Technically defined: Online presence is the collective existence online of a person or business.
Ummm ok… but what IS it?
Well, an Online Presence is the combination of everything a person or business has and does online.
Online Presence Management is the process of presenting and drawing traffic to a personal or professional brand online.
[Tweet “An Online Presence is the combination of everything a person or business has and does online.”]
So, some examples of what might be included in your Online Presence include:
- Website
- Snapchat
- Association Directories
- Business Directories
- Online communities
- Forums
- Advertising
- Content marketing
- Commenting
- Sharing
Hopefully you’re starting to get a clearer picture. An Online Presence is literally having a “presence” on the Internet. Even if you only have one thing that you do online, it’s still a presence. In fact, even if you’re not “doing” anything you can still have a presence. For example, if you’re a member of an association and they provide an online directory, then that’s still a presence that you have.
The point is for people to be able to find you on the Internet. Though of course a “presence” on its own isn’t always enough, management is also an important component.
[Tweet “The point of an Online Presence, is for people to be able to find you on the Internet.”]
[two_third_first]Unfortunately, so much of the information we find about creating an Online Presence jumps into the middle somewhere. Touting industry lingo of SEO, keywords, social media management, content marketing strategies, blogging…. it’s actually a very long list that gives many business owners a headache.
So let’s roll it back to the basics. Creating an Online Presence is the act of being present on the Internet. Step 1 is to get there. If you don’t have any places for your business to hangout online and provide value, then all the other stuff doesn’t matter at all because you have nothing to apply it to.
The more places your business can hangout online the better. So you want a website, you want some social media accounts, you want to find relevant communities that you can start joining conversations in.
The great news is that you can get started with all of these things for free and you can pick away at it a little bit each day. Starting small comes packed with big benefits.
Will you eventually want to invest some money and maybe some larger chunks of time? Yes, you likely will. But you don’t need to start by breaking the bank and/or have it be an all consuming experience of your time.
Baby steps. And every step you take will be a step further along than you were yesterday.
[/two_third_first][one_third_last][thrive_custom_menu menu=”26″ title=”Online Presence for Beginners” thumbnails=”off”][/one_third_last]
Up next in Fundamentals:
Why should I have an online presence?
Gain even more with our Facebook Group
To offer the most possible benefit to you on this journey, we’ve also setup a closed Facebook Group that we invite you to join, where you’ll be in a safe and friendly environment, surrounded by supportive people just like you. So go ahead and join our Facebook Group with the link below:
Getting Going Online Facebook Group
Get started with right tools!
Every Online Presence needs to have eye-catching images and graphics. But not everyone is a photographer or a graphic designer. Fortunately, we have a solution and the awesome part is that it’s FREE. We’ve put together a free course that will teach you right from step 1 how to use a web-based application called Canva, which is a free tool. This course will make sure that you’re setup for success right from the start and we include some valuable resources on where to get images, completely for free, to get you started without delay.
Panoptic Foundations 
Leave a Reply