How to best use the Internet to promote your business

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Technology is constantly improving. Today I carry around a computer in my pocket that has more processing power and speed than my first desktop computer. When mobile phones were first introduced to South Africa, they were more of a novelty than a business tool. That changed quickly, as South Africans saw the advantage of being able to make and take phone calls at any time, any where.

The introduction of Smart Phones and easy to carry around tablets is making the Internet even more accessible. For Business, this means that there is even more opportunity for you to be found on the Internet. Of course, to be found on the Internet you have to have a Presence and you have to promote it, so that it can be found.

For any Business to survive, it has to grow and for this to happen it needs a plan or blueprint. You Web presence is part of this plan and needs to grow and change with the business.

Your Intent Presence is usually built around a Web Site, but could also be built around a Blog or even a FaceBook Group or Page.We can define Internet Presence as:

Internet Presence is every email you send, every comment you make on a blog or forum, every time you interact through social media, such as Twitter or Face Book – everything you do on line.

The Internet is a big place, but improved search techniques make it easy to track someones surfing habits. Every time you interact on the Internet you leave an electronic footprint. The good news is that you can put these electronic footprints to work for you.

We look at how to make this work for you in the coming week.

Choosing the best product (bandwith) to suit your needs.

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No matter how big a business is, cost is always important. This is especially true for Small Business. When the Seacom Cable first arrived on our shores, South Africa entered a new era. Suddenly the cost of connecting to the Internet, came down, and a price war broke out.

New and Old names are competing for what is a growing market. Products vary from supplier to supplier and judging them on price alone, is short sighted. Let’s look at what is on offer and what is best suited for your needs. Some of the terms that you will encounter when choosing a product are:

Local
Shaped
Unshapped
Capped
Uncapped

making the wrong choice will cause you more than your fair share of frustration. So looks look at how you should choose a product that suits you.

Local Bandwidth. The least expensive of the bunch, but as the name says, can only be used locally. This is fine if you only check mail and maybe do your banking online. Here is a list of South African Sites you can visit using bandwidth

Shaped. Certain types of traffic get priority, example email. Downloads and torrents are likely to get penalised.

Unshaped. No restriction but will be more expensive

Capped Bandwidth. Usually sold by the GIG. When used up you cannot connect and need to top up. Usually Unshaped.

Uncapped Bandwidth. There is no restriction on how much you may use. Uncapped Bandwidth is usually shaped. Heavy down loaders may find their speed being throttled make their download take longer than if the were using Unshaped. Uncapped is aimed at businesses that want to control their spend.

Internet on the Run. Smart Phones are not expensive and are  ideal some one on the move. You will see business men take out their Blackberry and check their mail, teens chatting to their friends on the Androids and the smart set using their iPhones. Your smart phone allows you to check your mail, connect to the Internet, chat online, create spreadsheets and is a good substitute for your PC when you are out the office.

You can use your airtime or you can connect using WIFI at a hotpot, which you will normally find at a coffee shop or a shopping mall. It is also possible to st up a hot spot at home or in the office using a wireless router.

Freelancers who work away from their office are able to use a 3G Dongle to connect to the Internet.  Using a small modem that looks much like a memory stick and a Mobile Phone Sim Card, they can connect anywhere they can get a signal.

There is a product to suit your needs and your pocket, a good place to compare product and prices is Hellkom.

The Internet in South Africa

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I can remember when there were only two Internet cafes in Cape Town. Then Incredible Connection opened a new store and put in an Internet Cafe for the customers to use free. I got my first taste of what has become a passion – the Internet.  Suddenly new worlds opened up for me. I coukd read the journals (Blogs) of complete strangers who where willing to share their lives on line. I could research any subject, or just aimlessy surf the net.

Over time the Internet has changed. The chaos that existed has largely been tamed by Google,  and the Internet has become an important source of knowledge. Business has been quick to embrace the Internet using it to promote their products and services, and can also sell these over the Internet.  People have become rich by exploiting a gap or coming up with something new. Facebook, started off as a social platform for college students. It spread to teens and young adults. Suddenly parents and grand parents discovered that they could use it to stay in touch with friends and family, share photographs and information. Then Business realised that an opportunity existed and they started using Facebook.

Just as email took the place of normal mail, and whilst letters are still sent by normal mail the volumes have dropped, so is email slowly losing out to instant messaging, sor speed. Change is happening all the time, and will continue to happen as the Internet evolves around our needs.

South Africa found itself lagging behind the rest of the world. Connecting to the Internet was (and still is) expensive and slow. When Broadband was first introduced, it was controlled by Telkom and proved very expensive. Connecting to the Internet using dialup was ok if you just checked you email, but a frustrating expierance if you need to do anything eles.

Today the situation in South Africa is much improved. The arrival of  new cables offshore has increased the bandwith available and started a price war. When Seacom first landed, Internet Service Providers realsied that they could take on Telkom on a much more level playing field. Suddenly, prices dropped and consumers were spolit for chice. Then, to confuse matters even more, uncapped bandwidth made it’s appearance. The dust has finally settled and South Africans now can choose from from products that suit their needs and their pockets.

Other cables have since made their appearance and as more bandwidth becomes avail so will our use of the Internet increase.

How they do it on TV

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If you have been watching Bones, you will have seen that every time a team worked somewhere other than their lab at the Smithsonian, they communicated by Web Cam or using their Smart Phones.

When I grew up, I always carried a 20 cent piece with me in case I needed to use a public phone. I kept friends and family phone numbers and addresses in an address book. I had a camera that used film to take photos, had them developed and printed and put them into an album. If wanted to send a photo to a friend or drop them a note, I sent it by (snail) mail.

Today we can do all that using a mobile phone, and it does not even have to be a “Smart Phone.” You can make a call from just about anywhere, you can store telephone number and even addresses on your phone. You can connect to the Internet and even send and receive email.
So when you see Computers and Phones being used to communicate and work away from the office, it is not fantasy but fact. Another favourite,of mine, is the TV series, The Mentalist, where the most junior member of the team often stays behind in the office searching for information online. Of course being a State agency, they have access to most government databases and although it is never mentioned out loud, seem to hack into private databases.

I use a laptop. It has a large hard drive, which allows me to store a great deal of data. I have have a Dongle (modem) that uses a cell phone signal to connect to the Internet. I do not have a built in Web Cam, but can attach a small external one, I can attach a headphones with a built in microphone. i can pack it all in my briefcase and go down to my favourite coffee shop and work and still connect online and chat to clients using a Web Cam.

So how does it help you – being mobile is a very valuable tool for small business, especially when you work alone. It means you can visit a client, do a presentation and instead of driving all the way back to your office, you can stop off and catch-up with work before going off to your next appointment.

After all,  being productive is simply using what is available to best advantage.

Web Presence – Social Media

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There are many Social Media Web tools available to use to promote your service or business. I am going to concentrate on one of the most popular – Twitter.

Twitter is a very powerful way of getting a message across quickly. Let’s examine that statement. The Keywords are message and quickly. That alone, makes it a very valuable tool for any business to use. Of course, the is one extra ingredient needed, an audience.

Let us examine how it can work. As an example I am going to use Joe’s Sandwich Shop.

Joe’s Sandwich shop has McDonalds as his neighbor to the right and Burger King as his neighbor to the left. His sandwiches are made to order and are always fresh. He has a varity of bread to chose from that comes in fresh everyday.  But sandwiches can be boring, when compared to a Big Mac, so Joe has a not so secret weapon – Twitter.

He has got his clients to friend him on twitter, he  accepts orders on Twitter and they are ready when the customer comes to collect them, he lets his following know what the days special is. He receives compliments and complaints vis twitter and tries to respond immediately. He has taken Twitter and uses it to get the message out quick!

There are many companies out there that are doing just that. They use twitter to receive feedback from clients, they use it to inform clients and they do it quickly.
Twitter is easy to use on your PC or on your Phone making it the perfect social media tool for your business. . It is

Web Presence – Squidoo

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If you want to establish yourself as an authority on a subject, Squidoo give you the opportunity to publish a One Page web Site or Lens.

A Squidoo Lens acts as a flier or signpost to you and your expertise. It is quick and easy to build and by using a signature to link back to your Web Site, can drive traffic to your site. it is meant to tease and whet the readers appetite for more and thus send them to your site.

Squidoo ranks well in Google and and your lens is likely to be included in the results when someone makes a search on the  subject. Being a large community site, they will also promote new lenses  to the community.

Web Presence – Free Blogs

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The Internet has turned the traditional Business Model on it’s head. There are many successful companies that give away stuff for free and still make a profit. Possibly the best example of this is Firefox, a free open source Internet Browser that is paid to use Google as it’s default search engine.

There are a variety of free blogs available for you to use and promote your business. The the four best choices are

  • WordPress.com
  • Blogger
  • Tumblr
  • Posterus

Whilst they do not have the convience of being hosted on your own site and thus being wholly controlled by you, they do have some advantages that will help you promote your Web Presence.

WordPress.com
Wordpress is possibly the most popular publishing paltform aavailable on the Internet today. You can download the software free and use it on your own host or you can use the hosted version at WordPress.com

The hosted version allows you you choose a theme from their comprehensive library. You can further tweak the appreance with a varirt of widgets that are prvided as standard. You can tracck your stats in the controll panel

You can also take advantage of their premium features, so as your own domain name, kepp your blog ad free and even have your own custome design made for you.

Blogger
Another very popular blog, Blogger is part of Google. Easy to customise withb a vaiety of tyhemes, it also alows you to run your own adsense on the blog.
You can post multimedia to your blog.

Tumblr
Tumblr is not Blog in the same sense as WordPress.com or Blogger, it might be described as a a hub or central point. You can post videos, dudio and text, you can follow other tublrs and repost their post orn your Tumblr.

Posterus
Publishing a post on Posterus is as easy as sending an email. You can also post from your iPhone or your Android powerd Smartphone. Easy Peasy

Web Presence – Social Bookmarking

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Often when surfing the Internet, you will come across something that make you go, “Wow! That is amazing!” You want to save it so you can come back to it and you want to share it with…well everybody!

Today, it is easier than ever to share information with a far greater audience than you ever were able to, before the arrival of the Internet.  You can tweet it, you can post it to Facebook or you can bookmark it.

The Internet is a vast source of information. Often you will come across a Web Site that you will want to refer to at some later stage. You can bookmark it using your browser. Keep in mind that your browser sits on on your computer. If you use more that one PC, using an on line bookmarking service like delicious is a good idea.

In order to find something that you bookmarked sometime ago, you will save it under a category or sub category when saving it to your browser, on line you will use keywords or tags to help you to find certain sites. Lets say you you have saved several sites on baking and you ant to find one on baking muffins, your tags would most likely be – food, bake, baking, cake, bread, muffins. Therefore by typing in the tag ‘muffins’ you will be taken to any site that you have saved that deals with muffins.

You can make it easy to save these bookmarks, by adding share this button to your browser. Once you have saved your bookmark on line you, other people can explore the sites that you recommend, in exactly the same way that you can share their bookmarks and recommendations.

The Internet has evolved into a community that crosses borders, can improve communication between different language groups and social bookmarking allows you to explore beyond your local community. By bookmarking or recommend a page on your Web Site, you are able to generate traffic and ultimately sales from beyond your normal target market.

Web Presence – Your Tools

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The Internet provides you with the tools to make your presence known on-line.
Even better still, most of the tools are free. There are a great variety available,
that it would not be possible to list them all, so I will concentrate on: -

Social Bookmarking
Free Blogs
Micro Blogs
Lenses
Social Media
Social Networking
Self Hosted Blog
Using these, or a combination of some of the above tools will help you to make
your presence known on line.

Next: Social Bookmarking