Easy ways to get your start-up noticed

We live in the age of innovation, where digital companies are springing up left right and centre. It’s an exciting time to be an entrepreneur – but also a difficult one. How can you make yourself stand out from the crowd and attract attention when you’re competing against lots of other businesses? Here are some tricks that’ll help turn heads and investors towards your brand.

Get your social profiles in order

Any business needs social media. Depending on the size of the brand, this can be a simple twitter and Facebook account you use for brand identity to a hugely followed, engaging social presence across Instagram, Pinterest, Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn. Whatever size or level of company you’re at, you need to put some time into you social accounts.

Broadly speaking, Twitter is a great tool for following influencers and having people take notice of your tweets. Retweet interesting content and try to keep your social presence brand-relevant without being too sales orientated.

Facebook is a more personalised medium as it has no character limit and allows you to share photographs and add lots of information about your brand. Again, try not to be too sale-sy. Build a brand by sharing interesting content you think your audience will enjoy.

Get networking

The key to making connections is the oft-forgotten art of networking. In a digital era, there are lots of brands who think in-person networking isn’t necessary. Few of these brands last.

Attend as many networking events that are relevant to your niche as possible. Hand out business cards and any promotional material you can. Be a polite, considerate and engaging person and try to follow up with any contacts within 48 hours, whether it’s a call, email or text. Perhaps invest in custom name badges for extra visibility at events.

Start (and maintain) a blog

If you’ve got a unique business, create a blog to back it up. Not only does blogging help your brand’s online visibility, it’s also a great way to share any expert knowledge you’ve gained through your niche. Even a relatively ‘tame’ business can have an exciting blog.

Your business is a sports retailer? Blog about how you import from abroad and the troubles you’ve faced, or any ecommerce solutions you’ve tried. Or engage your audience and write a fun post about the most obscure sports in the world.

Put out good, branded content

While ‘content marketing’ is a bit of a buzzword, syndicating good content is one of the best ways for a start up to go ‘viral’ on the internet. Aside from that, the content helps align your brand with your message and access your audience.

One common method for exciting niche businesses is hosting a reddit.com AMA, where people can ask you about your business. Beware – the community is resistant to people flagrantly selling themselves.

Aim for awards

There are countless business awards for almost any imaginable business niche. Try your best to be nominated for these by contacting organisers and explaining why you should be included.

With the right amount of persistence and effort, you’ll start to see a snowball effect and find yourself noticed and contacted more. Put in the groundwork and reap the rewards.