The world of digital media is fast-paced. So being relevant and visible means you have to stay involved with it. Knowing which platforms work best for your business, and how to approach them, makes a big difference.

But this isn’t about responding to fads or trying to juggle all the digital media options at once. When you focus on a few of the key places to be and get your approach right, you are doing enough.

As many more businesses are moving online now, the key really is visibility. Use these tips to keep yourself showing up where your next customers are looking. 

1. Show up on social

Staying relevant these days means providing a social media presence for your business. Even if it’s not your main route to market, and most of your customers come from elsewhere, it is still important. Having a regular presence on at least a couple of social platforms provides ‘social proof’ that your business is relevant and active.

If you are using social media as your main form of promotion, then this will matter even more to you. It is important to keep your brand clear and consistent when you post on the platforms that you use.

Staying present online is about being seen. In part, this is about the frequency and regularity of posting. But more than that, it’s about having a consistent brand look when you post.

The idea is that you want your content to be instantly recognisable by your followers. Creating your own custom graphics, such as those square Instagram quote cards, is an excellent way to do this.

You can make your own customized social graphics using a free tool such as Canva. Add your brand colours, fonts, your own images, and your logo. Given the importance of branding, you might also want to consider going the custom design route. For a unique design, carefully crafted by professional designers visit this page. 

2. Subtitle your videos

This is a mistake I see all the time – people don’t subtitle their videos.

In the world of digital media, video has been king for a while. But what we need to understand about this is how people consume video content.

Many people are scrolling through their social media feeds while sitting on their sofa next to their family. They often have the TV on at the same time. So when a video starts auto-playing on their feed, they don’t tap to turn the sound on.

If there aren’t subtitles to help them watch silently, then they are going to keep scrolling.

It’s also true that a lot of social media scrolling happens covertly in the workplace, when the viewer is supposed to be actually working. So the sound would give them away.

Stay relevant and visible by making sure you subtitle all your social media video content.

If you are uploading a video directly into Facebook, there is a subtitle tool built in. It auto generates your captions, and is fairly accurate. You can also edit them before you hit publish. There is a similar tool within YouTube.

If you want to get more creative and add titles for other platforms such as Instagram, try an online tool like Zubtitle.

3. Content publishing platforms

If you haven’t yet tried publishing your blog posts and articles anywhere other than your website, then you are missing a trick.

Creating a Medium account for your brand is an excellent way to help your content reach further and stay relevant for longer. Medium has more than 60 million users, so it’s a great place to be.

You can import your posts from your website to your Medium account, which gives your original post an attribution. This avoids the worry of Google seeing it as ‘duplicate content’. It also gives people a quick link to your website if they are interested.

Medium also works like social media in the sense that readers can choose to ‘follow’ you. This means that when you publish something new, you are more likely to show up in their feed. This is great for staying visible too.

Another trick people miss is to share their blog posts as LinkedIn Articles. Sure, you can post a link to your website or Medium posts on LinkedIn, that’s fine too. But when you share your content as a LinkedIn Article using their built-in editor, the platform’s algorithm favours it.

You then find your content is shown to more people, and you may even get a few comments. Getting engagement like this is great for staying relevant and visible too.

Using it all together

So to recap, here are the key points:

• Show up regularly on social media. Keep your branding strong to make sure your followers instantly recognise you.
• Subtitle your videos to capture those people watching silently – there are a lot of them.
• Use publishing platforms like LinkedIn Articles and Medium to stay visible and current.

Remember that this isn’t about jumping into fads. The real, sustainable trends of digital media that will last are the things that make the users’ experience better. This is why subtitling videos makes a lot of sense. You are making it easier for your fans to view your content.

Keep showing up online in a way that suits your fans, and you will stay relevant to them.

Guest Post by Aviana Guzman