I’m sure many of you will agree that one of the biggest challenges businesses face is maintaining an active digital presence.
It’s a fact that small to medium businesses with an active digital presence grow 2x as fast as those without. That’s why when the North Cheshire Chamber of Commerce let us know that the Google Digital Garage bus was coming to Macclesfield, we made sure we hopped on board!
The Google Digital Garage Explained.
For those of you who don’t know, the Google Digital Garage bus offers free face-to-face coaching for everyone – from growing your confidence online, to harnessing the power of the internet to grow your business.
They also provide various online courses which will help you expand your knowledge on everything from social media, to search engines and more. You will also be provided digital certification upon completion of the courses. You can find out more about the ‘Digital Garage Certificate of Online Proficiency’ by clicking the link below
https://learndigital.withgoogle.com/digitalgarage/certification
The Google Bus Experience…
The Course, and its Objectives.
One of the many courses on offer was ‘writing for social media’. This course covered a variety of topics, from assessing your brand values and developing a tone of voice for your business, to defining your brand on social media.
One of the topics discussed was how to format and tailor your posts on social networks to get the best results. Simply tailoring your messages to the type of audience you are targeting will increase the interest of this audience.
The phrase ‘If I had more time, I would have written you a shorter letter’ was discussed during this session. I learned from this that when writing a message, it is not about the quantity – in fact, it is quite the opposite. It is important to think about making your post eye catching to the audience – you want to grab their attention, not lose it. That is why it is important to take the time to make sure your post is well-written – there may be a better, shorter way of getting your message across.
Another key bit of information I took away with me is to always refer to the ‘Benefits vs Features’ method when structuring your message. Your audience wants to know what they get out of reading your post – what are the benefits for them? It is important to get this across in your message in order to keep them interested.
Our New-Found Knowledge, In Practice.
This one-hour long session provided us with the necessary tools for creating content with confidence across the key social platforms. We may have got off the bus, but this was by no means the final stop for LOVELIVE – it was merely the beginning of our journey. We are now creating more frequent, relevant posts that engage our audience and constantly sharing inspiring knowledge and experiences of others across various social platforms.
Final Thoughts
If you are thinking of taking a similar journey to give your business more exposure in the world of social media, we would highly recommend you jumping on board the next Google Bus that stops in your area!