There is a multitude of reasons small business owners struggle managing their brand’s online presence. Today I want to talk about six of the most common reasons and what you can do about them!
6 Reasons Small Business Owners Struggle with Their Brand’s Online Presence Management
1. Time
The biggest reason that small business owners struggle with their brand’s online presence is time. Managing various social networks, a professional website, consistently updating content, and responding to feedback is a fulltime job. Unfortunately, managing a small business is also a full-time job, so unless, as a small business owner, you are willing to give up sleep, you have to delegate tasks. In the case of your business’s online presence, this means asking a professional online presence manager to take over your online presence.
2. Skill
Maintaining an online presence for your brand isn’t only about posting on social media networks. To create and maintain your brand presence you must utilize various networks and skills to be an active presence online. This means knowing how to get people to *like* your pages, knowing how to handle feedback, knowing where to look for customer feedback, and knowing how to manage things when everything goes pear-shaped! Again, this takes time that most small business owners don’t have. Fortunately, an online presence manager like myself has that time and the tools needed to stay on top of things!
3. Working with Pieces of the Big Picture
Many small business owners try to manage their online presence by hopping on to Twitter or Instagram and making a post now and again. This is tackling only a very small fraction of the online forums that small business owners need to monitor and post on. When you, as a small business owner, only maintain a presence on one of the many online forums, you are missing an opportunity to share your brand as well as missing the chance to respond to any negative feedback. With the knowledge of each of the pieces of the picture, an online presence manager can coordinate all aspects of your online presence.
4. Employee Sabotage
We’re not talking about intentional employee sabotage, but we’re talking about unintentional sabotage that results from a lack of social media policy. When employees go onto their social media accounts and make personal comments that can be linked back to your brand, they are unintentionally tying those comments to your company mission or ethics. An online presence manager can create an online presence code that governs employees and staff to prevent this from happening.
5. Consistency
Due to the time that must go into online presence management, many small business owners begin their own management process online with good intentions, but soon fall short due to lack of time. A lack of consistency in maintaining online presence can soon result in problems arising and will almost certainly result in your brand presence falling off the radar of potential customers completely. An online presence manager can create and maintain a consistent schedule for online posting, management, and updates to create a regular online appearance for your brand.
6. Laziness
Another of the biggest reasons that small business owners fail when it comes to managing their brand’s online presence, is just plain laziness. Whether it’s not wanting to learn how to use the various online forums needed to represent their brand or whether it’s simply being too lazy to put forth the effort, you wouldn’t be alone if this was the root of your online presence failure! Luckily, an online presence manager can take over these tasks for you and you can be just as lazy as you like!
Are You Struggling with Your Small Business Online Brand Presence?
If you are struggling with your brand’s online presence and are a small business owner, I can help. Use the contact form on the front of my website or give me a call at (727)-475-6460 to see how I can help you to improve your brand’s online presence in no time!
