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Benefits of Social Media for Small Businesses

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Many small businesses are increasingly focusing on the web when it comes to making their brand a success. It’s easy to see why when you take a look at the extreme success of various online businesses and take into account that almost every high street retailer also has a website which allows them to operate online in tandem with their brick and mortar store. Setting up a website gives you an edge. It allows customers to order goods from you from the comfort of their own home. This is the ultimate form of convenience, especially if you offer next day delivery options. A webstore also allows you to operate round the clock. You no longer have to work with strict opening and closing times, as you can leave an online store unmanned and operating twenty four hours a day, seven days a week. Then you can open up your brand to a worldwide market of consumers with the simple addition of international shipping options! However, your brand’s online presence has the potential to reach so much further than a website alone. You can also incorporate other forms of media into your business strategies in order to make profit. For now, let’s focus on social media. Here are just a few of the benefits that it can bring to your venture.

Facebook

Facebook is perhaps the most popular form of social media. It has approximately 2.2 billion users active every single month. So, this may well be the best place to start if brand exposure is what you’re looking for. When setting up a profile for your business on social media, make sure to establish that you are a business at the start of the page setup. This will give you access to more appropriate profile editing options that can benefit you as a brand. Perhaps the main benefit of Facebook (besides exposure) is that you can add certain details to your page’s profile which help customers to receive the best possible customer service that you can provide. Your profile can detail your store’s physical location (including address and postcode) so that customers can make their way to your brick and mortar store without hassle. You can also add a contact number and contact email address so that they can contact you easily. Then there’s the instant messenger option that you can activate. This means that customers can easily contact you, you will receive a notification, and you can respond to them as quickly as possible. You can then use your feed to give customers updates and put out announcements, such as sales, new lines, and special events.

Instagram

Another extremely popular form of social media is Instagram. This app specialises in the visual, which is particularly beneficial for online companies who only have visual representations of their goods to sell to their customers until they receive the real deal in the post after purchase. For the strongest Instagram presence possible, you need plenty of followers. The more followers you have, the more likes you will have on your posts. If consumers see that other consumers like something, it becomes increasingly desirable and they’re likely to want to purchase the goods that everyone else likes. However, cultivating these followers and likes is a little difficult to start with when you haven’t yet established a presence. Perhaps the best way to get started is to buy likes on Instagram. This will give your brand a presence, which will in turn generate more attention and more legitimate followers and likes.

Twitter

While Twitter isn’t necessarily automatically associated with brands, it’s an online powerhouse that you should engage with regardless. Twitter’s main benefit for companies is convenient communication. Tweets are capped at 140 characters, so it can be used for short and sweet exchanges with your customers and potential customers. More complex and lengthy conversations can be taken to the inbox feature. It can also be used for short announcements and updates for your followers. However, you can also take a controversial approach which brings mass attention to your brand. Just take a look at Denny’s twitter feed. Their comedic tweets have resulted in the fast food chain amassing 479,000 followers.

If you haven’t started engaging with social media on a professional level yet, it’s about time that you get around to it. After all, some of the most accessed apps have the potential to bring a ridiculous number of potential customers your way and also allow you the resources to keep in touch with them and make further sales!

Stop Working For Your Business

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We don’t have an exact answer figure, but we reckon 98.1% of entrepreneurs are okay with putting in the hard work if it means they can sit back and enjoy a bit more freedom down the line. Yeah, we’re talking about creating a business that works without you needing to be there. The problem is, most founders end up working for their businesses instead of their businesses working for them.

If you’re not sure which camp you fall into, try pondering this scenario: you are kidnapped, put in the trunk of a Ford Mondeo and kept hostage (albeit well-looked after) for a fortnight, maybe even a month – what would happen to your business? Would it thrive, would it survive or would it fall apart faster than a filo pastry?

If it is the latter option, don’t despair. We’ve pulled together a few tips and tricks to help make your business start running smoothly without you. Enjoy the early retirement you’ve always dreamed about.

1. Automate All You Can

The more of your processes you can automate, the fewer things will need you – or someone – to focus their efforts on. Automate your customer service response, look at your method to manage your policies and procedure, streamline your onboarding processes, your systems for filing documents, your workflows, invoicing, anything. The more you can automate, the less chance there will be of human error getting involved and that means less for you to oversee.

2. Let Your Employees Work

Any leader that has trouble relinquishing control will no doubt have a stringent interview process to make sure they only bring on the very best talent. You don’t want anything but the right candidate to take your business forward. That means you have hired each of your employees for a reason, so let them do their jobs. Let them do the very role you hired them to do. Instead of hovering over them, inspire and empower them and let them figure out which way of doing things suits them. It will make your hopes of standing back come true, that’s a promise.

3. Step Away For A Bit

It doesn’t have to be long, a week let’s say. What you will find from stepping back for this length of time is you get a better understanding of how your company runs without you. We’re talking about turning your phone off for that entire week and then evaluating the result when you come back. This will let you see where your big weaknesses are, where the biggest issues arose and which unanswered questions need some attention. It’s about having more understanding of where your team needs further assistance, training and empowerment.

4. Be A Better Delegator

The role of CEO is a bit of an ambiguous one. That’s why you should cross this out and then make a list of all the tasks and roles you took on the past six months to a year. Once you have this in front of you, start categorizing and delegating them. This won’t be creating more work for anyone else, it will give them the chance to take total responsibility for a role and all the responsibilities that come with it and that can be immensely motivating.

What To Do When Your Business Is Struggling

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Don’t be surprised if at some point you find your business struggling, with you figuring out how and why such issues have arisen. Such ups and downs are normal in the world of business, and whether you’re an entrepreneur or seasonal business owner with years of experience, both need to know what to do when their business needs a boost in the right direction.

Try not to panic or make any rash decisions when you first realize you’re going through some tough times. What your business needs right now is you to step up and be a leader and stay determined to figure out how to get yourselves back on track. Be prepared to do your homework as to why this is occurring and then get ready to make a few changes.

Revisit your Business Plan

You can’t take action until you pinpoint exactly where you’re falling short and the gaps exist. What you need is a new and improved strategy if you’re business is struggling. It may be time to revisit your goals and adjust them for the future so you can start finding success with your company again. Pull out your business plan and go over it closely to verify areas you’re not currently executing on and figure out how you can modify your approach for the future.

Review Roles & Responsibilities

This is a good time to go over roles and responsibilities with your staff and confirm everyone’s on the same page. Make sure each person has a job they’re busy doing every day that’s helping you reach your business goals. If there are people or roles that are no longer a good fit then it’s up to you to make adjustments where necessary. You need to confirm all that’s going on within company walls is helping your cause and not holding you back.

Find ways to Boost Morale

One reason your business could be struggling is because your employees aren’t feeling very motivated. Boost morale at the office by rewarding your team when they do a good job and taking them out for a meal or participating in an Escape Rooms adventure. These are both fun activities where they’ll get to come together as a team and celebrate or problem solve their way to creating a closer bond as a group. It’ll be well worth your small investment when you start to see your employees feeling more satisfied at work and performing their job duties better.

Stay Positive & Keep Trying

What you can’t do is give up and stop trying to figure out why your business is experiencing growing pains. Stay positive and continue working your way through the hardships. Focus on what you’re doing right and always remember to play to your strengths. While it’s okay to be realistic and honest with your staff, never let them see you get down on yourself or the company as you try to minimize any long-term damage.

Conclusion

Every business goes through ups and downs and this just happens to be a period when you’re struggling. Spend time understanding the problem areas and finding solutions instead of complaining. Use these suggestions for helping you to recover and bounce back better than before.

How To Make Your Business Safer

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As a business owner, you have an important responsibility to ensure the safety of everyone who works for you. Of course, there are always going to be times when accidents happen, but you need to take steps to reduce the odds of this happening. Anything negative or dangerous events which happen at your business and are your responsibility could end up being very destructive and damaging to it. So, let’s take a closer look at a couple of the ways that you can make your business safer for the benefit of both you and your employees.

Develop a Risk Management Policy

The risk management policy which you create for your business very much depends on the type of company that you are running. Obviously, there are some environments which are more dangerous than others, but you still need to take the proper safety precautions even if you just run an office environment. Your risk management program needs to be ongoing and adaptable. After all, there may be new risks which present themselves during the lifespan of your company.

To start off with, look at your current risk management program to see if there are any improvements which you could make to it. Have you set safety goals and are they measurable? Look to your managers and ask how committed they are to workplace safety. If they are not giving this aspect of your company the attention that it deserves, you need to ask why not and reiterate just how important it is to everyone. While everyone should have the same priorities when it comes to protecting staff members, you will probably want to have a few trusted staff members who can lead the initiative.

There are a number of factors involved in creating a risk management policy. First of all, you should conduct some inspections of your property to identify potential risks. You may decide that you need to invest in additional equipment and protective measures such as safety rails. It is worth having an inspection completed by a professional who knows what they are doing and can make recommendations. Be aware of any potential hazards around your work environment including faulty machinery, unsafe practices or things which could result in trips and spills. You also need to ensure that your employees are protected ergonomically and you have dedicated first aiders who can help to handle any emergency situations which may occur. If you have any vehicles which you use for business, these should all be fully insured and taxed.

Put Your Program into Effect

Once you have established your policy, you then need to take steps to put it into effect. To start off with, you should consult your key members of staff to tell them all about your safety practices. These in-person consultations will ensure that you are all on the same page. You should also offer safety training sessions to all your staff members. Provide them with any additional resources as required. It is also important that you have an open-door policy when it comes to offering suggestions from your staff members. After all, they are seeing a totally different side to your business and are well-placed to offer improvements and suggestions that could help you out in the long-run.

Choose the Right Insurance

As we mentioned at the start, you can have all the best measures in place, but sometimes, accidents may happen. For example, your business could suffer from a fire or another act of God which was impossible to predict. Therefore, it is important that you have the right insurance policies to protect you from a wide range of circumstances. If you are not sure what you need and what you don’t, it is always going to be worth consulting with a professional advisor who can steer you onto the right path. Insurance is the one thing that you want your business to have in times of need.

Making your business safer should be one of your main priorities as a responsible company owner. The points listed in this article give you a few of the main things to consider. Of course, every company is different, and you will need to come up with a health and safety policy which is bespoke to your business and covers a wide range of different circumstances and eventualities. When all else fails, it is important that you have the insurance measures in place to keep your business protected.

Are You Getting The Best Online Exposure?

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Business is all about sales, and sales are best made through the internet. Anyone who says different doesn’t understand the power that the internet has, and the things that can be done to make sure the best online exposure is achieved. So, we would hope that your business is online, and we would hope that that’s where you’re driving your sales. But you need to ask yourself the question, are you getting enough exposure each month? This can be found through things like conversion rates, sales, clicks etc. If you don’t monitor these, let this article show you why you should.

You’ve Got To Market & Advertise

Some companies just have their marketing strategy so wrong, that’s one of the reasons why online exposure might be so bad. If you hardly put any effort into your marketing campaigns, then you’re definitely never going to get to where you need to be in the business world. One of the best forms of advertising is adwords and pay per click. Adwords is where a company will pay a certain amount to have their website at the top of a search engine, meaning it’s going to get the most exposure. To do this you have to pay a fee, and you have to be constantly outbidding your competitors to stay in one of the top three spots. Adwords management can be hard, so sometimes it might be better to get a company to do it for you. As long as you’ve got the money to spend, this is a really effective technique to use. Pay per click works by showing advertisements for your business, and every time someone clicks the link, then you pay, hence why it is called pay per click. This is effective because using this technique sort of plasters your business all over the web. It’s wherever everyone looks, providing that website allows ads, and it is really effective for gaining that exposure that you need. Depending on how many clicks you get, it’s probably cheaper to do than adwords.

Design Is key

The design of your website is going to be key to making sure you have the best exposure, marketing is only one side of it. Think of it this way, if a person sees your advertisement and thinks, I like the sound of that, but sees your website is under developed and hard to use, they’re obviously going to click right back off. Make sure you have a professional maintain your website to keep it at the highest level of quality possible.

Beating Competitors

Beating competitors isn’t hard, you just have to put in the hard work and dedication to get there. Make sure you’re always running marketing campaigns, and monitor what they’re doing in terms of their own marketing. They’re most likely going to be doing all they can to stay ahead of you, beat them at their own game and your business will just shoot to success. Don’t be afraid to splash the cash because it’ll always work out for you in the end providing you do it right.