3 Main Players to Build Strong Online Presence

Did you know there are 3 Main Players in the Digital Space?

These three main players have one agenda, and that is to keep you on their platform for as long as they possibly can. The more time you spend engaged on their platform, the more they can charge business owners to spend money advertising to you. There was a show that was on Netflix recently called, “The Social Dilemma.” Being a bit of an internet nerd, I spent half the time talking to the screen and finishing their sentences. As Google, Facebook, TikTok and every other online platform, have one goal to keep you on their platform for as long as possible … and coming back for more! As a business owner, you need to understand how to take what each of these platforms have offered and use that to grow your business and make it work for you.

Each of these platforms gives you the opportunity to not only give value but to show your expertise to your ideal client. So how do these three platforms impact where you should be showing up online?

Google in the Digital Space

With Google, you can actually run your entire business online just by using all the different apps that they provide. Google also owns YouTube and Google Suite or G Suite, which is an entire platform for you to run your business, from documents to sheets, to filing systems and emails. It is also where 93% of all online searches start. So it’s a bit of a no brainer, as a business owner, to make sure that you do have yourself set up on Google.

Importance of Google My Business

One of the fastest and at the moment free ways of getting on Google is to set up a Google My Business account. I’ve done videos and trainings on Google My Business, so if you’re not too sure what that is, I do recommend that you go and have a look at Google My Business to get it set up.

It’s quite ironic that for Google, being the largest digital platform that there is, to actually get your business registered if you don’t have a landline, is to actually have a card sent out to you in the post. So unless you can show them a shopfront or you can accept a phone call via a landline to give you a code, you have to apply and they will send a postcard in the mail. I did a post a little while ago when I did become a Google specialist, as I received a beautiful glass plaque that was sent via post. I find it so ironic, that the world’s largest digital platform still uses the postal service to get information out to us.

With your Google My Business, you can set up your services, your products, photos, videos, and you can post content exactly the same as what you do with Facebook or Instagram or any of the other platforms. The bonus is the call to action button on that post can be directed back to your website or anywhere else that you want to send people to online.

YouTube as One of the Most Effective Platforms for Businesses

Most kids and the younger generation spend the majority of their time on YouTube these days. In fact, they spend more time on YouTube than watching television. Having a really good online presence and a really good video presence is a great way to show up. If your demographic is people that are wanting to learn, wanting to find information, wanting to discover how to do something, or if it’s just wanting to be entertained, then YouTube is your place to go.

Did you know that 83% of all online traffic, by the end of this year, will be video? If you have particular videos that you embed on your website, that also adds to your watch time and to your statistics because you can start making money from YouTube if you’ve got it set up correctly. However, you need to have at least 1,000 subscribers and 4,000 hours of watch time. So, there is a little bit of a process behind it but it is one of the fastest ways to get yourself out there and for people to actually see you and decide if they want to work with you. (I also have an online course teaching you how to set up & optimise your YouTube Channel for Business growth – you can check it out here)

Facebook in the Digital Space

Facebook seems to be the go-to for most people when it comes to online. In fact, 50% of Australians, log into Facebook every single day. Pretty much everybody that you know has a Facebook profile. The general demographic these days is mid-twenties to mid-forties. Although while the older generations are joining, the younger ones are moving more towards to Instagram, Snapchat, and TikTok. However, Facebook for most businesses is one of the best ways of setting up a company page so that people can find you and discover what it is that you do and how you help people.

The more time that we spend online, the more we want relationships with people that we actually do business with. So being on Facebook and building relationships with your ideal client is one of the best ways to go. Facebook also owns Instagram, an image platform, where uploading relevant pictures is a great way to inspire your ideal client to work with you.

How Does Facebook Challenge Competitors?

One of the most interesting things when it comes to Facebook is that one of their competitors take your time and attention away from Facebook or Instagram, they will start creating a system to bring you back in. When COVID hit, everybody was using Zoom, so Facebook created Meeting Rooms. People could connect with their fellow workers, and communicate via meeting rooms. When TikTok arrived, Instagram has launched Reels, which is a basic TikTok-based platform. On Instagram, you go in just like you do in stories and create a 15-second video.

Also when it is something new that Facebook or Instagram have launched, they will promote that above any of their other tools, so becoming an early adopter means you get better engagement. So, when Facebook or Instagram, launch something new, get on it, start understanding how it works, and start practising with it because that means you’re going to get more reach.

Microsoft in the Digital Space

Microsoft has tried to target itself as a direct competitor to Google, with the ownership of LinkedIn, Skype, and Bing.

Why is Bing So Important for Business Owners?

Most people buy computers or laptops that are either Apple or Microsoft-based which means most people generally don’t take the time to change their online operating system or their internet service system on their IOA Laptop or desktop. At least 20% of people that own a laptop that’s not an Apple-based will be using Bing as their online operating system.

With Bing, you’ve also got My Places, which they bought out as a direct competition to Google My Business, as well as having their own form of Bing advertising.

How Can LinkedIn Help Your Business?

Microsoft also owns LinkedIn and it has an interesting payment system. It is set up so it is not reliant as much on advertising as what Google and Facebook are as their subscribers, which are usually business owners pay a monthly fee for the premium package. This premium fee gives greater access to people in their network, allowing them to see who has checked out their profile, while tracking people a lot easier with great statistics and insights.

Even though they’re not as reliant on advertising, you still get the opportunity to advertise on LinkedIn. The reason that you would want to be on any of these particular platforms is that when people are searching for you, 9 times out of 10, your Facebook profile and your LinkedIn profile will come up in the search engines.

With LinkedIn, it is predominantly business-based. If you are dealing business to business, that is one of the best ways and one of the best platforms for you to be on. Like everything online, there is a strategy behind everything that you do. But the one thing that remains consistent, is that you really do need to build relationships. Rocking up, dumping everything online, and disappearing without connecting with anybody else, or commenting, sharing, or building relationships, is not going to get you anywhere. Because, the basic tenets of marketing don’t change. People need to know, like, and trust you before they will give you their money.

Bonus: Pinterest as a Player in the Digital Space

There is another particular player online called Pinterest, which is a search engine in itself. If your ideal client is a woman between the ages of 25 to even 60, you need to be on Pinterest. Pinterest generally has a demographic of about 75% female. So the average woman, when she gets onto Pinterest, will spend two hours creating boards, whether it’s getting recipes, designing her house, figuring out what to do. There are so many different boards and things that the average woman spends two hours on Pinterest, every single time she gets on there. If that is your demographic, have a look at Pinterest, because it’s one of the great ways of actually driving people back to your website.

Interestingly enough, I had a client who was a builder. It was a franchise system, and they had franchises up and down the Eastern Seaboard of Australia. Every single month without fail when we were doing the SEO for their businesses, Pinterest would come up in the top three of their search reports, because there were so many women that were getting onto Pinterest, having a look at the designs of their homes, having a look at the pictures of the display homes that they’ve built, or the floor plans of the display homes that they built and saving it to their boards. Every single time someone clicked on that particular board or that particular post, they were ending up straight back at that client’s website. That’s something else to keep in mind.

Once you know exactly who your ideal client is, that gives you a much better understanding of where you should be online. I do actually have a download that will tell you exactly where you need to be online based on the industry that you’re in and who your ideal client is. Remember, the sole purpose of everything that we’re doing here is to save you time, to save you money, and to keep you focused on the things that you need to help you grow your business online.

Whether you have any questions or simply want to chat, drop a comment below! We offer a full range of done for you realistic, practical marketing solutions for your business that deliver results and hit the spot with your customers. You can check out what we do here.

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