1-Sentence-Summary: See You On The Internet is the ultimate beginner-level digital marketing guide that teaches you how to build an online business presence by doing everything from starting a website to managing social media accounts.
Read in: 4 minutes
Favorite quote from the author:
A few years ago my wife and I went to a mortgage lender to see what it would take for us to afford a house. After running the numbers, we weren’t happy with what we saw. I was left with two choices: I could either get a raise or find a way to make more money.
I chose the latter. It wasn’t easy at first. I was caught up in the myths that I had to have a physical product and raise a lot of money. I didn’t feel good about anything I was doing — until I discovered that you can make money with online businesses.
I’ve learned a lot since that time two years ago. Now I recognize that it’s not just new entrepreneurs that need to get online, but every business. If you don’t, you’re quickly going to get left behind.
Thankfully, bridging the gap between where you are now and where you need to be isn’t too difficult. At least not with Avery Swartz’s book See You On The Internet: Building Your Small Business with Digital Marketing!
Here are 3 of my favorite lessons in the book:
- To be seen on social media you have to know where your target market hangs out online and follow the rules of that space.
- Email marketing is a must to make your company thrive and requires knowing how to persuade people and provide value.
- To make sure that your efforts to get online are fruitful, look at the numbers.
Get ready to go digital and I’ll see you online! Oh wait, I already am! Let’s get to it!
Lesson 1: Find out where your market spends time online and make sure to follow the rules if you want to get on social media efficiently.
If you haven’t seen Wendy’s on Twitter you’ve got to go check them out. They are hilarious, and, more importantly, a perfect example of why your business needs to be on social media no matter how small.
Don’t just charge in with your assumptions about what works or you’ll fail.
Do you remember the different social groups in high school? Social media is a lot like that, each with its own dynamics and rules. And every person and company has to find where they fit in best.
Here’s a brief overview of a few platforms:
- Facebook has older people on it and centers around content from family and friends.
- LinkedIn is for professional networking and works well for B2B interactions.
- Twitter is where gen X and older millennials hang out but requires a lot of content to work.
- YouTube is another place millennials like to be and is all about creativity.
- Pinterest and Instagram both focus on images and are places that women under 50 like to spend their time online.
Test what works best for you and your customers. If you try one and struggle, just move to somewhere else! Don’t try to be everywhere, just focus on one or two. Post 80% social content like employee spotlights or chats and 20% promotional stuff.
Lesson 2: To thrive, you need to learn how to do email marketing, which is as simple as providing value and persuading people.
The other day I had to spend a few minutes unsubscribing from a bunch of marketing emails. These days everybody seems to be doing email marketing, and for good reason. But it has to be done right or they’ll unsubscribe.
The nice thing about this tool is that it’s relatively cheap and simple to implement. Having a list lets you communicate important deals or new products and services almost instantaneously.
To implement one, just find a provider, build the subscription forms, and place them on your website. I prefer ConvertKit but there are many great options.
All the effort won’t be worth it if your content isn’t valuable though. You need to strike a balance between serving your audience and meeting your company’s goals.
Establish what you want to accomplish before you begin by asking how you’d want people to react to your emails. What actions do you want them to take? More importantly, what will be most valuable to them?
Finding what works best will take time and experimentation, but don’t give up! Try different content, titles, and even times to email. You can even A/B test different subject lines to see what works best.
Lesson 3: Look at the right numbers to make sure your efforts to get online are working.
This book covers a lot of different ways to get your online business presence up and running. But you’re not doing it just for the sake of it, you want to accomplish specific goals with your company.
To see if these digital platforms are paying off, you have to look at the metrics.
For your website, connecting it to Google Analytics will give you much of the data you need. This tool shows how many people visit your site and its demographics. You can also see how people find your site and track what they do once they get there.
Social media metrics are simply built into each platform. You can see how many views you’re getting and track engagement by looking at likes and comments or how many people clicked on links to your website.
To make sense of what the numbers mean for you, set business goals, and review how your online presence contributes to them.
You probably want to make more money, for instance, so you’d want to check how your efforts are affecting that over time. Review this weekly and compare it to how you’ve done in the past to see what’s working.
If a tactic isn’t helping your goals, modify your plan and implement a new one. Then, check the data again after a few weeks to see if it made a difference.
See You On The Internet Review
I love living in a day when starting a business doesn’t require setting up a brick-and-mortar store. See You On The Internet is a great guide for getting your online presence going. Although the lessons it teaches are for beginners, I think this is valuable information for everybody, business owner or not.
Who would I recommend the See You On The Internet summary to?
The 61-year-old executive who doesn’t believe that their company’s internet presence is that important, the 25-year-old that’s considered going into business but doesn’t want to get into the messy world of venture capital, and anyone who wants to make a living in the digital age.
Last Updated on July 23, 2023
