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How to Improve Your Business Using Technology

14 Replies HayleyCreare

In today’s day and age, you will very rarely find a business owner sitting on their laurels and simply allowing their business to move from one day to the next without change. With the current unsteady financial climate, most should be doing their utmost to move their business forward in order to attract and secure enough new customs to stay afloat. One of the many ways in which this can be achieved is to invest in the latest technology for your particular field of business.

Whilst this may seem a daunting prospect both in terms of a lack of technological experience and a strain on already limited finances, the advantages of making the investment could be profound. No matter what industry you find yourself in, there is almost certainly going to be a form of technology at your disposal – whether this be a specific system, programme or piece of equipment – that can have a positive effect on the way in which your business is run.

For instance, a retail setting that is behind the times in terms of technology could definitely benefit from the introduction of point of sale and EPOS software to make payment transactions swifter and stock counting easier. Although the transition from traditional ways to modern alternatives may be unnerving, if you are able to keep track on the amount of stock you have on the shelves whilst making payment at the tills quicker, this could have long-term financial benefits.

In an office environment, a large number of computers has now become the norm. In the world of computer technology, new system updates and program developments are common place so ensuring that your business stays up to date with such regular changes can be a struggle. However, by investing in professional help, you may then be able to divert your attention away from this area to concentrate on other pressing matters, safe in the knowledge that everything is being taken care of on your behalf.

IT support cartoon

Professional tech support could help prevent employees from needing their own!

Whether you decide to develop an in-house team to offer support when it comes to your IT systems, or decide that outsourcing will be a more cost-effective option, having one individual or a team of technologically savvy employees who are aware of technical changes that could influence the performance of your business will give you an advantage over your competitors.

It is no secret that attracting new custom can be a struggle and with many consumers now using the internet to find local services, ensuring you have a fully functional website and an online presence is more important than ever. Attractive website design coupled with an SEO campaign to get your business ranking in the search engines for particular terms related to what you offer could make all the difference and give your company the edge when attracting new customers.

Although the current financial climate leaves many businesses in a perilous position, it is clear to see that with an investment in new technology, things may well turn around. From developing a fresh and invigorating website through to purchasing the latest equipment and calling upon professionals to offer assistance, you and your business could see a turn in fortunes that leaves you in a far more stable position.

What we now know about Facebook

21 Replies Christopher Roberts

As you may have heard, Facebook plans to become a public limited company (plc) and float on the stockmarket. It hopes that this will raise around the sum of $5 billion USD (this is only about half what most people thought it would try to raise) in finance for the business, a colossal amount!

Facebook's LogoThanks to the flotation it is estimated that around 30% (roughly 1,000 people) of the companies employees will become millionaires! That said, Mark Zuckerberg is reducing his annual salary to just $1 as of January next year. Why? Because he will have shares estimated at the value of around $100 billion!

Anyway, due to Facebook wanting to become a plc, it needed to release more detailed financial data than it ever had before, into the public domain. This means that we now know much more about this previously rather secretive internet giant, than ever before!

Finances

Thanks to its choice to become a plc, we now know that Facebook makes 85% of its income from advertising. Furthermore we know that last year it made almost $4 billion USD! Out of this, it turned an impressive 25% into profit, bringing it in $1 billion (supposedly exactly) in net profit.

It is now possible to value to company as a whole, and it is thought to be worth $100 billion USD. To compare that to other industry giants, Amazon is valued around the same amount, eBay is values at about half that figure, and Google is thought to be worth double that.

Ownership

Facebook will still be owned and controlled largely by Mark Zuckerberg. He currently owns 28.4% of Facebook and has a majority in terms of voting rights with over 50% of votes. Basically Zuckerberg owns Facebook still, and he seems to want to stay in the driving seat for a while yet!

Mark Zuckerberg the founder of FacebookUsers

We now also know that Facebook have around 845 million active users around the world, of whom, around 450 million visit the site very regularly – that is a crazy amount!

The Future?

Facebook would be worth nothing without its users. Some people say that its users are not Facebook’s customers, but in fact the networks products. If people get bored or move on, the site will die.

If you were buying shares in an internet based business, Google would probably be a much safer bet than Facebook, as its future looks much more certain. Facebook may pay massive dividends to investors in the future, or it may go into decline and cost investors a collective $5 billion!


Friends Reunited was once great, now it stands in Facebook’s massive shadow, as does Myspace, Bebo, Foursquare and many other social media sites. All these sites how now been superseded by Facebook, the question is, will Google Plus or something else dwarf Facebook? Personally I believe that in 10 years, there will be something bigger, but we will just have to wait and see 🙂

Why a presence on Twitter can be good for your business

12 Replies Hazel Raoult

Before I start out, I want to clarify that it’s not a crime not to be on Twitter or any other social media platform. Before Facebook and Twitter, businesses still found many innovative ways of marketing their products and services. But, the whole idea of making use of social platforms such as Twitter to promote your business is to leverage their ever growing popularity for business benefits. The platform is there, you only have to use it. What could be simpler!

What you are trying to do is transfer a minuscule of the popularity of Twitter to your business.

If that’s not convinced you enough to get your business on Twitter, let’s see how a presence on Twitter will be a big step forward for your business.

Better Business Visibility

Better Business VisibilityThis is a no-brainer. A business profile on Twitter will give your business improved visibility, which in turn means that it will be able to reach a wider audience.

What’s more, this is an automatic benefit of having a Twitter presence. One of the better ways of making optimum use of your Twitter presence is not including your business website link in your profile, but creating a Twitter centric landing page, for all those people who have found your business through Twitter. This will ensure better lead generation.

Gain Strategic Intelligence

Your business cannot do without being nimble footed. If your business is not in tune with the latest happenings in its niche, there is a good chance that it won’t be able to compete with the other players in the market.

A Twitter presence allows you to gather competitive intelligence by monitoring the tweets made by your competitors. You can track their latest developments and any happenings that you can exploit for your benefit.

Managing your Online Reputation

When it comes to business, reputation is everything. Any loss of credibility will be immediately reflected in its sales figures, so you need to be able to manage its reputation in totality. Here, we are looking at its online reputation. Twitter helps you manage it, because news breaks extremely quickly on this platform; and there is a good chance that your customers are going to use your business’s twitter network to give feedback about your products and services.

So, you will need to monitor the tweets about your products and services, to rectify any flaws in them. This goes a long way in minimizing the damage to your credibility.

All in all Twitter is a great way of ensuring better public relations and generating brand awareness, enhancing brand credibility and improving brand recall.

Your presence on this platform helps you engage with potential customers and also interact with existing customers. This one-on-one improves credibility and generates a favorable reputation for your business. All this isn’t something that your business can afford to miss out on.

If your business is not on Twitter I believe that you are doing it a disservice.