Social Media and New Technology Bring Changes for Small Business

I have been doing a lot of thinking and a lot of writing about 2011 and its significance for small businesses over the last couple of weeks. As I see it, there are several factors which will be making the next year or two particularly important to offline business owners…

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Social Media Marketing Opportunities for Small Businesses

I went looking online for a short, easy to understand definition of Social Media and found this analogy…

Think of regular media as a one-way street where you can read a newspaper or listen to a report on television, however, you have very a limited ability to share your thoughts on the matter.

Social Media, on the other hand, is an active two-way street that gives you the ability to communicate and respond.

While Social Media can be a major time waster, for small businesses  and offline businesses in particular, Facebook and Twitter have come into their own as effective marketing tools. They are especially efficient now because they can be integrated quite nicelywith a website built using WordPress…

For instance, a WordPress Post can be set to be posted on your Facebook Fan page and Tweet on your twitter account. The Facebook Fan page and its recent posts can be displayed in the sidebar of your WordPress site along with recent Twitter Tweets. All of this can be set to happen automatically, with no additional work on your part.

So you write one thing and have it appear in two other additional venues… automatically and entirely hands off! Pretty efficient!

Mobile Marketing is Changing How We Do Business

Another important change in business is how Mobile Marketing is evolving. More and more, folks are depending on their mobile devices on a day to day basis – finding locations, reading QR Codes, even making payments…

As business owners, we need to keep up, insuring that we can benefit from the advancing technology and making sure that we have a web presence that is Mobile Accessible. As with everything internet related, there are a myriad of options and strategies available, and no one size fits all!

QR Codes Provide a Much Needed Bridge Between Offline and Online

QR Codes (Quick Response Codes) look like tiny black and white mosaics, in a square shape and with a pattern made up of even tinier black and white squares. They are actually 2D barcodes.

They are designed to be scanned by Smart Phones and other mobile devices. the device needs to have a QR Code Application installed, but more and more of them are being sold with this capacity already installed.

QR Codes are a powerful new technology from an offline business standpoint.

• They enable a consumer to do things like download directions to your shop from your website directly onto the consumer’s smart phone.

• They allow you to provide a QR Code at the register and send the customer directly to an email sign up form on your website AND join your email list while you ring up their purchase.

These are just two quick examples. Once you start thinking, I know you will begin to see the possibilities!

WordPress is now a Viable Content Management System for Small Business Websites

My last example involves the web site building software – WordPress.

WordPress was originally and specifically created as blogging software. It is now an excellent choice for many types of small business web sites. In fact, about the only thing it can’t do is run an ecommerce site with more than about 500 products.

In simple terms, a Content Management System is a web site that handles the look and function of the website separately from the actual information/content of the site.

In other words, with a Content Management System, you can make radical changes to the packaging – the theme and workings, without affecting the object inside — in this case, the website information and content.

WordPress does this easily. In addition there are literally thousands of plugins (add-ons) that will add additional functionality to a WordPress site.

WordPress is Open Source so it and many of its related Themes and Plugins are free. But, don’t limit yourself to just free. There are many fine Themes and Plugins which justify their purchase price.

As a last and extremely important point, WordPress is relatively easy to learn and use effectively. This means that a small business owner can actually have control over the company website… without expensive fees!

Look Ahead for Small Business Advantages Online

All in all, I am quite excited about the opportunities  now available for small business owners. These options promise to start leveling the playing field between small business and its intimidating Big Business competition!

Sharing the Road to Success!

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