A lot of modern companies are coming more invested in the latest technology. But most of them don’t seem to have implemented any of it to its full potential.
The 2010s have brought us some fantastic opportunities to improve our businesses in so many ways. You should be looking into improving your management of the business technology you’re using. Check out this article for some hot tips:
Social media.
It’s said quite a lot that every company should have a presence on social media. I imagine you’ve heard this one quite a few times before. The problem here is that many businesses aren’t taking advantage of social media as much as they should be. They may have created a Facebook page and a Twitter account for their business. But is that all you’ve done? A lot of business owners have simply set them up just because they read somewhere that they should have a social media account for their business.
Of course, it’s not enough simply to have one of these accounts. You need to remember why social media exists and why it’s in such heavy use. It’s because it allows us to interact with one another. It brings the big and the small to the same communication field and allows them to engage with one another.
You shouldn’t consider your social media activity to be an inessential thing that your company does on the side. You should be focussing on providing your followers with compelling reasons to engage with your company! Consider hiring someone on a part-time basis to focus solely on community management of your social media presence.
Mobile phone apps.
So, it’s often said that every business should have a social media account. But is the same true for every technological innovation of the 21st century? Does it mean that every company should have, say, a mobile phone app that represents their business? You’ve probably guess that the answer is no. The problem with this answer is that there are a lot of companies out there who assume that developing a mobile phone app won’t help their business. But it isn’t an idea you should be so quick to dismiss.
People spend hours on their mobile phones; the average American spends nearly three hours a day on one. And most of the time they’re playing around with apps. It’s true that most of the time will be spent on just a handful of apps. Internet browsers, social media programs (see the previous section!), that kind of thing. But if you have an app available for download, it means you’ll always have a presence on a given user’s phone.
If you’ve got an idea for a great app for your business, then you should look into making it a reality. It creates a direct channel between your business and a user’s phone. You can work with a digital business to get an app developed if you don’t have the right developers in your company.
The cloud and the virtual office.
Okay, so the virtual office isn’t exactly a specific technology. What it is is the name of a specific benefit that has been made possible through other technological advances. The advance I’m referring to here is the cloud. The cloud, of course, refers to the hosting of a multitude of services over the Internet. Things we used to do offline, like document creation and data storage, can now be done using cheap (or free) online services.
You may be using some services on the cloud already. Most businesses are these days. But that doesn’t necessarily mean you’re using the cloud to its fullest potential. Hands down the best thing about the cloud for businesses is that it lets you create what I referred to earlier: the virtual office. By using things like Google Drive, Trello, and other cloud services, it can be done. Essentially, it means that people can do their work wherever they are, from whatever device. Their mobile phone, their personal laptop – they can work on the go, at home, or in another country.
This doesn’t mean you should make your employees work while they’re on vacation or taking sick leave, of course! But what it does mean is that you can have an added flexibility to work schedules and arrangements. It means that if someone is feeling a little under the weather but okay to work, then they can just stay at home. If something happens in the office and people can’t come in, then you don’t need to lose valuable working hours. People can carry on with their work elsewhere!
