A robust digital presence ensures that your company is visible and consistent in voice across all significant web properties, including search engines, social media, and review sites. This kind of visibility helps bring the ultimate objective of your marketing strategy to fruition: inspiring your target audiences to take action.
A strong online presence is defined by consistency throughout all channels. If you’re appearing on top of the search results on search engines, constantly showing up in-feed of your intended audiences, and frequently updating your site with thought leadership pieces, your online presence is in good shape.
But more than everything else, a robust online presence is primarily about the trust it has among consumers, reflecting your brand message online. Trust and recognition add credibility to your online presence.
Here are five steps you should be taking to create a robust digital presence:
Engaging Social Media Presence
When it comes down to your online presence, social media is a key player. Having accounts on these platforms offer your brand an interactive way to make personalized connections with your target audiences. Strengthen your brand message by connecting your presence across various social media platforms. Your company should have profiles on all the networks that apply to your audiences. Create an engaging profile by asking questions, posting videos, and showcasing work to get customers to interact with your posts, and of course, interacting back with them. Our team member from Big Drop, Kaity Ayuso, stated the following:
Facilitating a two-way conversation with your audience is essential to building credibility as a thought leader in your industry and helps to humanize your brand. Users are increasingly looking to do business with brands they can identify with in some capacity, whether it be a mission they’re passionate about, shared values, or another part of your brand’s personality that resonates with them. Taking every opportunity to interact with your customers and strengthen this connection to your audience on social media will only add to your momentum during the process of building a strong digital presence.”
By developing an audience on social media, your brand can attract new customers and keep existing customers involved, establishing new, and furthering ongoing, relationships. For example, getting high reviews on Facebook is a great way to build up your reputation.
Regularly Updating Content
Customers rely on your online presence for useful information. Making sure your content is up to date makes a huge difference in building trust between you and your customers. Updated information also helps build domain authority. Potential customers may think that your company doesn’t follow the current trends if your website has out-of-date content, such as references to your company’s previous locations or antiquated technology. Anytime a visitor reads content on your site that confuses them, you’re hurting your credibility.
Keeping your Brand Consistent
In order to have a successful, robust digital presence, it’s important to keep your brand consistent throughout all channels. According to a recent survey from Lucidpress, 95% of organizations have branding guidelines, but only 25% have formal guidelines that are consistently enforced. This includes interaction with your brand’s digital elements – such as your website or on mobile devices. Predictability is crucial when it comes to maintaining brand consistency. From the same Lucidpress study, participants who were shown consistent brands were 3-4 times more likely to have excellent brand visibility than those with an inconsistent brand presentation. Maintaining the same tone and voice, color palette, fonts, and images will ensure you deliver consistently on your brand promise, making your marketing memorable. Consumers develop a sense of trust in your brand as a result of consistency, and this trust results in more favorable perceptions of your brand.
Maintaining a Good Reputation
Having a robust online presence is important for your business to maintain its reputation. In order to ensure that consumers know your brand is trustworthy, it’s important to make sure that consumers are aware of how the public perceives you. As a result, it’s crucial to take part in discussions about your company on platforms like Facebook, Google Business, and Yelp. These reviews function as social proof that your business is reliable and legitimate. You can prevent false claims that might cause you to lose business by regularly reviewing the reviews that are posted online. This will also help you address any problems that customers might be having with your products and services.
Consumers favor brands that actively care about their contentment and happiness. When you know what people are saying about your business, it’s easier to respond to inquiries and address issues. James Weiss, Big Drop’s Senior Director, stated the following:
Equally as important as crafting a brand’s presence, is having a complete picture of how it’s publicly perceived. Because digital presences are the main source of information for most consumers, a poor reputation can easily become the difference between a business being able to thrive, and, in some cases, survive. Internal teams at companies oftentimes work very hard to polish and refine their public appearance to align with their own perceptions of the brand they manage, but traditionally don’t invest as much time in understanding how their audience perceives them – a risky play, especially when trying to make data-driven, marketing decisions. Listening to what prospects, consumers, and the market at large has to say is a simple first step companies can take to mitigate any reputation risk. And, if these ecosystems aren’t saying much, that’s just as important.”
Building a Digital Ecosystem
Recent times have seen a digital change in business tactics. Establishing a digital ecosystem is crucial, regardless of where a company is in its digital journey. It aids in enhancing performance and facilitates contact with those outside the company. A digital ecosystem eliminates any difficulties related to out-of-date, legacy B2B services, allowing a business to concentrate its efforts on facilitating value. Digital ecosystems also improve customer connections by assisting businesses in reliably upholding service-level agreements, offering speedy solutions, and swiftly identifying expectations.
In Summary…
It’s crucial to think about how you can develop a strong online presence whether you’re starting a business or already have one. By doing so, you’ll be able to attract new consumers and keep your existing customers engaged with your brand.
At Big Drop, we’re here to help. Reach out today to start building the perfect robust digital presence that will enable you to achieve your online business goals and objectives.