult networking process, difficult reach to audience and many more. That being said, you can make use of this one advantage; the fact that the suburban area may lack resources is the problem for the people living there is enough for you to provide them with solutions. After all, a business exists to become a solution to a problem. If you give this a thought, you can create something helpful for the people living there with your business. I know what you’re thinking; it is not easy building a business in a small town where you seldom find prospects. However, even though you are living in a small town, you can still use technology, right? Yes, there is one strategy you can use for building your business in this digital era even though you are in a small town; social media. No matter where you are living and where you are going, if you have access to social media, you can make great efforts for your business marketing strategy. As a person who provides social media services for clients, I have met people from small towns looking to start their own company. Trust me; you don’t know how much influence social media can bring to businesses. With the right steps I’m going to share with you in this article, you can build your small business in your small town with social media. Keep reading to learn more!

Know what you need and who to target in your business

First, before you start with social media, you need to know what you need for your business and who you want to target for your products. For this, you need to conduct a thorough research on your market and write down what you need to plan in the future as your marketing strategy. However, you need to be careful when researching for this. For example, there are no Boba drinks in your area, but most people who live in your area are older people who have no interest in drinking this kind of drink. Therefore, you can’t expect to grow your business if you are selling Boba drinks. For that reason, you need to make sure to conduct a well-planned research that is in accordance with your target and your products.

Choose what kind of business you want to start

So, with your knowledge of your surroundings, you put two and two together and start choosing what type of business that works with the situation in your area. For example, if your area doesn’t have complete grocery store, maybe you can provide more well-resourced grocery stores in your area because you know the people in your surroundings need your business. When you have finally chosen your business type, create a plan.

After finding your target and setting up a careful plan, start your social media strategy

Okay, so you know your business type, your target and your plan. Now what? Of course, it’s social media time! And yes, before you dive deep into social media, I will not get tired of reminding you to do some research first. You have to choose which social media platform that will work best for your business. Instagram is the most chosen social media platform for business because it provides wider audience than other social media platforms.

Do the first thing to do on social media

Yes, you want to promote your business on social media, but what’s the first thing to do? Hold your horses! Never underestimate the power of social media buzz, but also never underestimate the process you have to do in order to reach your target audience – it is not that simple. You don’t just post random content; it has to be done properly. You need to create engaging content on social media especially if your business is new to social media. The first kind of content for your social media should be a sneak peek for your audience to see what kind of product to offer and tell them (literally) that you are coming soon.

Consider ads and influencers for your business

I know starting out a business alone is already difficult, let alone investing your money in other parts of your business, but this is business we are talking about. If you are not willing to take risks and invest money for your business, you are not ready for business. Going for ads on social media is important because social media ads have features that allow you to reach the right audience that is more interested in your products rather than random people you find from hashtags because social media will then show your ads to the people who often search for related content. Aside from ads, you can opt for hiring social media influencers to get some buzz so that you can increase your brand awareness. Keep in mind that it is advisable to hire social media influencers that have the similar niche to your business. For example, if you start a beauty brand, you can hire a social media influencer who is a make-up artist or a beauty vlogger. This will be a good start for your business.

Yes, that’s how you grow your business through social media. It doesn’t matter where your business is, small town or big town, you can still find your target customers! However, keep in mind that you may have to invest more money for social media marketing strategy and it is okay as long as you choose the right strategy for that.

Business Mindset 101: Build a High-Converting Website for Your Business with These Key Points

There are many things in life that I have always overlooked and even underestimated. As a person who is so practical while being perfectionist at the same time, I tend to look for random solutions without seeing the big picture. For example, when I went to the grocery store, I found a sign in front of the store noting that the grocery offered a 20% discount for cooking oil but they limited the purchase up to 3 packs. My practical thinking decided to let it be and just buy 3 packs. Then my perfectionist mother suddenly grabbed my wrist before I entered the store, and said, “You go first, buy 3 packs of cooking oil and a half of our shopping list. When you’re done, I’ll go inside to buy another 3 and the rest of the shopping list.” When I heard my mother’s simple solution, I was like, “Wow, why didn’t I ever think about that?” To think that something so simple like that could actually make a big difference. When I think about it that way, it kind of reminds me of business owners who think they don’t need a website. Being practical is important when it comes to having a business, but being smart about it is more important. Making a website for business may take time and it is not that simple, I know, but you can’t grow your business by simply staying in the same spot. Having a website is crucial for businesses nowadays. In Melbourne, many businesses like yours have a website because they know the impact a website can bring for their business. A website can improve your business credibility, enhance your online presence, build a strong relationship with your target audience, as well as promote your business with more efficient ways. So, what kind of high-converting website that can help you grow your business? I spoke to web developers Melbourne and here’s what they say. Keep reading to learn more!

Create a website that is easily accessible

There is one important rule that every business owner has to know when it comes to building a high-converting website; make the website easy for visitors to access. Treat your website as if it was your offline store. Imagine if your visitors came to your offline store but you built a labyrinth-like way to your door that made it difficult for your potential customers to even open the door to your store, what would they do? Well, I would leave immediately if I were them. So, how do you make your website accessible? If you want to make it easier for your website visitors to reach your website easily, first, you have to…

Discuss about important aspects of a website with your web developers and web designers                                                                                                                                     

Even though you know you are creating a website, you should know that at this point, you are not just creating a website – you are creating your store, in a form of online presence. Discussing about important aspects of a website with the developer and designer team is important because you are talking about your brand. The only one who knows the identity of your brand is you so you have to communicate with your team about what you want for the design and how you want your website to work. When you communicate with them, they will tell you exactly how it should be done and what should not be done when it comes to creating a website as well as what works and what won’t work. From this, you can then brainstorm some ideas to find solutions to make everything work without impacting your website functionality. So, what did I mean by ‘what works’ and ‘what won’t work’? Well, you should know that…

A website should be friendly with both search engine and user

You can create a very stunning website with marvelous design but if it is not search engine friendly and even hurts visitors’ eyes, it is not a website at all – it is just a junk. There are things you need to pay attention to when you are building a website with your team:

  • The size of the image or video content on your website (large size content can make your website difficult to load properly)
  • The text content should be legible and easy to understand (Too much text content or too many grammatical errors on your website can make visitors leave and skip the important part of your business)
  • A website should be able to load in no more than two seconds (That’s a fact!)

Building a website may be a pain in the neck at first, but when you get things straight with your website, it will be easier next. Understand your brand and always be well-informed about your website progress and condition. That way, you can make sure your website is safe and running optimally.

Build Your Personal Brand with These 3 Crucial and Effective Ways

When you are in a happy relationship, the problem is not about if your partner loves you or not. It is more about whether your relationship will stay that way or end quickly. Sometimes we can get something so easily, but preserving the value is another story. The real example I can give you is; a trend. It is so easy for a popular product to be the hype in the industry, but so quick to disappear once another new hyped up trend comes in. It is easy to spend money for shopping, but it is hard to manage it. As a person who works at a creative agency that provides web design, web development and content marketing services as well as other services that can help clients’ business grow, my hardest challenge of keeping up my good work is how to keep audience interested in my content so that my clients will find more new customers as well. That being said, with our team’s hard work, we have succeeded in keeping our clients satisfied with our work by using more engaging types of digital marketing content that will keep audience entertained and of course they will absolutely love it. How? Keep reading to find out!

Videos and motion graphics

Be honest with me, when you see some content, which one would you prefer; video or text? I absolutely love videos and motion graphics and I’m pretty sure many people would choose videos over text. However, there is one thing you should understand when it comes to having video as content; the way you engage with viewers in that videos or motion graphics. I always go to YouTube to watch videos about life-changing lifestyle tips, but I don’t like the type of video where a man or a woman just talking about some tips in the video without including tools or aspects that can engage and interact with viewers. I always love watching content from Improvement Pill on YouTube. Instead of flat out talking about tips, they use graphic motion and great animation to boost the explanation and turn it into entertaining education. Sure you can still use the usual real-person video, but make sure you add fun stuff in it.

Infographics and social media micronarratives

Static content is a powerful tool for capturing and keeping audiences’ attention. On social media, share small snippets of information like fascinating graphs, for example, that can stand alone in posts. Using mini-infographics can also drive traffic to full-length infographics living on your site or blog.

Interactive infographics

According to Demand Metric, interactive content can boost a 70-percent conversion rate. That’s because interactive infographics, widgets, landing pages and more can help viewer personalise content for themselves. BuzzFeed’s famous quizzes are the good example for that. I for one am fond of their fun quizzes. I love it when I visit an online shopping website with features like interactive infographics or quiz because it is more effective to help me know useful things about myself and find what kind of products that are suitable for me.

Even though there is nothing wrong with using text for content, too much of it can make the content dull and lifeless. Engaging types of digital marketing content like those I have mentioned above can help you communicate better with your target audience as well as boost their interest in buying your products or hiring your services.