The Benefits of Social Media for Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs)

Social media today presents entrepreneurs with a pool of opportunities to expand their businesses and boost their profitability. Most social networking sites were initially meant to help friends and relatives connect with each other online. This is still a core function even though businesses are increasingly exploiting the connections to advance their business objectives.

Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn and others are great platforms for small businesses to not only expand their businesses through conversion of the connections to buyers, but also essential tools that businesses can utilize to handle their customer care services. Engaging with the customers on the social platforms helps to understand their needs better and improve on service delivery.

Closely connected to customer care representation is the crisis management role that social media play. In the recent past, social media has helped both SMEs and multinationals effectively in handling different crises. One major mistake that many businesses commit when faced by a crisis is failure to acknowledge. The truth has some funny way of sneaking from closed door board rooms to the public domain. Your competitors can take advantage of any crises you may be facing and blow them out of proportion for their own benefit. If you have a reasonable social media presence, let your customers understand that everything is under control.

One of the main areas that small businesses have made good use of social media is in advertising and marketing. It is pointless to produce, if you cannot sell. To sell, you have to advertise and market. Initially, companies had to use television, newspapers or other conventional media to get the information about their services and products out. This was an expensive exercise as not many people could afford. As a result, competitors applied monopolistic practices and unfair competition. Today, all you need is a reasonable number of Facebook fans, Twitter likes or YouTube views and you can both advertise and market your products and services at minimal costs.

Of great significance to social media users is the high conversion rate. It is far much easier to convert your followers and friends to buying customers. People who follow you on Twitter must have interest in your product. Therefore, if you are launching a new product, they are likely to be interested in the same. Any serious business must include a shopping cart on their website. You move the traffic from either Facebook or Twitter to your site, let them explore the products and services, and allow them to make an order and pay online. Running a small business is now easier and any determined entrepreneur can do it with little capital.

To get the best from social media for your small or medium enterprise, you must lay out a plan. Do you really need to join social networking site? What is the goal? The objective may be for promotional purposes, customer relations, marketing and advertising, sales, among others. The goals have to be measurable. The most important question however is, which of the many social networking sites is fit for your business? To answer this, consider reviewing where most of your customers belong. To stay safe, use more than one, have a Facebook fan page and a Twitter account for a start.

Finally, ensure that the social media accounts are professionally managed. Keep your connections up to date with the goings in the business as well as social issues.

Courtesy: Various sources

EMPOWERMENT OF WOMEN FOR SELF EMPLOYMENT

The last decade has seen a steady rise of women entrepreneurs in India. With a larger number of women taking to entrepreneurship, academic institutions as well as manufacturing industry, the significance of women entrepreneurs cannot be denied. Women in India have crossed many barriers like the gender-based barriers of starting and growing their businesses, discriminatory property, matrimonial and inheritance laws and/or cultural practices. The lack of access to formal finance mechanisms; limited mobility plus access to information and networks are bottlenecks hindering the growth of women entrepreneurs which should be eradicated to entitle them to fuller participation in business.

Women economic independence by entrepreneurship not only provide benefits to her own family but also can reach out to other economic well-being of the other families and communities, thus contributing to the upliftment of women and contributing to society for advancement.

In order to produce more women entrepreneurs in the country, the National Small Industries Corporation (NSIC) has launched a specialised incubation programme for unemployed girls and women to set up their own businesses.

In India, although women constitute the majority of the total population, the entrepreneurial world is still a male-dominated field. NSIC’s incubation programme is an integrated support scheme that will provide hands-on training on working projects. It provides necessary facilities for prospective entrepreneurs and start-ups to enable them to learn about product manufacturing processes, technology development and business development.

According to the MSME ministry, the MSME sector contributes about 45 per cent of India’s total manufactured output and nearly 40 per cent of its exports. There are some 26 million MSMEs in the country, providing employment to more than 60 million persons. Of a total of 1,564,000 registered enterprises, 215,000 or 13.7 per cent are those of women entrepreneurs.

To encourage women to set up their own ventures, the ministry runs a scheme named Trade Related Entrepreneurship Assistance and Development (TREAD), which envisages economic empowerment of women through the development of their entrepreneurial skills in non-farm activities.

Under the scheme, the Central government gives a grant of up to 30 per cent of the total project cost to non-government organisations (NGOs) for promoting entrepreneurship among women. The remaining 70 per cent is financed by the lending agency as a loan for undertaking activities envisaged in the project.

One of the obstacles faced by entrepreneurs is the lack of physical infrastructure. The NSIC Incubation program is an integrated support by way of providing hands on training on working projects, it provides necessary facilities for prospective entrepreneurs and startup companies to learn product manufacturing processes coupled with technology development and business development.

Courtesy: Smetimes, Business-Standard, Press Information Bureau