You did it! You’ve built your personal brand or company, and your business is thriving. The question now is, how can you capitalize on this momentum?
You can start by listing your business in the most relevant and visible online directories and social media platforms. These five platforms described below are especially useful for many businesses. However, you should assess your unique needs before you allocate too many resources to any one platform.
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Crunchbase
Crunchbase does double duty. It’s a simple repository of up-to-date information and stats of both companies and professionals. It’s also increasingly used as a great place to highlight key employees. It’s particularly useful for busy serial entrepreneurs as well as seasoned financial professionals.
Merchant Circle
MerchantCircle is a top-ranked directory site on the internet. Although it’s certainly not as well-known as Yelp and similar sites, more than 100,000,000 consumers pass through its virtual doors each year.
MerchantCircle is also a great tool for businesses that deal with consumers. Verticals such as Real Estate and Arts & Entertainment can offer amazing deals. A super-easy local search feature connects businesses in discrete geographic areas with potential customers.
Facebook
Facebook is so well-known that it doesn’t need to be introduced, and most businesses don’t need any encouragement either to create and manage their own Facebook pages. However, it is not easy to use the most popular social media platform in the world efficiently. For some companies, Facebook can even be used to replace or substitute for your company’s main website. This isn’t necessarily advisable, as most professionals and businesses these days do need a well-designed and well-operated flagship site of their own.
LinkedIn
While not as popular as Facebook, LinkedIn is another huge social media platform that you not only will have heard of, but that you probably already use. And it’s another platform that does double duty. It serves as a central hub for B2B marketing and, what’s more, prospective employees can connect with companies looking to hire. (And given the current economy, companies desperate for scarce employees are actively searching profiles for their next hire.) You’ll also find LinkedIn a great place to network and find both new customers and professionals to partner with.
Twitter
Twitter is yet another platform with high authority that is great for businesses who want to increase their digital visibility and connect directly, provided they can filter out all the noise.
A good use case is “pinned tweets”: these are used to communicate critical, non-sensitive information to consumers and other interested parties.
What’s your Directory Footprint?
It’s a huge digital world, and it’s always changing and expanding. While The above online directories aren’t the only ones that you should consider, they’re a good starting point. You may decide that depending on your business’s nature and the composition your core buyer groups are, you should focus on other properties (like Instagram or Pinterest, for example), or that it is not worth the effort.
It’s your choice. You should know where your current clients are, which prospects you have in mind, and who is looking for value to add to your sales funnel. Convincing them to convert is the creative part.
ORIGINAL
5 High-Visibility Sites for Building Your Brand in 2021
Congratulations! Your company is on the move. Now, the question is: what are you going to do to capitalize on its momentum?
Start by creating detailed, accurate listings at the most visible, relevant business directories and social media platforms on the web today. These five are particularly fruitful for a particularly wide array of businesses — though you’ll want to assess your company’s unique needs before allocating too many resources to any specific platform.
Merchant Circle
MerchantCircle is one of the web’s top directory sites. It’s not quite as widely known as Yelp, perhaps, but that doesn’t stop more than 100 million consumers from passing through its virtual doors every year.
MerchantCircle is especially useful for consumer-facing businesses; verticals like Real Estate and Arts & Entertainment harbor deals galore. Another perk: a super-easy local search feature that connects businesses serving discrete geographies with prospects in their backyards.
Crunchbase
Crunchbase pulls double duty as a no-frills repository for up-to-date corporate data (including funding stats, if you’re keen to share) and an ideal place to showcase key employees. It’s particularly useful for serial entrepreneurs with multiple irons in the fire as well as seasoned financial professionals.
LinkedIn
LinkedIn is another “double duty” platform. It’s a great nerve center for B2B firms’ marketing apparatuses and a fantastic place for key employees to connect with potential partners and establish thought leader cred. For bigger, geographically dispersed firms, there’s tremendous value in the ability to quite literally connect prospects with the most relevant roleplayer available. As an (overwhelming) example, computing giant Dell’s LinkedIn page connects to roughly 125,000 employees’ personal LinkedIn profiles.
Facebook
Facebook needs no introduction, nor do most businesses need any encouragement to set up and populate Facebook pages of their own. Using the world’s most popular social media platform efficiently is another matter entirely, however. Under the right circumstances, Facebook is versatile enough to stand in for — or even replace — your company’s main domain. Not that you’d want it to, necessarily; it’s just nice to know what’s possible.
Twitter
Twitter is another high-authority platform that’s great for businesses looking to burnish their digital visibility and connect directly with prospects (assuming they can filter through all the noise).
One use case worth exploring: using “pinned” tweets to convey critical, non-time-sensitive news and information to consumers and others who might want to know. Digital engagement platform Marketo’s Twitter handle has a great example touting the company’s strategic partnership with B2B sales platform Clari.
How’s Your Directory Footprint?
It’s a big digital world out there. And, as you’re well aware, these aren’t the only five online directories and social platforms that draw crowds. Depending on the nature of your business and the composition of your core buyer groups, you may well conclude that you need to focus on other properties — and/or that some of these properties aren’t worth the trouble.
That’s up to you. After all, you should know better than anyone else where to find current clients, promising prospects, and curious seekers of value ready to enter your sales funnel. The fun part is convincing them to convert.