Keeping up with all of the changes on the internet is no easy task, no matter who you are or what you do. Every morning, I wake up at 4:30 a.m. and start pouring over blog posts about social media, website design, and search engine optimization. Over the past few years, I have grown to accept the fact that a major part of my job revolves around keeping up with all of the changes within the digital marketing industry. Much of what happens in my industry, which affects your web presence and mine, continues to evolve every day. If we are not taking longevity into account for our business or our clients, then we are simply falling behind and ultimately losing.
If we took a look back to the world of internet marketing two years ago, we would be able to clearly distinguish between the multiple disciplines that make up the industry. It was once possible to say, “This is SEO, and it helps me be found on Google.” Likewise, you could make a similar statement about Twitter and how it makes you more social online. In 2013, these lines have become blurred. Social media and SEO have become intertwined to the point that a great inbound marketer needs to have a firm grasp on both disciplines. Fortunately, TrustWorkz® began preparing for this internet shift in 2011. We saw that small business owners would struggle to find internet marketing peace of mind if they were trying to keep up with the changes as we were.
How are you, a small business owner, supposed to keep up with all of the changes to internet marketing?
Internet Marketing Options for Small Business Owners
When it comes to keeping up with social media and internet marketing for small business, there are a variety of options to choose from and pursue.
- Close Your Eyes and Click Your Heels: It’s crazy to imagine, but there are still small and medium sized businesses who continue to ignore internet marketing as a whole. Business owners are missing out on how their web presence can become a marketing work horse for their business. The internet can be a scary place though, so why take advantage of market research for your small business when you could just stick your head in the sand and pretend social media just doesn’t exist?
- Become an Inbound Marketing Professional: On top of running your business, you could always spend your remaining spare time learning more about digital marketing for small business. You could take a few classes, attend a few webinars, and fill hours with more reading material than you can imagine. After all of your time researching and learning more, you could then put it all into action… Hopefully.
- Outsource Your Internet Marketing: For most small businesses, outsourcing your digital marketing can be an extremely effective route for growing your business. Hiring someone to handle your web presence allows you, the business owner, to focus on the day to day operations of your company. TrustWorkz has created an affordable internet marketing solution for small businesses that successfully brings together social and search engine optimization. Our work results in your business being found online so that you can close the sale.
What we are witnessing over the past few years is the exponential growth and adoption of the most powerful marketing platform ever available to mankind. Being compelled to jump in and try to learn as much as possible is understandable. So is the desire to leverage the incredible power of the Internet to help you grow your business…in fact it has become a necessity to do so.
As a business owner you must make the decision to either embrace or to ignore what is happening online. Embracing it means keeping up with everything that is happening or finding someone that you can trust to do so. We just don’t want to see you walk into the forest to slay an unknown beast with improper weapons. It’s just not wise and it’ll probably get ugly.
