With the popularity of social media, more and more businesses are turning towards creating an online presence for themselves. As the world becomes more tech-savvy, businesses are expanding their customer relationships from the store to online through social media platforms and micro blogging.  If your business has yet to jump on the band wagon or you wish to learn more, here are some ways to expand your online presence and how they can benefit for business and customer relationship.

Connect with Customers on Facebook

If you have yet to create a Facebook page for your growing business, you better do so now.  With more people joining Facebook, it is a great way to let your customers know about any updates, events, or specials happening in the near future. Ask questions or do polls to get customer feedback. But just doing page updates is not enough. You need to create content that will keep customers coming back for more. Add photos from your business such as mouth-watering meals and deserts or refreshing drinks if you’re a local café or restaurant. Visual images have a much bigger affect than words alone on grabbing the attention of your audience.

Don’t just make it about your company either. Do updates about interesting news or facts about your industry. Share memes or quotes that will make people want to visit your page for the next thing. Think about content that your customers will want to “share” and “like” with their Facebook friends. One popular trend is to have a post about two things that are similar such as two different ice cream flavors, chocolate and vanilla. To get a split between “shares” and “likes” from your Facebook page, ask your customers what their favorite ice cream flavor out of the two is and  to either “share” chocolate or “like” vanilla for example.

Not only is Facebook a great platform for you to share content and generate discussion with your customers, but it is an easy way to gather feedback from customers. Pay attention to their comments in your updates and what they post on your wall. Customers may send you a private message as well about any inquiries they may have.

Move Forward with a Microblog

Unlike Facebook and other social media platforms which is a great way to do quick updates, microblogging is meant for content that is much longer and at the least 300 words long with the purpose to increase web traffic, leads, and overall sales.

A microblog should be related to your industry but it is a way to share your own thoughts to a subject whether it is a similar experience or different thought to a current trend or idea. You can also use keywords and hashtags that will help customers and readers a like find your microblog and business in a search engine and link back to our company’s website as well.

Don’t just focus on your own microblog, but read and comment on others as well. You will be able to learn from their business and they will learn from you too. Such media platforms are a great way to help your business grow in the community and in your industry.

A microblog does not have to focus on your product or service alone. Let customers know about the people behind the brand, your customers. With faces to match the name, customers will find your business more relatable. So go ahead and highlight an employee whether they are new, have reached a milestone for number of years of service, or are an employee of the month.

Lastly, match a theme with your microblog that is consistent with your brand image or theme. It will be memorable for your audience and helps continue your online presence. Be consistent, having an online presence means regularly updating your microblog, reaching out to other microblogs and reviewing your reader’s comments.

Going Beyond Facebook and Microblogs

Facebook and microblogs are great ways to create an online presence for your company and reach out to your customers, but there are many other ways to reach out to your customers online and with current smartphone technology as well including but not limited to:

• Instagram for sharing images immediately on platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and Tumblr.
• Vine and Viddy to create short videos and gifs.
• Reddit to promote popular content and see what is trending in your industry.

Depending on what your particular industry and niche market is, there will be sites that are better than others to help you reach your target market so be sure to reach out to those audiences present on those sites as well.

Marianne Ross is a freelance writer and blogger who specializes in online marketing, blogging and social media. She is currently writing on behalf of Starmen USA.