Covid struck, and Nolij transitioned to virtual work overnight. I thought, “How do we stay connected to our clients, prospective clients, teaming partners, and employees in a virtual environment?” Traditionally, in the federal consulting world, consulting businesses try to get in front of clients and teaming partners through scheduled in-person meetings or industry events and connect via emails for specific opportunities. I thought. “How do we show that Nolij is an authentic woman-ran consulting business, we value our partners, we are committed to delivering excellence to our clients, and are at the forefront of emerging technologies? How do we build trust, loyalty, and a strong brand as a health IT woman-owned consulting business?” Meeting in person has its charm and value, and while I look forward to doing it once more, I’m learning there are other avenues to build our brand and make connections.

Our answer was to dedicate more resources, energy, and time to branding Nolij on various social media handles. Nolij hired a marketing consulting company and a full-time social media consultant. Even though we have these professional resources, our employees also play a large role in the process. It is a time-consuming effort to get the marketing going, but with more experience and time, we hope this process becomes easier, and we build a solid following that values our posts.

Today we are active on LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and Glassdoor. It is a lot of fun communicating the great work that our employees do every day. It is a time to boast and brag, and genuinely enjoy our existing relationships and develop new ones.

For people curious about what we’ve learned along the way, we’ve highlighted a few lessons learned.

• The power of a quick read is essential for increasing views and shares. Today’s busy business professional wants to cut to the heart of an article in a very short amount of time. We discovered that our 1–2-minute blogs and articles create more traffic than our longer 5-minute reads. For example, our one-minute read, “Employees are the Heart of Nolij”  received the most page views in the shortest period.
• Videos drive traffic to make connections! We found that short videos with creative content incorporating a strategic message maximize the numbers of views, likes, comments, and shares. For example, our EHR video received over 1,000 views on LinkedIn within a few days.
• Blog topics matter! Timely and relevant topics that address today’s unique challenges generated higher traffic patterns than general topics. We have discovered that relevant blogs increase traffic to our website creating new opportunities for connections. For example, my blog “Secrets to Success-for-Female-Founders had the highest average time spent on a page.
• People love a laugh, mix it up a little too… don’t always be serious. Christmas Eve, I sent out a video of a lady downing red wine, and my caption was “I’m not ready for Christmas!”. A friend of mine sent it to me, and I thought it would be funny to post it during Covid times. Needless to say, my funny friend got me 1,000 impressions within a few days on LinkedIn.

I am hoping more CEO’s and businesses in federal consulting follow suit. Writing meaningful content that both educates and allows companies like Nolij to get to know them better. It is more important than ever during Covid times to use Social Media.