There’s life beyond Facebook and Instagram: the tools that you can use for sales and brand awareness

It is a stubborn view for small businesses, SMEs, and start-ups that it is a complete waste of money to create their own website. According to many, it is enough for a business to run a Facebook page, possibly an Instagram account, and try to build brand awareness, launch promotions, and communicate with customers, and partners. What’s more, there are some who are discouraging novice traders from launching a webshop, saying that the Facebook and Instagram stores will also be good, and you can discuss the issues with customers on Messenger.

But when Facebook, Instagram, Messenger, and WhatsApp became unusable on October 4, when they crashed unexpectedly then the above misconceptions were overturned. After the service had not been restored on these interfaces for at least six hours, those who used it exclusively for work and communication were given a taste of what would happen if the free service through which they were visible to their partners was gone. What happens when they disappear from the eyes of customers and their customers are equally out of reach for them.

Why rely solely on Facebook? What other interfaces and social media sites are worth presenting and recruiting followers for? And what kind of app can help you increase conversions, retain visitors and customers?

Help! My Facebook page is gone!

There have been signs in the past that it is not a good direction if we have not created our own website for our company. A few years ago, when few people cared about security and two-factor authentication became widespread, hundreds of thousands of Facebook pages were taken over by hackers, and site owners and administrators were excluded. Not all of the Facebook pages that were built and then stolen over the years with a lot of work, even at a lot of costs, have been returned to their owners. For example, anyone who based their business on only one Facebook page with a huge follower camp, or only communicated with their audience through it, lost everything.

In the last few years, it has also happened that Facebook deleted a high-traffic page overnight and left the owner without an interface. Following the incident, their own website was built where they launched the newsletter subscription, launched a YouTube channel, encouraged the viewer to subscribe at the end of the videos, and appeared on several social sites at once.

The solution is to have several options for our appearance in the digital world.

Own website and webshop

If we choose the right service providers, our own website will work virtually continuously and at our disposal. We can place our most important messages on it, connect it to our webshop, and if we involve an SEO specialist before the development, and then the developer builds the website well, it will result in increased organic traffic, better rankings in Google, and our potential customers/visitors are more likely to find us.

In addition, we can place useful applications on the website that further increase traffic, generate leads, perform tasks automatically on our site, and keep visitors on the site.

The Hungarian-developed ConvKit application is a great tool for measuring any conversion rate, including effectively getting to know your customers from social networking sites, keeping track of promotions, and seeing their conversion rate in one place. With ConvKit, you can find out which link, campaign, or channel your visitors are coming to your website from, or if you need to, you can fine-tune your campaign. You can generate e-mail subscriptions, registration, set up a pop-up window for visitors who want to leave, call them to action, initiate communication, etc.

The webshop pricing solution will do market monitoring for you and guide you through pricing issues. The Hungarian-developed PriceKit automated pricing support application constantly monitors your products and competitors. Based on the data obtained, it will make up-to-date price offers for you. Automation of pricing means that prices are set automatically based on predefined rules or restrictions using the software system, without the need for human labor and time. You can export the prices, but you can also link the PriceKit interface to your web store, so the prices are automatically updated there as well. If you agree with the bids provided by the software and it fits your strategy, you can accept the bids with one click and change them on your webshop.

Newsletter subscription and own database

Although e-mail marketing and newsletters have once been considered being a dead end, they have revived in recent years and have once again become one of the most important tools for reaching customers. You can connect directly with your audience. For example, if you build your own database by registering, you can send personalized offers to your customers, which will increase their commitment and trust.

Google Company

It is an underrated interface, as we cannot only enter the data of the company, but we can also regularly publish photo posts about promotions, events, or share the positive feedback of our customers and partners.

Video sharing platform – YouTube 

Popularity can be attributed to the fact that it is easy to upload videos and the interface that can be handled without special technical and IT skills. It is excellent for publishing educational materials, presenting products and their use, and sharing information materials.

TikTok

When should you start a TikTok account? Especially if you trade in clothing and fashion items, cosmetics, electronics, and household appliances, or if you sell sports equipment. But service providers (language teachers, private tutors, beauticians, etc.) and tourism businesses can also be found on TikTok.

No significant financial investment is required to make the videos: many of the channel's most popular content was created in a completely mundane environment with a smartphone. Thanks to the app's algorithm, videos posted to TikTok accounts with few followers can also get more views. The engagement rate for TikTok is much higher than the average activity rate on other social networking sites.

The platform became a Shopify partner at the end of 2020, allowing Shopify users with a TikTok business account to display and offer their products for sale directly in their videos. During the automated process, the app also creates ads for each product from those videos, as well as a link to the merchants' landing page.

LinkedIn

It is an ideal interface for building corporate and personal relationships, finding partners, and running the business profile of your business. In the posts, you can showcase your expertise and build the image of your company.

And if you already use the above interfaces in addition to Facebook and Instagram, your webshop is more secure.