Entrepreneurs starting their small businesses can also compete on a level playing field against big businesses by taking advantage of the world of digital marketing. Because as everything posted online can reach a wide audience, so goes the chances of small businesses to spread the good word about the brand and quality of services they provide.

To kick off our learning today, here are some useful digital marketing ideas for small businesses.

Increase your online presence

First things first, you need to have online visibility. When marketing and advertising are starting to gear heavily towards molding a digital presence, it is fitting that you create an online presence for your brand as well. It is not uncommon for a small business nowadays to have its own social media account. Make sure to get the word out about your branding through social media posts on Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter.

Engage other users by creating engaging content that will make the audience more interested in your product and services.

Pro Tip: It would be better to hire a social media manager who knows the ins and outs of communicating with the digital crowd to handle the content for your different social media platforms.

Write a blog post and guest blog on other websites

If you are serious about having an online presence, then you must have a website for your small business. But don’t stop there, make sure to populate your website with engaging blog posts about your brand.

Writing a blog post help people find you on different search engines like Google. Not only that, you could benefit from people sharing your blog posts on social media. Try to establish a niche content that suits your business. For example, if you run a store selling hand-woven fabrics, bags, and laptop sleeves, you might find potential customers by writing content about fashion, cultural practices, heritage weaving, and so on.

Another way to promote your website is by submitting “guest blog posts” on relevant and related websites. This is called “link-building”. By inserting a link back to your website in the article, you will bring more visitors to your website while providing your business community with informative content.

Pro Tip: Writing articles may be a huge added task for a small business owner. So, it is wise to invest on hiring a writer with a background in SEO to create the blog content for your website.

Flaunt your (Social Media) handle

What do they say about flaunting one’s love handles? The same rings truer in promoting your social media handles. Ordering a new set of business cards? make sure to also include your Instagram and Twitter handle in the contact information. Nowadays, a social media handle is as important as an email or a phone number.

If you are presenting slides at a conference or a Zoom meeting? include your handles as well on the slideshow. (best position would be at the lower right side).

Flex your Video content

Although well-written content continues to generate effective digital marketing, do not let yourself fall far behind in the visual aspect of digital marketing. Many people today are inclined towards visual marketing materials like videos, infographics, and photographs.

Once in a while, try to come up with a well-made video content for your audience. Short videos that run from a minute to three minutes should do the trick. Catchy video content is effortless to watch, easy to share, and can even go viral.

Pro Tip: Another good investment is hiring a multimedia specialist to create, shoot and edit your video content.

Keep an Eye on your Business’ online reputation

We all know big businesses have an entire team doing reputation management or outsource a PR firm to make sure their online reputation remains in check. Being a small business owner, you also need to get on top of every feedback your customers may put online.

There are ways to track this by simply doing a search about your business name through a hashtag or the geo-location settings of Facebook. You can also set up a Google alert for every mention of your business in articles posted online.

This way, when someone complains about your business, you can right away rectify it or clear it with the customer to avoid further online backlash.  For the positive online raves? Well, you can take advantage of it by sharing it in your social media platforms to let people know that customers are happy about your services.

Tap social media influencers

When we say “social media influencers” it doesn’t have to be celebrities or individuals posting hilarious dancing videos with a million followers. You can tap an influencer with a couple of thousands of followers but is known to generate customer leads because of their niche content is related to your brand.

For example, you are running a surfing and outdoor store. Tapping a known local surfer with less than 3,000 followers— but most if not all of them are avid surfers and outdoorsy people, can help boost your online presence and sales.

When tapping social media influencers, think about the saying “Quality over Quantity“.

Pro Tip: Digital marketing agencies usually have a shortlist of influencers that fit different kinds of brands. Try to consult with them in choosing a social media influencer that perfectly fits your business.

Host online contests

Give away some of your products by hosting an online contest. Some ideas for online contests are: photo, video, and caption contests.

For example, you own a local craft brewery, you can hold an online caption on IG for customers who have tried your beer by posting an image of them in your pub and also “tagging five friends” they enjoy drinking with.

Simple rules such as following your IG pages, including your brand’s hashtag in the caption, and tagging five other people will greatly help increase your social media following and online visibility.

Lastly, create a social media strategy

You can’t have one type of content and post it on all of your social media accounts. You must tailor your social media messages to each platform because the crowd in Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, and even Pinterest differs from one another.

On Twitter, it should be short, sweet, and direct. On Instagram, it should be heavily reliant on the visual content before capturing the audience with an engaging caption. On LinkedIn, it should be a more professional approach. On Facebook, it could be a combination of all.

Also, by creating a social media strategy, you can effectively plot a schedule of when to post your content (at least twice or thrice a week) in order to keep your business fresh in the awareness of consumers.