5 QUICK WAYS TO GET ONLINE
With social distancing affecting us all it's probably a great time to talk about bringing your business online, so here are five speedy ways to get your business started with an online presence:
1. set up facebook for your business
You thought I would say a website, right? Well, think of a website as a kind of online anchor, holding your social media presence down and giving it credibility and stability. But to get immediate attention - and drive traffic to your website - you need a business facebook page. Not a personal one - a business one. With 1.62 billion users per day, pretty much everyone is on facebook. Spend a little bit of time getting some decent pictures together and some copy describing your business and you should be able to get a facebook business page launched within an hour. That's as quick as it gets! But a word of warning - the page is only the start of your online journey.
2. Set up a Wix website
Of course this is high on the list. That's because setting up a Wix website is super easy to do. Create an account, pick a template and drop in some of your pictures and copy, link it to your web address et voila! A website that looks professional and gives your business credibility. Of course, using a template means it could look pretty similar to other sites, but the main thing is you will get a website that works on PC and mobile, and you can have it up and running within a day.
3. Create an Etsy Shop
If you have a physical product to sell that's arty or crafty then Etsy is for you. Create an account, add your beautiful products and sell, sell, sell. You can manage stock of your products and shipping costs so you stay in control. Of course you need to be clever with your keywords so your products pop up in the Etsy search. You'll also pay selling fees so you need to decide if it's worth it to you to access the marketplace, but you could have a great looking online presence for your products in a few hours.
4. Create an Instagram account
Again this is more relevant for you if you have attractive physical products to sell. Beautiful pictures of your handcrafted items tell a great story and can be integrated with your other social media accounts. Craft your bio carefully to reflect your brand and don't forget to tag your posts with the appropriate hashtags. With 500million users a day you can't afford to ignore Instagram and you should be good to go in just a couple of hours. 5. Create a Twitter account If your business is related to entertainment, PR, sport, politics or marketing then twitter is for you. You can create and develop an engaging brand personality, commentating and conversing with others on current events in real time. Twitter is fast moving and timely so you will need to pay it more attention than some of the other social media channels to get it working for you, but hey, what else are you going to do whilst we're in lockdown? Setting up your twitter account is super quick, half an hour should see it done - but it will take some time to build followers and create awareness so know that -as with anything - you will get out what you put in.
Good luck and have fun