Within a few seconds of exploring your social media, new visitors have gathered an impression from your digital presence as to whether you are worth doing business with. So let's explore how to improve your digital presence to both be attractive to new visitors and to engage existing customers to promote repeat business and referrals.

Imagine you are at a party and meeting someone for the first time. Within a few minutes (or even seconds!) of talking with them you have likely made a judgement of whether this person is worth your time based on their personal presence: manner of dress; hairstyle; how they make eye contact; and the things they say. Similarly, when visitors explore your business' digital presence, they make similar snap judgements based on your social media's:

• professionalism
• robustness
• helpful content

PROFESSIONALISM

Social media is a very visual medium, and as such, much of your digital presence's professionalism is going to be defined by the quality of the images that visitors see.

So you will want the images that you post to look very professional. You will want the content of the images to be attractive and engaging. In addition, you will want your images to be sharp and crisp, and of high enough file size resolution so that for visitors who are viewing on larger format devices, such as tablets and desktops, will also see sharp and crisp images displayed.

Ideally, you will want your posted images to display your embedded logo or photo. You will want this for two reasons: 1) it reinforces your brand; and 2) when visitors share your posts, the posts will continue to carry your logo or photo to a broader group of potential customers.

ROBUSTNESS

Social media by its nature is expected to be dynamic. So to enhance your digital presence, you will want your posts to display an on-going stream of fresh, seasonally well-timed content.

Consistency of posting is very important to your establishing a positive digital presence. Consistency of posting evokes a message of reliability and stability from a well-established business, which goes hand-in-hand with the professionalism of your digital presence.

HELPFUL CONTENT

Lastly, and most importantly, you will want your digital presence to be defined by providing content that visitors find helpful and relevant to them.

Useful content gets and keeps visitors engaged, which of course is valuable. However for your digital presence, the real value is by posting on-going, helpful content that clearly provides benefits to your customers, that this sends the very positive message that you really care about helping them . . . beyond just making a sale.