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WHAT’S A FACEBOOK WHEN IT’S AT HOME?

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With small and medium enterprises (SMEs) making up a generous portion of all Irish businesses currently, we have spoken at length about the many and varied issues which face these companies. There are a great many difficulties to be faced in setting up and ensuring the continued thriving of a small business, and often it can seem like there are very limited helpful tools at your disposal. Today, we are going to focus on the positives considering how integral SMEs are to the Irish economy, now is a good time to take into consideration how these companies can utilise available tools to ensure the success of your small or medium business from the outset.

 

One of the greatest tools at any company’s marketing disposal at present are those largely free channels which allow a company to get their message to a wider audience known as social media. As we have discussed previously, social media and website marketing can be a key tool for companies of all sizes, with video marketing seeing a massive surge in popularity across social media in recent years. Social media can be a tricky tool to get a handle on at first, but could well be the key to getting more customer traffic into your business.

 

So what happens if you happen to not be the most internet or media savvy small business owner? Finally, there might be assistance on the horizon for you to empower you to harness the power of this medium. Recently, smaller Irish companies have been encouraged to contact their local Enterprise Office to gain assistance in building or improving an online presence for their company.

 

An initiative through your local Enterprise Office can help you unlock the online potential of your business by offering training and the ability to apply for a grant of up to €2,500 to build or update your website. If this seems like an ideal solution to your company’s tech worries, the only condition is that your small business must have fewer than 10 employees. If this is the case, we would advise contacting your local Enterprise Office to find out what your options are and watch your business grow as a result. As it has been estimated that approximately 90% of Irish consumers will research a product or service online before proceeding to make a purchase, it is now almost essential to have an online presence for your business.

 

Minister for Communications Denis Naughten has advised that even companies that already have an online presence should avail of this training to build on their existing presence.

“I would encourage any small business employing 10 people or less to avail of the training to make sure they are using Facebook and Google properly and to be able to receive payments online.”

 

Indeed, in this digital age we would encourage all clients to ensure that their online presence is functional and up-to-date. Should you require any assistance or guidance on any financial or business matters, please do not hesitate to call us here at DCA Accountants.

 

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~ DCA PARTNERS, DECLAN DOLAN & EAMONN GARVEY

MARKETING TIPS FOR SMES

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Setting up a new business can be a stressful and trying time. With everything that comes with the organisation and funding of a new company, marketing can often be something that is overlooked. Given that a start-up company must make itself known in order to generate income, marketing can be seen as being arguably one of the most important things to consider. Marketing, and in particular digital marketing is somewhat of an enigma for the smaller company. As such, in order to lift the veil we have compiled a list of marketing tips to assist you in creating and sustaining a viable marketing plan for your business.

1. Social Media.

The marketing of all businesses can benefit in massive ways through the use of social media. There are so many avenues of social media to choose from and each one brings something different to the table. Whilst LinkedIn is ideal for attracting workers and generating employment interest, Facebook and Twitter are more immediate avenues of communicating with prospective customers. Whilst you can make use of each of these, it is important not to flood feeds and it has been suggested that the ideal posting schedule for Facebook is 1-2 per day whilst Twitter is more open with 6-8 posts per day being the norm.

2. Search Engine Optimisation (SEO).

Search Engine Optimisation is one of the lesser known and used marketing tools at your disposal. Whilst your website design may be perfect, it remains useless if it is never seen. Your website’s performance is reliant on traffic and SEO may be the ideal way to generate traffic. Search Engine Optimisation allows you to choose where your website appears in searches in order to ensure that you are visible in the online world.

3. Content is King.

You may now have figured out and utilised the search engines at your disposal, but is your website holding the interest of its visitors? It is vital to ensure that your content immediately grabs the attention of its readers. It has been reported that the modern day site user spends around 4 seconds on a webpage before deciding whether they will continue, so you must utilise text and video to grab and hold the attention of your customer.

4. Make a name for yourself.

What’s in a name? The answer might well be your businesses future. The name of your business will become its identity so it is important to ensure that it is something you can market efficiently without running into problems.

Hopefully not to be confused with blah, blah, blah. Blogging is one of the easiest and most immediate ways of connecting efficiently with your customers. Creating and managing content that will interest your clients may be the difference between keeping and losing customers.