You’ve probably heard about blogs, search engine optimization and e-commerce. Does your business use it or need it? Read on to find some of the answers, and read further to expand your knowledge in this area.

The globalized, interconnected world of the 21st century offers a bewildering array of high tech tools for communications in the knowledge or information age. Lucky for you, most are inexpensive, and promise far reaching results for your business and an efficient mechanism for communications with your customers, suppliers, employees, and communities.

While the terminology may be like a new language to you, do not despair! The age-old way of doing business has not changed at all. Business is still about relationships: business to business, business to customer, manager to employee, and corporation to community relationships.

Leveraging contacts through the use of Internets, intranets, net meeting or shopping carts (and more) allows a business to grow beyond its local store front — even if your main store front is your primary place of business.

The key for all communications related to your business can be summed up in four simple steps:

Any form of marketing or advertising — otherwise known as communications in the 21st century — is about starting, maintaining, and growing the two-way conversation with your customers on a seemingly “one-to-one” basis. Websites, email, permission e-newsletters, and blogs enable two-way conversations with a larger crowd than a telephone conversation. Collaborative media of the 21st century largely trump the traditional (one-way) sales pitch.

This section of the website is a broad introduction to current terminology for communications as it applies to SME business management and ownership.

Communications Tools Defined

Advertising (traditional advertising)

One of the main difficulties faced by any entrepreneur is that advertising has changed and evolved over the last few years. It now includes visual, audio, and electronic media. So is traditional advertising — which includes billboards, radio, television, and print — dead? The trick with any advertising campaign is to know your customer and to make strategic use of traditional and non-traditional media to support the ever-evolving conversation with your customers, and to keep them engaged.

Blog or weblog

A blog (short for weblog) is a user-generated website where entries are made in journal style and displayed in reverse chronological order. Most blogs are primarily textual although some focus on photographs (photoblog), sketchblog, videos (vlog), or audio (podcasting), and are part of a wider network of social media. Blogs require a concerted, daily effort to update and keep it “alive” — if you don’t have that kind of time, consider blogging (commenting) on other blogs in your area of expertise.

Email

An email address is of equal importance to a telephone number in this era of business. It is also an advantage to have a memorable email address that matches your business name and domain name. Having your own unique email address (me@MyBusiness.ca or president@MyCorporation.com) is part of a hosting package (called “email aliases”) and can be directed to your service provider’s address (e.g. smith@phonecompany.net).

Google

Google is an US public corporation specializing in Internet searching and online advertising. Google has become a verb, and in everyday language means “to use the Google search engine to obtain information on the Internet.”

Host

Not the party host, but your Internet host. This is the home for your website domain (i.e. www.YourBusiness.com) where you store the page files, image files and other related documents that your users access from the world wide web (Internet).

Internet/website

Very few businesses, agencies, organizations, charities, or sports groups can afford to be without an Internet website. A professionally designed web site (even a simple one with 4-5 pages) provides:

Music

The most immediate way to sense the value of music to your business is to imagine your business without it. Often music is so integral to a business that it’s part of their brand – as important as décor. It should be noted that all use of copyright protected music in a work place requires a performing rights licence which is to be purchased from SOCAN (Society of Composers, Authors and Music Publishers of Canada). For full details on SOCAN tariffs, or to find out more about SOCAN, visit www.socan.ca or 1-866-944-6210.

Search engine/directory

Search engines operate algorithmically to index web pages. Web directories are maintained by human editors. Examples of search engines are Google, Yahoo! Search, and Windows Live Search. Examples of directories are the Open Directory Project and World Wide Web Virtual Library. Understanding the three modes used by search engines (crawling, indexing, searching) leads to more effective website design, and consequently stronger search engine rankings.

Snail mail

It is still a powerful form of communication to mail a holiday card, say happy birthday, or send out an invoice. This is especially true if your customer segment are seniors or are in communities under served by the Internet.

Teach or share your skills

Teaching is the gift that keeps on giving. Share your knowledge and skills through your local community college program offerings or as a keynote speaker at an annual general meeting for a volunteer group.

Trade shows

Trade shows are still a vehicle to see and be seen, and to network in your community, for example: the festive atmosphere allows you to reach new, old, and potential customers; you can acquire competitive intelligence; you can be generous with information and product samples to gain future market share; you can introduce yourself to a business owner of a complementary service that can collaborate with you on future projects.

YouTube

YouTube is a popular (non-copyrighted) video sharing website where users can upload, view, and share video clips.

Wiki

A wiki is an open source website that allows a visitor to add, remove, edit, and change content, typically without the need for registration. It also allows the linking among any number of pages.