I love it when I meet a great company, who want to help small businesses succeed online. When I met Tom from Creare, I was delivering a seminar at a business event in London. We spoke about a week later and agreed to go ahead with a partnership, providing support and advice to UK businesses.
My journey in the world of business has been 25 years in the making. I decided to take this, and write a “work-book†to help entrepreneurs grow their business to be socially-savvy.
What does a socially-savvy business mean to you? To me, it means building a business from the ground up using the right tools, technology and effective sales and marketing strategies.
Without giving too much away, below are the 7 steps I cover in my book Think #Digital First.
1. You; There Will Only Ever Be One
Have you ever asked yourself; “What am I doing wrong?†or “What’s Important to ME?†You have to question yourself, find out what you love, invest in yourself as an entrepreneur and find your own voice. Don’t get caught up in the fear of business and know that there will only ever be ONE of you, and if you don’t #ExpressYourself, you won’t be able to take that next step on your business journey.
2. Framework for Success
If you don’t have the framework in place to allow social media to become a piece in your business puzzle, it won’t make the perfect picture. You can read more on chapter two and the difficult questions you need to ask yourself as a business owner here.
3. Protecting Your Time: Focus on Sales
As a business owner, time management is key because there are many hats that you will need to wear. Your time will need to be split between the sales side of your business, marketing, finances, operations and being the ambassador of your brand.
4. Setting Up a Socially-Savvy Business
Understanding how Google works, building your business to be SEO optimised (onsite and offsite) as well as understanding the key social networks is an important part of building a socially-savvy business. Everything from Digital Marketing, to Blogging, Content Marketing, Email Marketing, PR, Affiliate Marketing and Paid Advertisement are what you need to consider utilising as a socially-savvy business.
5. Tools to Help Your Business Grow
I share over 50 different tools and technologies that are built to help small businesses succeed online. I cover everything from listening and research tools to business, website builders, design/visuals, marketing, analytical technology and SEO/MetaData tools.
6. Strategy & Implementation
As a business, all of the above is so important when thinking #digital first but without the right strategies to implement for your business, you will fall short. I share strategies around going to market, building content, planning your overall marketing and a 90 days sales plan.
7. Customer Retention Through Loyalty                                      Â
Customer loyalty should be at the forefront of your customer retention strategy #WalkThisWay. Your new socially-savvy business will now be working with your customers daily, through sharing, added-value content, designed to help your company get noticed across the new social web. This includes everything from Google, Bing, Yahoo (SEO) through to Twitter, Pinterest, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and Google+ (SMO).
I have successfully built businesses and know what it’s like to fail. Failure is one of the best things an entrepreneur can face. Look at Apple, Facebook and Microsoft. Building a successful business is not smooth sailing. My book is a journey through my successes and failures, with real life examples.
Since my website launch at the beginning of 2015, I have taken a new, hands on approach to helping small businesses. As well as writing a book, I also run monthly complimentary webinars that anyone can sign up for, case studies of successes my clients have been able to achieve, as well as two blogs a week with information on the latest tools and technologies.
Stay tuned for more content from me, on Creare’s Advice Centre!