Choosing Your Digital Marketing Platform for Your Business

Insights from the article:

• If you’re only exploring digital marketing this year, there’s a lot of opportunity for you. The very best way to learn is for you to first try, and read through the blog;
• Social media is among the most prevalent digital marketing channels where Filipinos consume content. We are among the longest-spending demographic in social media platforms all over the world;
• Search Engine Optimization, or SEO, is a discipline and a practice of performing certain tactics to become more visible via Google. You may also consider Search Engine Marketing ads to reach more people online and invite more people to your website.

A lot of the small to medium-sized business owners I spoke to over the past years would tell me how cumbersome it is to handle the digital marketing campaigns for their businesses. These people go into business with the one things they are most passionate about that drives their business, and digital marketing platforms may sometimes be deprioritized.

That’s OK. We tend to focus on what we do best, and if you’re not too adept with executing digital marketing strategies, then it may be left in the backburner to focus on other aspects of the business.

Or, sometimes they hire freelancers, agencies, consultants, or freelancers. Which, in this case, if you’ve read some of my other blogs and are convinced that my digital marketing acumen can be useful for your business, feel free to contact me here.

But, what if you – yes, you! – focused a bit of your time daily to learn about digital marketing and do it yourself? What would be the first thing you should learn?

If you ask me, and this is maybe why you’re in my blog, you should focus first on getting to know the different digital marketing platforms and channels available for you.

A Quick-and-Dirty, Easy-Peasy, Do-it-Yourself Guide to Choosing Digital Marketing Platforms

It’s not going to be a 5,000 word blog about doing digital marketing on your own, this I promise you. What we can do first is introduce to you the different platforms and channels that you can consider using for your business.

First, let’s talk about social media. Social media has been exponentially growing in popularity among small to medium-sized businesses in the last decade, and is expected to become more and more important to B2B and B2C marketing for the years to come.

Why? Because everyone’s on social media. All internet users in the Philippines are social media users, and if you’re looking into reaching more online users for your business – social media is a good way to start.

The point of social media marketing is to connect with people who are most relevant to your products and services, engage with them, and nurture your relationship with them. We do this so that when the time comes that they need your products and services, your brand is the brand they remember to avail.

For some brands and niches, you can almost instantaneously sell your products online. Some types of businesses would require longer periods of time to convince people to avail their services. All it takes is to keep in mind the best quote I have seen about social media, which is to “keep social media, social.” Focus on connections, not on bombarding people with sales pitches.

Choosing Your Social Media and Digital Marketing Platforms

As a small to medium-sized business owner, it can be terribly daunting to add even just a couple of hours a day to do social media, because most of the time, you’d much rather focus on your business operations. I’m not going to argue with you and say that social media should be part of your operations, but, in the spirit of discourse, let’s say that you really have a short amount of time to handle your social media.

If you had to choose one social media channel, what would it be?

• The most essential channel you should be in right now is Facebook. It is currently the social media channel with the most number of users in the Philippines, with 96% of all social media users are active in Facebook. You need to set-up a Facebook business page soon, if you haven’t yet.
• It also makes sense to go into Instagram, especially if you’re selling products. Your best photos of your products should go on your profile, and with the right tactics, your photos will reach the timelines of your target markets.
• If your products require a lot of demonstration and your marketing strategy requires consumer education, then it may be best to have your videos in Youtube and expand your presence there. It is at par with Facebook as the 2nd most used social media platform in the Philippines, and this tells you that Filipinos love watching videos online.
• LinkedIn is a strong contender when it comes to choosing social media marketing platforms. If your products and services are essentially for other businesses, then there’s no other platform that caters more to professional and business discussions than LinkedIn. 

There are so much more platforms that you can consider, and if you’re looking for a more comprehensive discussion on each, maybe you can send me an email so we can talk.

Get Yourself Visible in Search Engines

A crucial component of your digital marketing should be Search Engine Optimization, or SEO. It is a discipline and a practice of performing certain tactics to improve your website’s visibility through search engines. Right now, you only need to specifically optimize for Google because only a very small percentage of Filipino online users use other search engines. SEO can be a bit more technical, and there are professionals who may be better-suited to support you on this if you are lost.

If you wish to jumpstart your visibility and website traffic from search engines, aside from SEO, you can do Search Engine Marketing ads. This is the practice of implementing well-placed ads on top of regular search results, so that when people find your products/services online, they’ll see your ads first instead of your competition. When done correctly, you’ll drive people who are already looking for you online, straight to your website.

Let’s Make your Digital Marketing Easier

This guide is not complete, not even by a mile. However, I think that you wouldn’t be too interested to read a very long blog. But, if you’re interested to learn more about specific topics, or if you’d like to set-up a one-on-one masterclass on digital marketing, contact me and I can set this up for you. You can also subscribe to my email updates – I try to send emails to my contacts at least once a week.