Technology

Technology is your friend when you are a small business owner. But if you are over 25, it probably causes you more angst than pleasure when you think of all the things out there you do not understand and cannot do simply because you were born a generation too early. A lot of the new tech advances just make no sense to some of us old folks. A lot of it is counterintuitive as a matter of fact. This is okay if you are Regis Philbin and Kelly Ripa – to say you do not understand how to send email, or how to program a VCR, but when you are trying to run a small business and remain competitive, you have to try harder to “get it.” Because what you don’t know can hurt you. The trick is understanding the importance of getting into the fray, but to learn how to manage conflicting technologies, how to be a tech police to make sure that you are not causing yourself more harm than good by getting into terrain littered with individuals who are slightly unwell.

A website is paramount. Everybody seems to agree on that. It is also important to get write a blog, and with that, it means learning how to link to other blogs and more importantly, how to get other blocks to link to you. This type of technology calls for understanding the roll and value of RSS feeds, source codes, meta tags, fonts, ad words, traffic, design, and “ranking,” among other things. It calls for you to understand what “optimizing your website,” means, and how google ad words, and google analytics might help to drive traffic to your site.

But technology entails more than just understanding the maze of operating a website. You also want to know the different websites that can help you – sites such as social networking sites that are allowing small businesses to get buzz they normally would not get. Some examples are Youtube, Facebook, flickr, Linked, Bebo, Myspace, and Plaxo.
When you get done figuring that out, start thinking about stuff like “RSS Feeds,” del.icio.us., itunes, netflix, technorati, newsvine, reddit, digg it, Amazon and E-Bay and a host of others.

Then you want to figure out how you can use email technology to advance your business, and how to create, use and send E-newsletters to drum up business.

This is not the time for self-flagellation. At least you know how much you don’t know. So tie your boot straps and get to studying and doing. Your small business will thank you.