In this age of context, transparency and relevancy the time is right to come out of your online shell and expose you … for the greater good of your business and even your own personal self.

Your own website doesn’t need to be all-singing, all-dancing, flashy, super whizzy – unless of course you’re selling all-singing, all-dancing, flashy, super whizzy websites.

Today’s online world is all about transparency, about collaboration and trust and to build that up you need to spread yourself about a bit and impregnate as many fertile portals as you can – in context and with relevance.
Authenticity is top key. Trust is the currency, Contextual content is king.

Long gone is it good enough to just have a basic website – About Us, Our Clients, (Mission Statement? … please … don’t). Google has thrown the online dice and broken the house, which means we all have to play along to their rules if we want to be invited to their future baby showers.
To keep your head above the water you need to incorporate established rules of the jungle into everything you do online.

So, you just paid a big West End agency more than the mortgage on your house or you’ve just bought a $40 WordPress theme, spent the weekend writing content, (it’s not all ‘We/ We/ We’ is it?) and launched your own website – great, lovely, super, well done old chap … BUT it certainly doesn’t stop there. In fact you’ve not even scratched the surface.

Being online is the 21st Century equivalent of a fax machine – you know, last century if you didn’t have a fax machine you weren’t a real company, today it’s the same with a comprehensive online presence.

With a few hours positive work you can set your path to becoming the ‘cock of the internet’ so let’s get on with maximising your online presence, kissing Google’s butt and even making friends.

The fastest route to the old chestnut of ‘getting on google page 1’ is PPC but this is only short term as soon as you stop paying, you slip away. There are more beneficial routes to SEO Nirvana that, generally, cost peanuts and will take time but can return maximum benefit.

Establish:
Google+ should be the main focus point for building your audience by using communities and establishing your own authorship credentials.

Despite the pitch forks at dawn regarding governmental spying/ hacking and generally stock-piling your everyday phone calls, locations and general moves, Google basically does the same, except we’re all ok with that … apparently. At a recent announcement concerning Google, part of the chatter was the fact that Google knows where you are at any given time and who is important to you. As for privacy and Facebook … forget it.
Of course, the trick is to turn all of this data hoarding to your advantage.

If reputation was the backbone of doing business in your local village, your online reputation, on a worldwide scale, is the backbone of doing today’s business and we all need to maximise that entity.

Contribute:
Do you blog? Do you write articles? No? Why Not? You should.
Blogging or writing articles equals regular SE food.

Adding a blog facility to your main website is fairly straight forward, obviously depending on how it’s set up initially.
If you cannot use your own CMS, or the posh West End agency want your first born as down payment for adding one there’s many more avenues you can saunter down.
Checkout places like WordPress.com, Tumblr or even Medium.

Consume:
Which also brings us onto micro-blogging platforms such as Twitter.
Twitter is one of those things that you never knew you needed until it smacked you in the face. It’s the global pub where anyone and everyone can stand there shouting to themselves without fear of being locked up – as long as what they’re posting is not illegal of course.

Twitter is also a brilliant way to monitor and deal with customer support and general company/ client communications.
I personally run various accounts including @SupportBot which is only open to my own clients for direct messaging, support enquiries, service updates etc.

Unwritten/ unofficial rules of using Twitter are not to constantly broadcast sales messages and, generally, don’t be a dick.

When you first meet someone on Twitter, don’t act like a horny teenager and go straight for 1st base. Join in, communicate and converse.
You wouldn’t go into a pub, jump up on a table shouting “BUY MY STUFF” over and over again, because, if you did, in no time you’ll be cast aside like a pair of month old Primark knickers.

“Use the search young warrior” – twitter.com/search should be your daily source of news and clients. Use it to seek out local companies looking for your services, do keyword searches to find out what’s happening in your industry and search for your competitors to see what they’re up to.

Context:
LinkedIn – For finding/ making business connections there’s no better general tool than LinkedIn. Again, sign up, complete your profile, join groups or start your own industry specific groups, and communicate, converse and use the search functions.
Another good tip is to join in the conversations in your main industry groups, spread your knowledge and become known as an authority on the given subject.

Set up a company page and fill it to overflowing with all your best/ latest work.

People will be searching for your talent and if you’ve put on a big enough show, they will get in contact.
Ultimately use LinkedIn to build legitimacy in your company and community building.

On the subject of ‘go to guy’ seek out and join in with industry specific forums, again, sign up, use your photo, not a logo, in your fully complete profile and spread your knowledge and become the go to guy.

Where relevant check out additional portals like Pinterest (design, inspiration, arts/ crafts), Snapchat/ Instagram if you’re into short bursts of pics, Medium (short articles/ writing). If you’re a video company you need to be pumping out vines/ youtube/ vimeo media like it’s going out of fashion.

If you’re mainly a B2C outfit you totally need to be on Facebook where you need to work hard to build brand awareness by offering special deals, latest news updates, and very importantly, customer support. Please don’t just ask people to ‘like’ your page, give them a reason to want in.
The secret is to know where your audience live and deliver fresh fish, to their plate regularly.

Conclusion:
By embedding yourself deep into the Google ecosystem, on G+ and it’s associated communities and validation system, you can contribute to your overall results, especially on industry specific or local searches, helps validate you and your company and determines your authorship status.

Making friends is easy when you’re transparent about your real self – some people will hate you, some will love you – concentrate on the positive ones.

By growing a professional online presence, by contributing regularly, by making sure your social profiles are up to date and to a high quality, by being open, honest, and generally yourself, you will grow a crowd that will want to +1, like and retweet you regularly and help you attain the title of ‘cock of the internet’

Finally remember … all the above is easy, but takes a lot of time and hard work.

Have fun.

External links:
LinkedIn
Medium
Twitter / SupportBot

 
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