The internet has brought much so much with it as it rapidly moves to cover every inch of the globe. We’ve seen so many innovations come from it; it has completely changed the way we go about our lives. Great as it is for individuals and businesses, it’s possible that we could still be getting it wrong. For business people I want to talk about 5 great internet resources or platforms that you could be using wrong for your business and how to start using them the right way.

YouTube

YouTube is the worlds number one streaming service as many as 1.3 billion viewers who are consuming 5 billion videos per day. And it’s such a lovely place. There’s two ways business people could be getting YouTube wrong.

The top earner in 2018 was a 7 year old who earned US$22 million in advert revenue. The channel is all about toy reviews. That’s right. This kids expertise is playing with toys so there’s really no reason you can’t monetize your skill on YouTube.

YouTube besides housing a lot of great music videos and sketch comedy has a whole community that is dedicated to success, entrepreneurship, idea sharing and personal development. Whether you’re looking for daily motivation, how to videos, book reviews or fresh ideas from outside of the box YouTube is a great resource for you. Try it.

Twitter

Twitter remains one of the most important social networks yet largely misunderstood by Zimbabwean businesses. Sure it’s a great place to follow the latest news with micro blogging and current affairs blending together so well. It’s also really good at spreading jokes.

The best features of twitter are some of its oldest features. Twitter allows users to listen in on conversations by people they are not necessarily connected to. This is absolute gold because on a daily basis it’s quite possible your customers or at least prospects are talking about your industry or product. People are very courageous and open on Twitter and tend to give their opinion freely. You have to do the hard yards on twitter when it comes to engagement, have one on one conversations with people.

Facebook

Facebook has quite simply taken the world over as the number one social network. It is only surpassed in utility as communication tool by its acquired subsidiary WhatsApp. Boasting 1.3 billion users it offers access to a lot of people for those in business. Celebrities and famous brands have left small businesses a little confused about how to use Facebook as well as twitter.

When it came to twitter I wrote about listening. With Facebook the magic word is community. We see so many small businesses go on Facebook and try to act big and this is a terrible mistake. The best use of Facebook for small business is as a member of the community. Blasting out your promotional content is all well good but people don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care. A small skill based business can use its expertise to help people out in community groups where people ask questions or look for certain skills. There’s no limit to what you can do here, it depends largely on your content and offering. When I was part of a food blog I found that people wanted tips more than recipes and they had a tendency to want recipes that worked with what was available to them. We changed the concept to working out recipes for people with ingredients that were locally available to them based on their suggestions.

Google

Google has absolutely changed the world. It wasn’t the first search engine but it is certainly the top one today. It is a widely used platform that covers practically the entire internet in terms of its search data. So yes it’s a great search tool for you but there’s something else it can do that is useful to you.

Google being the top search engine and having all our search data means one important thing; they know. Google knows what people in your geographic location search for. Not only that, they know which combinations people search for. A really simple example of this could the realization that people in your area search for umbrella plus rain coat and you happen to sell umbrellas; perhaps adding rain coats to your products is a good idea. That’s a really simplified version yes but google does have information on what your customers are searching for, where they are coming from and where they are going to next.

Your website

Your website is your space on the internet. Strive Masiyiwa once said “there is no entrepreneur who does not have a website”. So you went and got a website then what? Having an information page is all well and good but you have to invest in your website in order to make it worth the while.

Your website done right should aid or complete your sales efforts. Many a time in my web development work I see websites which still leave you with questions about the product on offer. Consider your website as a 24 hour sales person there to serve your customers and prospects on demand. The purpose of the website is to do the selling work for you but too many are stuck in the age of just having a website. A well made website does the job of selling so well that after visiting it the only communication you should get from customers is to take their money.

I’m sure you can think of more resources that business people aren’t using right. I had to highlight these five online ones but if you can think of more I’d love to hear about them.