The process of building our online presence was a lot more challenging than we originally thought it would be. I’ve come to realise that we probably should have already had some sort of online platform like Facebook or Instagram set up long before COVID-19. But we never needed to rely on social media; until that became our only option in keeping our business alive.
Our business felt doomed. The lack of international tourists brought on a whole new challenge for us. I couldn’t see the point in starting an Instagram or Facebook page. I thought a website would be enough but I have learnt an incredible amount about the power of social media over the last year.
First, it was family and friends who gave us the ‘follows’ and the ‘likes’. Soon enough, they began to share the pages and we felt the support of our local communities.
The process of building our online presence included a lot of trial and error. We tried all of the tips and tricks to try and increase engage our followers. It took soooo much longer than we thought it would to start to truly build our online presence!
We would sell products once every blue moon… or so it felt like in comparison to the sales we used to make when we had our store at Cavill Avenue. It was mainly because of our family and friends that would make purchases that we felt like we could keep going.
Our giveaway that we did when this website launched was probably the best thing we had done for our page. Our follower count increased so quickly and more and more people were starting to engage with us a little more than they used to.
Also, someone decided that it would be a great idea to create a fake account… which our followers notified us of immediately and reported. That made the process of fixing that issue a lot easier! You know that they say – imitation is the greatest form of flattery!
But that didn’t mean that anyone necessarily made purchases; oh, absolutely not.
But then we received a message…
Make sure you read our previous blog post about the pandemic here or view our Instagram page here!