SMEs: Facing competition using Internet

Small and Medium Scale Enterprises attract a lot of attention today. The reason is simply because developing and supporting SMEs is the way out of the current unemployment challenges that we are facing today as a nation.

My focus in this piece is on the challenges of competition among the SMEs on one hand and with other bigger companies on the other. Many of these small business owners are negatively affected by stiff competition leading to some of them dying prematurely. It is quite possible for the SMEs to successfully face competition using various online strategies.

The first point is for every SME, as a matter of necessity, to have online presence, in the early life of the enterprise. I recommend that such enterprises should simultaneously launch their website as they are commencing their business operations. Think about it, with a website, one can easily start a business – imagine what the multiplier effect will be if we have a higher percentage of the unemployed starting their own enterprises using the Internet as the focal point and not having to bother so much about setting up a physical structure. SMEs should have user-friendly websites that are able to sell their products and services each time prospects come calling.

It is important to install analytics on your website because it plays a vital role in measuring the performance of the business online and also assists in the planning of the right marketing strategies for targeting the prospective customer base.

Another good strategy is a generous mix of the SEO and digital marketing and advertising, which if done correctly can effectively confront competition.

The SEO is essential for every business website especially with the rising cost of bids on pay per click. It is necessary to apply the available on-page optimisation techniques to a large extent as this will improve the visibility and page ranking of the website. Major on-page optimisation techniques that can be applied include keyword-rich domain name, website design in mobile and desktop versions, keyword-rich content with appropriate header tags, meta tags and descriptions for each page, alt tag optimisation using a variety of phrases and not necessarily with the keyword as was the case in the past and best user experience and interest integrated web design.

In addition to this, attention should also be focused on off-page optimisation in the form of blog posts, article publishing, press releases and classified postings. If you have a good budget, then you might consider doing a bit of pay per click for your products and services using Google, Facebook and a few others that are popular.

It is, however, pertinent to note that pay-per-click adverts stop the moment the budget is exhausted. It may look cheap at the outset, but in the long run might become expensive if not properly managed. You may, as an SME, decide to have a little monthly budget for pay-per-click adverts if you can afford it. Remember that the world of pay-per-click today is actually the battle of the fittest which means those with huge budgets who can bid more eventually get to win more often.

I have repeatedly written on this column that the SMEs should embrace social media marketing, and the starting point could be creating business pages for the social media platforms of Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and other popular social networking sites and promoting your products and services on those platforms.

You do not have to be a professional to start; you can start by adding links to your website products and services for your visitors to easily connect with your website to see the big picture.

For you to drive traffic to your social media sites and website, it is essential for you to update these social media sites as often as possible with issues that will be of interest to your clients so that they can patronise your products and services.

Now, by creating your website through ensuring that all the above on-page and off-page optimisation techniques are updated constantly, you are most likely to always keep abreast or ahead of your competitors. You, however, need to be monitoring your digital marketing activities on a regular basis as your competitors will always tend to apply these practices too. You need to keep abreast of and learn how to use some of the valuable analytic tools that are available online, some free and others on paid format. For a start, you can try out by using some of the free analytic tools in order to properly understand the real essence of those tools. You can later shift to using more popular and advanced paid tools and make good use of them in your analytics.

Monitoring your digital marketing strategies regularly through analytics and social media monitoring tools will tremendously help in measuring your business performance. Based on the observed results from the analytic tools, you can plan your strategies in such a way that all your competitors can be kept at bay.

One final strategy that you can use to edge competition out today is mobile. I am sure you are aware that mobile has taken the lead in terms of usage and it continues to grow. The question is: what is your mobile strategy today? It is possible that many of us have not even thought of one yet, well it is safe to do without it today but I doubt if that will be a better strategy especially as competition becomes fiercer.

Copyright PUNCH.

Lessons from Social Media Week

Man, by nature, is sociable; so, when some young start-ups innovatively took this natural quality of mankind to a virtual world called the Internet, it was sure to become a hit. Long before Facebook and Twitter gained prominence, there were other popular social networking sites such as Myspace, Hi5 and Badoo a little over a decade ago. Back then, a huge majority saw social media as a place where high school kids can get together to network, gist and have fun. Fast forward to a decade after, there is indeed a mad rush to make the best (and in some cases, the worst) of social media. Today, individuals, small businesses, public and private institutions are working hard at having a formidable social media presence, not forgetting captains of industry and presidents of nations.

Facebook Inc, led by Mark Zuckerberg, the world’s youngest billionaires, chose the same Social Media Week to dole out $19bn in a bid to take over WhatsApp.

A Bloomberg report quoted him as saying that WhatsApp is “worth more than $19bn.” He went on to say that the mobile-messaging startup was “a great feat for us.”

Zuckerberg said at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona recently that “already almost half-a-billion people love using WhatsApp for messaging and it’s the most engaging app we’ve ever seen on mobile by far.”

I personally do not agree entirely. Sometimes, I get the feeling that a Dotcom crash might be around the corner again but for now, let’s enjoy the boom and the party while it lasts.

What is most instructive is that social media has become a powerful force that determines and shapes conversation both online and offline.

The February 2014 edition of Social Media Week has come and gone with over 25,000 in attendance across the cities of Bangalore, Barcelona, Copenhagen, Hamburg, Lagos, Milan, New York and Tokyo. Many other cities that did not host any SMW events already have one form of social media movement or the other, which proves that it is already a global phenomenon and no one wants to be left behind.

I was only able to attend a handful of the events lined up for that week where I learnt some new strategies to help me with my social media strategy but most importantly, I had to listen to some of the new initiatives and planned government policies that can help us further to achieve the goal behind the theme: “A connected Africa is the future.”

At one of the events, ‘an evening with leaders, how Nigeria is leveraging social media in commerce, communication and citizen engagement’, Mrs. Omobola Johnson, the Minister of Communication Technology, was in attendance and one of the points which the minister made and I agreed with, is that, yes, that conversations are hot on social media does not make them have any meaningful impact on the real world.

She also pointed out that sometimes young people assumed that social media activities could equal effective participation in the real world. This is very far from the truth.

This statement from her came a few minutes after I made a similar statement to Blossom Nnodim who sat next to me. We must understand that for us to see real changes we must take whatever online discussions or ideas back to the real world and not to assume that the e-world controls the real world.

While the influence of the e-world has grown tremendously (and is still growing), it is still very different especially in our clime.

For us to gain anything meaningful from the social media, therefore, we should see the e-world as a stimulus for real changes in the real world, just like the Arab Spring Revolution but devoid of violence.

One of the issues I pointed out to all the attendees at that event was the issue of security. I reminded the crowd that security is one thing we must take seriously if we wish to witness a truly connected Africa. In Nigeria for example, there is absolutely no law backing most online transactions being carried out as of today, so it means anyone who is a victim, may find it most difficult to get redress or justice under the current laws. I also pointed out the need to start developing our own local cyber warriors who would rise up and defend our sovereignty when the need arises because, like I have stated often on this page; the wars of the future will be fought electronically rather than physically. I made the audience understand the implications of more Nigerians coming online and the security risks it portends for our nation.

Imagine the (negative) possibilities now that Nigerian banks are increasingly offering social banking services – at a time when a group like the “Syrian Electronic Army” finds it easy to hack just about anything. I will quickly point out what Tomi Davies, one of the panelists, had to say in response to the points I raised. He said, “We’re really not on the radar of hackers at the moment because we have really not built up any critical assets, but the moment we begin to do this, then we should be worried.”

I agree with that statement but I think that in the next one year, especially with the expected broadband revolution, we will likely be on the radar. Even as of today, what do you think will be the result if any of the popular e-commerce sites experiences a data breach?

One statement I also made was the fact that majority of the data generated from Nigeria is actually stored abroad which is indeed a sad development.

Nigeria needs her own major data centres that will be scattered across the major cities, of course, with redundant back-ups as well. This is one way to maintain our sovereignty as a nation; otherwise, we will be deceiving ourselves to think that we are truly sovereign with government officials and captains of industries exchanging private and confidential information using free services like Gmail and Yahoo.

Nigerians, this has got to change otherwise, we would be in for a new form of cyber-colonialism.

I must commend a few private IT companies that have made a move in this regard, but government must make a similar move because of other critical national data.

The Social Media Week also gave the techies the opportunity to gather and share our thoughts and experiences. The Nigerian eco-system is growing indeed and we had a chance to witness this all through SMWLagos. For the very first time, I got to meet a number of tech superstars whom I have followed over the years. Two events that were very useful to me, Techcabal Battlefield and Y! #Tech 100 Networking, were well attended and truly rewarding.

A team of young, fresh school leavers went home with $20,000, courtesy of TechCabal Battlefield. This was a reward for a solution that they developed known as PrepClass . This is indeed a welcome development and I must also commend the Techcabal team and their sponsors for a job well done.

The eco-system is maturing indeed, from techies, to animators and graphic artists, to content providers and writers, to venture capitalists and other professionals that probably would have had no hope of practising their trade here 10 years ago.

Personally, I am so excited about the whole development and it makes me proud because of the little contributions I have made towards the continuous growth of this great industry that holds a lot of possibilities for younger Nigerians. I see the hope that Nigerians can and will come up with new ideas that will serve as local and international solutions to the various challenges mankind is confronted with.

Copyright PUNCH.