These days, if you aren’t online and people aren’t interacting with the things you post, you might as well be dead.

An exaggerated statement, to be sure, but one that has gained a frightening relevance in our post-pandemic world, where most have successfully married all aspects of their lives with digital media.

While shows like Black Mirror and the recent iteration of the Twilight Zone dramatize the slow creep of technology into our lives, making it dystopian and scary, the new digital frontier possesses both terrors and treasures for businesses exploring it for the first time. While the concept of traversing this unfamiliar terrain might be somewhat discomfiting at first, digital spaces provide new opportunities for vibrant, innovative advertising, expansion of brand awareness and recognition, and potentially exponentially growing opportunities to attract lifelong customers – IF these spaces are navigated correctly, that is.

However, navigating these spaces can prove difficult for businesses that have been running for a long time and aren’t used to providing internet-friendly options, or even for newer businesses with owners that aren’t all that tech-savvy. Fortunately, most companies have already modified some of their operations to adapt to COVID regulations, providing digital options for consumers who were (rightly) scared to leave their homes at the height of the crisis. But if that hasn’t proven effective enough for you, or you find that you’re still lagging behind your more online-minded competitors, more extensive measures might need to be taken.

Looking for a good place to start? Look no further, and read on.

TikTok, Twitter, and Other Monstrosities

Navigating social media is a prospect that can frighten even the most seasoned marketing manager, as social media is often a messy, unforgiving place where everyone can voice all of their opinions to you at once. Yet, having an account on every major social media platform is an absolute must, as these platforms allow you to communicate your messaging clearly in a variety of creative and compelling ways. They also allow you to communicate updates and messaging directly to your customer base while allowing you to more easily hook new customers, as the prevalence and widespread use of social media likely mean people with no knowledge of your brand will be exposed to you.

While you can use these social media platforms to communicate your message in a vanilla, mainstream way, it’s generally recommended that you attempt to get creative with how your message is communicated. In today’s advertising-saturated market, consumers are constantly receiving messages from various sources and are less likely to retain anything from your advertising unless they happen to notice something unique.

Take Wendy’s Twitter: a risky social media strategy to be sure, one that flies in the face of most professional and customer service conventions, but one that has been highly successful for the fast-food company. You can also use the specific features of a particular program to set yourself apart, as Duolingo has been known to do with its creative, bizarre TikToks.

The Monster at Your Door: Taking a Look at At-Home Practices

Your business’s reinvention (or resurrection) must take place first at home, necessitating a close look at all of your core business practices and looking for areas that can be made net-accessible. You likely already have a few in mind as of reading this article, as COVID has probably already made you adapt to survive. But anything that you can make remote, any processes or transactions that you can translate from in-store to online, you absolutely should, otherwise, you’ll likely be facing challenges from up-and-coming competitors that have already cracked the code, as Walmart now has to deal with through Amazon.

If you need help optimizing your business practices and translating them to online spheres, you might want to consider employing the services of a consultant, such as JD Edwards Consulting. While the added expense may not be necessary for everyone, for some, hiring an experienced consultant that can independently evaluate your business practices might be a step in the right direction.

It’s Alive: Raking in the Rewards

Change is difficult; there’s no doubt about that. But taking the necessary steps to make your company more accessible via digital or remote means will likely mean the difference between success or failure as the pandemic passes, leaving behind a permanently changed world.