Instagram has over 200 million business profiles. That’s 200 million shopping options as of 2021.
For personal profiles, over 81% of people use Instagram to research and purchase goods.
Over 200 million Instagrammers actively view a business profile every day. Small businesses have a hard time popping up first in these search results. Gaining visibility is hard but not impossible.
The competition & pressure is getting worse for small businesses. Increasing your online visibility has to be intentional and strategic. It’s not enough to be online. Your business has to be visible online.
In this post, we’ll be sharing 5 tips to help boost your visibility online.
- Sponsored Ads.
This is one of the fastest and quickest ways to gain online visibility for your business. Advertising may not always be cheap, but it yields returns.
If you’re looking to increase your visibility and acquire potential customers, then sponsored ads are a must.
With the ADs manager, you can tweak your AD audience to specifically suit the demographic you want to sell to. Your business will be exposed to new eyes, and new eyes that want what you’re offering.
Sponsored Ads are more of a short-term fix. There are only so many sponsored ADs your business budget may allow you to run and once your ADs stop running, you may not be able to extend the duration immediately.
So, make use of sponsored ADs but don’t rely on them entirely as it is not financially sustainable.
- Encourage user-generated content a.k.a. UGC
User-generated content is simply getting your customers to create content around your product or service.
This is great for gaining visibility because their content exposes your business to their audience and presents you as a trustworthy one.
This is a bit different from influencer marketing because your business is partnering with regular customers to do this. You may not have money to give your existing customers to encourage them to create content with your products but you can offer a discount, gifts or free delivery on their next order if they decide to create content with their purchase and tag your business.
This helps you increase your online visibility strongly because your business will come off as more trustworthy because it’s not an AD and not an influencer-bought review.
- Attend industry events and competitions
Every industry has events or exhibitions that businesses in that space look forward to.
Trade fairs are an example of such events.
You can increase your visibility by participating in these events. Businesses in industries like food, hair, baking, and fashion have regular competitions which can serve as a platform for visibility.
Sign up for vendor slots at events, register at exhibitions and competitions and keep one foot in front of the other. Gaining credible visibility is a long-term journey.
- Cross-promotion
Cross-promotion is simply partnering with businesses that sell complementary products. For example, a baking business could partner up with a parfait or smoothie business to run a sales or promo together.
This is a great tactic for improving online visibility and sales because you’re getting exposed to a complementary audience. The competition doesn’t always have to be cutthroat. It can be friendly too.
Cross-promoting exposes your business to the audience of another business that falls within your target market. That is why cross-promoting is usually carried out with businesses that complement yours. No one makes any losses.
You can scout for businesses you can cross-promote with and pitch to them to get something done.
- Evaluate and repeat
The final tip to boost your business’s online visibility is to evaluate what your business is doing per time and repeat the processes that work.
Is UGC working for you and sponsored ads aren’t? Stick to UGC and keep trying to figure out sponsored ads.
Is cross-promotion working out well? Continue with it. It isn’t? Stop and try something else.
Online visibility is a long-term game so don’t get disappointed if your results aren’t always immediate.