The coronavirus shutdowns present an opportunity for you to do a lot of the groundwork for you to grow your business, while you are staying home. With so many people working remotely, they likely have more free time these days. Many in the service industry are not working at all.
The thing to be thinking about how to start building your brand online. Previously, we’ve pointed to Facebook being the most important social media platform that there is right now. Currently, many people look to a Facebook page as a sign of legitimacy, almost as much as they do a website. They are looking for information about you, and by having a presence, even if it is just filling out a page’s information, having a few fans, and having a bare minimum of content, you share that your business is legit.
People want to be able to find you online where they already are. They want to be able to find out your hours or your location, and they look to Facebook, because they are already there. In 2020, it remains the most popular social media platform. Your community is there, and you should be too, even if it’s just to share basic information.
So, while you have this spare time, with the time that we’re spending at home, not going out to the beaches, going to concerts, as more and more businesses and activities close, we no longer have a lot of the distractions away from work that prevent us from making this effort. This is an opportunity here to make the best use of your downtime. You can maximize it by starting to build your brand online.
When you have a presence, you also have a great way to interact and engage with your customers. If you’ve already done the work to build page, it may be that this is the time that you start a Facebook group, centered around what you do. It may be that this is a time where you spend a lot of time working in local groups, in small business groups, and in industry-specific groups to interact with others. By engaging with the people in these groups you help establish yourself as an authority in what it is that you bring to market.
So, if you don’t have a Facebook page for your business yet, that’s the place to start. If you do, make sure you are posting consistently with the five areas of focus for your business and interacting with the community you’ve already built. You might also want to create a Facebook group to deepen the connections you’ve already made, but most likely you’ll see the best results from heavily investing in engaging with groups that are local, industry-specific, or small business-centered that already exist to help you brand yourself as an expert in what you do.