There are new rules as to what determines whether your business is a success on the market. In the past, you could measure a business’s success by the the level of profits it accumulates. These days it’s possible to tell whether a business is going to be successful without any sales at all. The movie industry is the perfect example. This year, multiple news media sources were reporting on which movies were trending on Twitter before they were released. Coincidentally the movies that have trended have been the highest grossing flicks this year. These were Fantastic Beasts, Civil War, and Batman V Superman. But it’s not just the movie industry that now needs to think about these online measures. Every major business should be looking at theses measures and investigating how they can improve their reach online.

The main ways to do this are by using different forms of social media and boosting SEO. However, there are a few other tactics that could also see likes, shares, clicks and follows increase dramatically.

Let’s start by thinking about an idea that is commonly misunderstood, SEO.

Boosting SEO With Online Media

If you invest in the services of an SEO agency this year you might be surprised to see their main focus isn’t keywords and links. Instead, they are far more interested in the possibility of boosting your performance through social media. They focus on this aspect of the campaign because they know that it can have a massive impact on online performance. You need to think about shares in particular. By sharing content, this will have a direct impact on your site performance. In particular, you need to think about video and image sharing. These are some of the most popular forms of media and are most likely to be shared. In doing so, you will see your ranking increase.

Infographics are great too. They are useful because they are often scooped up by companies and other businesses online. Once they post your infographic, they will be working to expand the reach of your business for you.

It is important that is you are using online forms of marketing such as this then everything should be connected. Users should easily be able to reach one area of your marketing platform from another. One of the best ways to do this is by using links. For instance, when you do post a piece of content on your social media, you need to link it back to your site.

Increasing Customer Reception

Of course, online media isn’t just useful for boosting SEO. You can also use it to improve the level of interaction that customers have with your company. You should work to make sure that consumers feel connected to your business in a way that they can understand. To do this, you need to think about what customers want from businesses that they buy from. The rules have changed here as well and you need to consider how to keep customers connected and engaged. Obviously, one of the best ways to do this is by releasing new content as regularly as possible. With fresh content for customers, you can guarantee that there is a buzz around your business online. Of course, this is just the tip of the iceberg, and there are many other ways to engage customers.

Live feeds are commonly used these days to make online marketing a little more immersive. Instead of customers reading about what you can offer, you tell them directly. You get to create an idea and sell that idea through different concepts.

UGC or user generated content can also be effective. With UGC,  you need to think about how to get customers to start sharing content. There are a few ways that you can do this. If you are using a network such as Instagram, you can encourage users to post their own pictures. On Facebook, you can consider setting up a forum. By doing this you will be able to connect with customers and encourage them to share. Eventually, you will set up an online community that can be mutually beneficial. Don’t forget, customers love the idea of UGC as well. They want to feel appreciated and posting their content is one of the ways you can give them this impression.

How Does It Translate?

There may be a few businesses wondering how this type of success translates into increased online sales. There are a few answers to this question. First, you must understand that online sales are becoming more important in almost every industry. Customers are drawn to the availability and ease of these types of transactions. They don’t want to wait to have to visit the store anymore. They demand everything to be simple. This means that online marketing is always going to be more important.

Since Google is in charge of SEO, businesses have to be careful about how much focus they put on this particular tactic. Ultimately they will need to consider the danger of Google penalties and black hat SEO. Even if businesses are able to avoid these possibilities they can still run into issues. It is likely that with the best SEO in the world, you might not get to page one. If you can’t do that, it’s rather pointless. The majority of users won’t search past page one when looking for a product or service online.

Finally, you need to think about the way the world works now. As already mentioned social media has become more important in almost every part of society. That includes business and the economy. If you look at the most successful businesses you will see that their online campaign is alive and kicking. It’s not enough to just market a great product to customers. You need to give them something they can not possibly refuse.

As we enter 2017 these forms of marketing and performance will only become more important. When we measure the success of a company, there will no longer be a main focus on sales. Instead, analysts will always examine social media performance instead.