Small Business Online Skills Week 1 eBook

Small Business Online Skills Week 1 Training working towards ICTSS00108 Digital Skills for Small Business Skill Set Brett O'Connor INCEPTION TRAINING ©

Chapters 1. PREPARE TO USE SOCIAL MEDIA. ........................................................ 3 ORGANISATIONAL SOCIAL MEDIA REQUIREMENTS ................................................... 4 Social media policies and procedures ..................................................... 5 CURRENT STANDARDS RELATING TO WORKPLACE INFORMATION ................................ 6 Personal information .............................................................................. 6 Workplace privacy .................................................................................. 6 Consumer Data Right .............................................................................. 7 Intellectual property................................................................................ 7 Trade secrets........................................................................................... 8 Freedom of information .......................................................................... 8 ORGANISATIONAL PRIVACY PRACTICES AND PROCEDURES......................................... 9 Customer Privacy .................................................................................... 9 What small businesses are covered? ...................................................... 9 IDENTIFY SENSITIVE DATA IN A WORKPLACE ENVIRONMENT..................................... 11 Small business operators ...................................................................... 11 CLASSIFY WORKPLACE INFORMATION TYPES......................................................... 13 Australian Tax Office (ATO) requirements ............................................ 13 Electronic payment systems.................................................................. 14 Research Data....................................................................................... 14 SOCIAL MEDIA PLATFORM’S “REACH”................................................................... 1 Audiences................................................................................................ 2 Functionality ........................................................................................... 3 EMERGING TRENDS IN SOCIAL MEDIA PLATFORM USE. ............................................. 4 Emotional triggers .................................................................................. 4 Content trends ........................................................................................ 5 Storytelling.............................................................................................. 8 CASE STUDIES.................................................................................................. 9 Organisational policies and procedures for social media use. ................ 9 Social media ethical practices ................................................................. 9 2. USING WORKPLACE INFORMATION RESPONSIBLY ............................ 12 APPLYING PRIVACY POLICIES TO DATA DEVICES ..................................................... 13 Authentication ...................................................................................... 13 Encryption ............................................................................................. 13 Backups & recovery............................................................................... 13 Small Business Online Skills – Inception Training ©

Access control ....................................................................................... 13 Data masking ........................................................................................ 13 Erasure .................................................................................................. 13 Operating procedures ........................................................................... 14 ORGANISING DATA SETS .................................................................................. 15 File explorer........................................................................................... 15 Import/export data using CRMs ........................................................... 17 Sorting data into a message ................................................................. 18 USING SOCIAL MEDIA PLATFORMS TO SHARE INFORMATION.................................... 19 Scheduling software.............................................................................. 19 Engage customers................................................................................. 20 Meet brand needs ................................................................................. 21 Reach target customer.......................................................................... 22 SOURCING INFORMATION AND CONTENT ............................................................ 25 Key features and uses ........................................................................... 25 Using secondary data ........................................................................... 26 CASE STUDIES ............................................................................................... 28 Business Model Canvas ......................................................................... 28 Legislative requirements applicable to developing web content .......... 29 Small Business Online Skills – Inception Training ©

1. Prepare to use social media. Are you really prepared to use social media for business? It’s not personal, but you have to deal with all types of people. How do you start out from all the noise? Where do your customers hang out? Is it legal, and ethical? How does it meet the needs of your business? Let’s find out… Small Business Online Skills – Inception Training ©

Organisational social media requirements A good starting point when you use social media for business is the organisation’s code of conduct. This is a set of rules outlining the norms, rules, and responsibilities of, and or proper practices for an individual working for an organisation. A Code of Ethics relates to values of the organisation, and are usually listed an a way that allows employees to compare their personal values to see if they are a right fit for the organisation. For example, it may not be illegal, but it still may be considered “immoral” based on certain cultural or religious beliefs. In a similar way a code of practice provides practical guidance for people who have work health and safety duties, a code of conduct sets out the ground rules for people’s behaviour in a work situation. While legislation sets out the minimum standards for behaviour, it is the organisation that decides how far above the legislation it wants their employees to be and put this into employment contract more commonly known as “Company Policy”. Codes of Conduct are written to provide guidance for employees (even self- employed) to comply with key legislation in your industry monitored by many different regulators. However, as part of a work agreement, Employee codes of conduct written by an organisation are most commonly use as self- regulation by businesses. In Australia, compliance is monitored by a number of regulators who all have advice available to educate businesses on “Best practices” to comply with relevant legislation. The ACCC (Australian Competition & Consumer Commission), who promotes competition and fair trade in markets to benefit consumers, businesses, and the community is often the first contact businesses to consult for advice on marketing on social media under the Competition and Consumer Act 2010. The ACCC also regulate national infrastructure services looking out for “unconscionable conduct”, for example, exploit the other party when negotiating the terms of an agreement or contract. Small Business Online Skills – Inception Training ©

Social media policies and procedures Businesses using social media channels like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube have a responsibility to ensure content on their pages is accurate, irrespective of who put it there. If your organization is using social media for sales and marketing for your business, policies and procedures in place to manage issues that results from engaging customers may include: False or misleading statements - Any statement representing your products or services should be true, accurate and able to be substantiated. There are fines for businesses that mislead consumers. It does not matter whether a false or misleading statement was intentional or not. Managing online reviews - Consumers rely on online reviews to make purchasing decisions. Businesses and review platforms need to manage online reviews to prevent consumers from being misled. Bait Advertising - where a product is advertised at a certain price without a reasonable supply. Bait advertising is illegal if your business sells the product knowing you won’t be able to meet demand. Telemarketing and door-to-door sales - Customers using their personal profile may consider contact on their social media profile as an invasion of their personal space, similar to what telemarketers’ experience. Music copyright - If you want to use music in your video, you need to get a license with the Australasian Performing Right Association Limited (APRA) and Australasian Mechanical Copyright Owners Society Limited (AMCOS). This includes if you record music in the background when filming videos. Spam - Before you send out advertising material, you need to ensure you comply with the Spam Act 2003. Under the Act it is illegal to send unsolicited commercial electronic messages without consent. Third party comments - Now “Media Companies” are also “publishers” of comments made by readers on their social media accounts. The means those who encourage engagement on social media, including media companies, journalists and “internet famous” people, can be held responsible for things said by random people who “engage” by commenting on content produced by others. Small Business Online Skills – Inception Training ©

Current standards relating to workplace information Australian privacy law treats public and private sector employee records differently. It applies to Australian Government and Norfolk Island administration employee records, but the use and disclosure of any employee records a private sector employer holds isn’t covered by the Privacy Act 1988 if the use or disclosure of the record directly relates to the current or former employer relationship. Workplace laws require a range of information to be made and kept for each employee. If you are an employee or former employee, you can request access to these records under workplace laws. The Fair Work ombudsman says “Privacy” is the word we give to being able to keep certain information to ourselves and to control what happens to our personal information. It also refers to being able to do things without interference by others. Privacy issues can arise in all aspects of life. Commonwealth privacy laws regulate the collection and handling of personal information through minimum privacy standards. These are known as the Australian Privacy Principles (APPs). The APPs apply to all private sector businesses with an annual turnover of more than $3 million, all private health service providers nationally, and a limited range of small businesses and all Australian government agencies. Although some small businesses are not required to abide by Commonwealth privacy laws, all businesses should aim to comply with the privacy principles as a matter of best practice. Personal information This is information that identifies a person. There are some obvious examples of personal information such as a person's name or address. Personal information can also include photos, credit history information, bank account details and even information about what a person likes, their opinions and where they work - basically any information where the person is reasonably identifiable. Workplace privacy Employers will have access to personal information about employees. This information may be sensitive and employees may wish to keep this information private. This means that employers will need to think about the way in which they collect, use and disclose information they obtain from employees. Small Business Online Skills – Inception Training ©

Consumer Data Right The Consumer Data Right (CDR) gives consumers greater control over their own data, including the ability to securely share data with a trusted third party. Introduced in the banking sector from July 2020, then roll out across other sectors of the economy, including energy and telecommunications. The CDR aims to help you monitor your finances, utilities and other services, and compare and switch between different offerings more easily. The system also aims to encourage innovation and competition between service providers, helping you to access products and services that better suit your specific needs. Only a business which has been accredited by the ACCC can provide services under in the CDR system. Your data can only be shared within the CDR system with your consent and with a provider of your choice. Intellectual property Intellectual property (IP) rights provide IP owners with the time and opportunity to commercialise their creations. This protection serves as an incentive to innovate. The creator of IP is not necessarily the only owner. IP ownership can be agreed upon through appropriate contractual arrangements, especially with employees, suppliers, distributors and manufacturers. IP rights exist in many forms. In some cases, they don't need to be registered in order to be of value. Each type of IP provides different competitive advantages. The Queensland government website recommends that as a general rule, an employer will own the intellectual property created by its employees in the course of their employment. However, intellectual property that is created by an employee, other than in the course of employment, is owned by the employee, not the employer. The most well-known example of this in the IT industry would be Bill Gates. In 1985, IBM requested Microsoft to develop a new operating system for their computers called OS/2. Microsoft produced that operating system, but also continued to sell their own alternative, which proved to be in direct competition with OS/2. Microsoft Windows eventually overshadowed OS/2 in terms of sales and captured over 90% market share of the world's personal computers. Small Business Online Skills – Inception Training ©

Trade secrets A trade secret is different from a trademark. We do not ‘register’ trade secrets. A trade secret is proprietary knowledge and it is up to you to protect that knowledge. One way you might keep this knowledge out of competitors’ hands is by ensuring employees or distributors sign confidentiality agreements. Examples of trade secrets include: • the age-old recipe for Coca-Cola • the combination of herbs and spices used in Kentucky Fried Chicken. Common law provides protection for infringement of trade secrets, breach of confidentiality agreements and passing off trademarks. Proving a breach of confidentiality under common law can be complex and is potentially more costly than defending registered rights. Secrecy does not stop anyone else from inventing the same product or process independently and exploiting it commercially. It does not give you exclusive rights and you are vulnerable when employees with this knowledge leave your firm. Freedom of information The Freedom of Information Act 1982 gives you the right to request access to government-held information. This includes information they hold about you or about government policies and decisions. You can request access to a document an Australian Government agency holds under the Freedom of Information Act 1982 (FOI Act). However, some documents may be exempt from disclosure. Some agencies are also exempt from the FOI Act, while other agencies are exempt from disclosing certain documents. Under the FOI Act you can also request access to a document a minister holds. Your reason for seeking access to a document is not relevant to the decision whether to release it. You can access your personal information by: • asking the agency that holds your personal information for it • requesting access to it under the Privacy Act 1988 (Privacy Act) • requesting access to it under the FOI Act Small Business Online Skills – Inception Training ©

Organisational Privacy practices and procedures Customer Privacy As an individual, the Privacy Act gives you greater control over the way that your personal information is handled. The Privacy Act allows you to: • know why your personal information is being collected, how it will be used and who it will be disclosed to • have the option of not identifying yourself, or of using a pseudonym in certain circumstances • ask for access to your personal information (including your health information) • stop receiving unwanted direct marketing • ask for your personal information that is incorrect to be corrected • make a complaint about an organisation or agency the Privacy Act covers, if you think they’ve mishandled your personal information What small businesses are covered? The Privacy Act cover some small business operators (organisations with an annual turnover of $3 million or less), including: • a private sector health service provider — an organisation that provides a health service includes: • a traditional health service provider, such as a private hospital, a day surgery, a medical practitioner, a pharmacist and an allied health professional • a complementary therapist, such as a naturopath and a chiropractor • a gym or weight loss clinic • a child care centre, a private school and a private tertiary educational institution • a business that sells or purchases personal information • a credit reporting body • a contracted service provider for a Australian Government contract • an employee association registered or recognised under the Fair Work (Registered Organisations) Act 2009 • a business that holds accreditation under the Consumer Data Right System • a business that has opted-in to the Privacy Act • a business that is related to a business that is covered by the Privacy Act • a business prescribed by the Privacy Regulation 2013 Small Business Online Skills – Inception Training ©

Particular acts and practices of some other small business operators are covered by the Privacy Act including: • activities of a reporting entity or authorised agent relating to the Anti- Money Laundering and Counter-Terrorism Financing Act 2006 and its regulations and rules • acts and practices to do with the operation of a residential tenancy database • activities related to the conduct of a protected action ballot The Privacy Act also covers specified persons handling your: • consumer credit reporting information, including a credit reporting body, a credit provider (which includes energy and water utilities and telecommunication providers) and certain other third parties • tax file numbers under the Tax File Number Guidelines • personal information contained on the Personal Property Securities Register • old conviction information under the Commonwealth Spent Convictions Scheme • My Health Record information under the My Health Records Act 2012 and individual healthcare identifiers under the Healthcare Identifiers Act 2010 The 13 Privacy principles businesses need to have rules to cover are: 1. Open and transparent management of personal information 2. Anonymity and pseudonymity 3. Collection of solicited personal information 4. Dealing with unsolicited personal information 5. Notification of the collection of personal information 6. Use or disclosure of personal information 7. Direct marketing 8. Cross-border disclosure of personal information 9. Adoption, use or disclosure of government related identifiers 10. Quality of personal information 11. Security of personal information 12. Access to personal information 13. Correction of personal information Best practice employers apply the same higher standards even where they are not covered by the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) to ensure that sensitive personal information is handled appropriately. Small Business Online Skills – Inception Training ©

Identify sensitive data in a workplace environment Personal information can be sensitive in nature such as information about a person's race, ethnicity, political opinions, membership of political associations, membership of professional associations and trade unions, religious or philosophical beliefs, sexual preferences, health and genetic information or criminal records. The APPs provide higher privacy standards when organisations are handling an individual's sensitive information. Notifiable Data Breach (NDB) Scheme The Privacy Act requires certain entities to notify individuals and the Commissioner about data breaches that are likely to cause serious harm. The requirements of the NDB scheme are contained in Part IIIC of the Privacy Act and apply to breaches that occur on or after 22 February 2018. Small business operators A small business operator (SBO) is an individual (including a sole trader), body corporate, partnership, unincorporated association, or trust that has not had an annual turnover of more than $3 million in any financial year since 2001 (s 6D). Generally, SBOs do not have obligations under the APPs unless an exception applies (s 6D(4)). In certain circumstances an SBO must comply with the APPs, and therefore with the NDB scheme. That will be the case where the SBO • holds health information and provides a health service • is related to an APP entity • trades in personal information. That is, the SBO discloses personal information about individuals to anyone else for a benefit, service or advantage; or provides a benefit, service or advantage through the collection of personal information about another individual from anyone else • is a credit reporting bodies • is an employee associations registered under the Fair Work (Registered Organisations) Act 2009 • holds accreditation for the Consumer Data Right system under the Competition and Consumer Act 2010 • has ‘opted-in’ to APP coverage under s 6EA of the Privacy Act Small Business Online Skills – Inception Training ©

Overseas activities The NDB scheme generally extends to the overseas activities of an Australian Government agency (s 5B(1)). It also applies to organisations (including small businesses covered by the Act, outlined above) that have an ‘Australian link’ (s 5B(2)). An organisation has an Australian link either because it is, in summary, incorporated or formed in Australia (see s 5B(1A) for more detail), or where: it carries on business in Australia or an external Territory, and it collected or held personal information in Australia or an external Australian Territory, either before or at the time of the act or practice (s 5B(3)) Further information about entities that are taken to have an Australian link is available in Chapter B of the APP Guidelines.[20] Disclosing personal information overseas If an APP entity discloses personal information to an overseas recipient, in line with the requirements of APP 8.1, then the APP entity is deemed to ‘hold’ the information for the purposes of the NDB scheme (s 26WC(1)). APP 8.1 says that an APP entity that discloses personal information to an overseas recipient is required to take reasonable steps to ensure that the overseas recipient does not breach the APPs in relation to the information. This means that if the personal information held by the overseas recipient is subject to loss, unauthorised access, or disclosure, the APP entity is still responsible for assessing whether it is an eligible data breach under the Privacy Act, and if it is, for notifying individuals at risk of serious harm and providing a statement to the Commissioner. Small Business Online Skills – Inception Training ©

Classify workplace information types Australian Tax Office (ATO) requirements When you start a business, there are tax and super responsibilities you need to be aware of, including: • the tax implications of your business structure • whether you're entitled to an ABN • registering your business • records you need to keep • deductions you can claim. Understanding what you need to do from an early stage will help you stay on top of things. You need to set up a good record keeping system to track your income and expenses right from the start. This helps you know how your business is going, as well as meet your tax responsibilities and be able to claim all the deductions to which you are entitled. If you're thinking of taking on workers it's important to understand you will have extra responsibilities. If you're operating as a partnership, company or a trust, you must have a separate bank account for tax purposes. If you are operating as a sole trader, you don't have to open a business bank account, but it's a great idea to do so. It's important to keep business and personal expenses separate. Small Business Online Skills – Inception Training ©

Electronic payment systems Electronic transactions are becoming increasingly popular, and more consumers now expect the convenience of being able to pay by card. Electronic payment systems allow your customers to pay for your goods or services electronically, and include: • tap-and-go (contactless) payments • credit and debit cards • EFTPOS • online payments • smart phone and tablet card processing. Offering electronic payments will make it easier for your customers by giving them an extra option to pay. There are many options available in the market, so there will be one that suits your business' needs. Here are some things to consider: how your customers want to pay – the use of cards or contactless payments are growing initial cost of the system – some can be purchased outright, others can cost less than $10 a week transaction fees – some may charge a flat fee, others may charge a percentage for certain types of transactions how easy it is for you and your staff to use whether it can be integrated with your record keeping or other business systems. There are plenty of options out there; you may want to talk to other business owners, your local small business association or financial institution to find out more. Research Data It is important not to allow your opinions or preferences to affect your research. Having a preconceived idea of the results will bias your research and provide false information. Remain open minded and be prepared for unanticipated results. Small Business Online Skills – Inception Training ©

When processing data make sure you: • keep your market research objectives in mind • categorise data according to what is most relevant for your business, don’t become side-tracked by information that is just interesting • collate your data using tables or lists to make it easier to identify certain trends and themes. You may need to collect additional information if your results are inconclusive. Analysing the data should allow you to draw some conclusions regarding your initial objectives. There is a variety of data sources to assist you in researching your: • customers • industry • competitors • location ‘Primary research’ is information gathered from original sources such as: • surveys • customer feedback • face-to-face interviews • questionnaires • focus groups ‘Secondary research’ is information and data that has already been collected and analysed by other sources such as: • Australian Bureau of • social media and websites Statistics • marketing and consumer • industry and trade lists publications • newspapers and media The types of information you collect through these sources may be quantitative or qualitative. Qualitative information measures the values, attitudes and views of a particular sample. This type of information is useful if you want to understand why people buy your products, how they respond to your advertising or their perceptions of your brand. Quantitative information is based on statistics and may be used to predict market penetration, future earnings etc. After identifying the source and type of information you need, you can start to collect it. Small Business Online Skills – Inception Training ©

Social media platform’s “reach” If you are looking for where your customers are on Social Media (worldwide), here is the list. These figures do include personal users, and others may just use it for entertainment, however it is still an indicator of the size of the audience who may at some stage be potential customers. The main platforms used for business are: Facebook, Messenger, WhatsApp, and Instagram - Combined under the one umbrella, these 4 have by far the most reach. You can post from one to the other, and while Facebook is more about getting information out there and creating dialogue and engaging customers to build your personal brand and business page. Whereas Instagram is more visual and more of a superficial connection and recommendations, and Messenger and WhatsApp are used for direct messages. LinkedIn and Twitter - You can also post on LinkedIn and it shares it to twitter (as above), and people may tweet a response to your LinkedIn posts and shares. However, LinkedIn (with 260 million monthly users) is more about personal branding and professional connections than social interaction, which is why it may not appear on the graphic above. YouTube - It is the 2nd largest search engine in the world after Google, and is moving towards features that encourage social interaction. Keywords in the description, an attractive thumbnail image, organised playlist and tags all sounds like too much work for most people, but this is what gives YouTube an SEO advantage. You still need interesting videos in the first place to get people to subscribe to your channel and build your “group”. Small Business Online Skills – Inception Training ©

Audiences Although metropolitan areas have grown rapidly, for the first time in human history entire cultures are breaking up their “tribes”, with one notable exception. There is a growing trend for businesses to build relationships with people online through forming groups. Businesses build a collective of raving fans of like-minded individuals, who often aggressively defend their beliefs. Tribes are no longer geographically based, and when 85% of the world are online, tribes will develop. Facebook is just one “Super App” used to connect people. As in real life, people have both positive and negative experience with relationships. Online relationships are still real people interacting. However, are the online personalities “authentic” is the main question. Some Apps better suited to improve the quality of life for tribe member in geographical locations than others. There are no one size fits all. Think about how many of the most used platforms you use. According to the “My Screen: Video Consumption in Australia” report produced by PwC, Facebook is the first or second most widely used video platform across all demos, free-to-air TV is top for the over 35s, whilst YouTube is also in the top three for each age group. Small Business Online Skills – Inception Training ©

Functionality Online business involves more than just social media. While Social is great for low cost marketing solutions and lead generation, capturing and converting leads into sales is the domain of ecommerce. If a web-designer is just making your website look good, that is only part of the job. While that may be fine for an information website, e-commerce websites require a web-developer to make sure website is both beautiful and functional too. Conflicting plugins can kill a website, and slow websites lead to abandoned shopping carts and lost sales, particularly with a growing trend of purchasing via a mobile phone. 80% of internet use now on a Mobile Phone. A study by digital experience platform, WP Engine, revealed Investment Lags Today’s Mobile-First Consumer. While two seconds is considered the threshold for ecommerce website loading acceptability, the vast majority (82 percent) said their enterprises have an average website load time on mobile devices of two seconds or more. In fact, 31 percent admitted it takes an average of five seconds or longer for their website to load on mobile devices. Newer mobile solutions, such as Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) and Progressive Web Apps (PWA), can offer up to half the total cost of ownership of native applications. Combining both AMP and PWA in many cases will help organizations achieve much faster load times on mobile devices thus offering a superior mobile experience. Small Business Online Skills – Inception Training ©

Emerging trends in social media platform use. Event promotion website, Eventbrite says “Conveying benefits to your reader is the single best way to keep them nodding along with you on their journey to a sale”. Why? Because generally, people do not buy product features, they buy how they can use it, the experience, or in other words the benefits of using one product over another. Emotional triggers Each Call to Action (CTA) button should be placed on your website and match the amount of information required, or “involvement” in the purchase decision. Everyone is sensitivity to something, it’s just that people react differently to what they (subconsciously) perceive as a threat. This usually triggers an emotional response that leads to a strong purchase decision, one way or another. Customers, thanks largely to review websites and seller ratings, are more aware than ever of the tactics “sales” people use. You may hear someone who works in sales say, “ I can sell ice to Eskimo’s!”. Ask them “Aren’t there better building product available today?” See what their response is. Sales and marketing executives have been trained for years to find these “hot buttons” to keep pressing throughout conversations in the sales funnel. Not that there is anything wrong with that if the potential customer does have a “need” for your product. However, not everyone is “your customer”, and if they don’t have a need for it the trust is broken, and you are likely not to get repeat business. This is when “sales ethics” come into question. This is often when the attackers come out online. Not just trolls, anyone could be triggered. “keyboard warriors” jump into action, and even if they are trying to help, often not considering the consequences of their word on people on the other side of the screen. Others feel the need to jump in and help, and as written words are usually read with a negative bias, the situation can quickly get out of control, known as flaring. Having empathy and using it to manage the situation is seen as an essential skill for social media managers. More than just an ethical responsibility, agencies may be held legally responsible if they are found to trigger 3rd party comments on posts. Small Business Online Skills – Inception Training ©

Content trends In HubSpot’s Global Buying Behaviour in 2020, Content, and content marketing, was prominent in the buying trends observed in their research. Here is a summary of the buying trends to help you decide on the content that converting marketing to sales. 1. Consumers share the products they love, a lot! Delighted customers help speed up a business' flywheel by sharing their positive experiences with friends and peers, and those word-of-mouth reviews matter most to people who are making purchasing decisions. However, the content also needs to be “Sharable”. A 1-minute explainer video with basic information creates more interest in finding out more than waffling on for 10 minutes as longer videos make it look like you are not sure who you are talking to. It should be obvious to all viewer in the first few seconds why the video was send to them, otherwise it might be seen as Spam. 2. Consumers trust word of mouth the most. They found friends, family, and Google to be the top discovery sources for new products or services overall. In Latin America especially, we see a considerable influence from online channels for product discovery, including Google, Twitter, YouTube, and Instagram. 3. Expectations are low, which means great experiences matter. People are highly likely to share insights about products they love to friends and family, and that friends and family are the most trusted source of Small Business Online Skills – Inception Training ©

information for buying. it's clear what businesses should do. Focus on delighting their customers with great products and/or services. Unfortunately, very few people believe it when they hear businesses say they \"solve for the customer\". 4. Social is a major discovery channel for young consumers. Despite the bad press, and even mixed feelings about social media's impact on society across generations, our data shows that social media sites like YouTube and Twitter are still major discovery channels for Gen Z, Millennials, and Gen X. In fact, consumers ages 18 to 29 are nearly eight times more likely to discover new products from Instagram, compared to consumers aged 61 or older. 5. Videos and your website are both crucial for brand engagement. Video is still the top type of content people want to see from businesses. Incredibly, this preference spans all locations and most age ranges. In terms of where people go to learn about a brand, the official company website is the key property that everyone visits to get information. It's critical you ensure your business' website is easy to navigate and your content is up-to-date. Small Business Online Skills – Inception Training ©

Additionally, make sure your business's website clearly articulates the value that you can provide, along with clear next steps on how to engage with a sales rep or make a purchase. If you are driving traffic to your website from social media, you would have already identified a need, so you would not direct the potential customer to your home page. People expect you to give them the information they are searching for on what is called a “landing page”. Different people will want different information, but customers will be looking for the benefits of the product or service, not features, as in how they can use it. Over supplying information will talk people out of a sale. High conversion landing pages would has several “buy now” buttons as viewers move down the page so it makes it as simple as possible to complete the transaction when the customers has made their evaluation. A good purchase Call to Action (CTA) is not just about price. “What if you could get it cheaper” may get a purchase decision if price is a large factor. However, “what if this fixed your problem” (help them), or “what if you were the envy of your friends” (social proof) can be a more effecting CTA than giving a discount, and more profitable too. Small Business Online Skills – Inception Training ©

Storytelling Used more than just for entertainment, a great story can educate people on why they should buy what you do. Whether you are selling products, or Figure 1: 4MAT instructional design model just want people to buy into your cause or idea, a great story states “why” it was a problem, “what” you did about it, “how” you solved it, “what if” the problem came up again. The “what if” this happened to you is usually the focus of a testimonial, however a testimonial will be ineffective if the “why” does not resonate with the audience. You are trying to find others that are like your happy customers in a testimonial and sharing on social helps do this. Stories work best to get the response you want when they are directed at one person, talking about one thing (product), at one time. This transfers to social media if your story makes your audience feel like you wrote your story just for the one person on the other side of the screen. How do you do that “one-to-many? Let’s ask TED… Another popular storytelling formula is one from ancient times and still used in blockbuster movies, known as “the hero’s journey”. Produces of movies such as Star Wars, The Lord of the Rings, Avatar, have used this formula to achieve commercial success. You will often see this formula applied on a business’ “about” page. However, if a customer finds the about page interesting or not is another story. Small Business Online Skills – Inception Training ©

Case studies Organisational policies and procedures for social media use. If the organisation you want to work for doesn’t have a policy in place, or even if they do, check to make sure it is comprehensive and up to date. Here are some templates and advice developed by Social Media management App, Hootsuite. Social media ethical practices Here is an example form the largest Social Media platform, Facebook, as an example of the services they provide, and how they intend them to be used: “Instead of paying to use Facebook and the other products and services we offer, by using the Facebook Products covered by these Terms, you agree that we can show you ads that businesses and organisations pay us to promote on and off the Facebook Company Products. We use your personal data, such as information about your activity and interests, to show you ads that are more relevant to you.” Provide a personalised experience for you: Your experience on Facebook is unlike anyone else's: from the posts, stories, events, ads and other content that you see in News Feed or our video platform to the Pages that you follow and other features that you might use, such as Trending, Marketplace and search. We use the data that we have – for example, about the connections you make, the choices and settings you select, and what you share and do on and off our Products. Small Business Online Skills – Inception Training ©

Connect you with people and organisations that you care about: We help you find and connect with people, groups, businesses, organisations and others that matter to you across the Facebook Products that you use. We use the data that we have to make suggestions for you and others – for example, groups to join, events to attend, Pages to follow or send a message to, shows to watch and people who you may want to become friends with. Stronger ties make for better communities, and we believe that our services are most useful when people are connected to people, groups and organisations that they care about. Empower you to express yourself and communicate about what matters to you: There are many ways to express yourself on Facebook and to communicate with friends, family and others about what matters to you – for example, sharing status updates, photos, videos and stories across the Facebook Products that you use, sending messages to a friend or several people, creating events or groups, or adding content to your profile. We have also developed, and continue to explore, new ways for people to use technology. Help you discover content, products and services that may interest you: We show you ads, offers, and other sponsored content to help you discover content, products, and services that are offered by the many businesses and organisations that use Facebook and other Facebook Products. Section 2 below explains this in more detail. Combat harmful conduct, and protect and support our community: People will only build community on Facebook if they feel safe. We employ dedicated teams around the world and develop advanced technical systems to detect misuse of our Products, harmful conduct towards others and situations where we may be able to help support or protect our community. If we learn of content or conduct like this, we will take appropriate action. Use and develop advanced technologies to provide safe and functional services for everyone: We use and develop advanced technologies such as artificial intelligence, machine learning systems and augmented reality so that people can use our Products safely regardless of physical ability or geographic location. For example, technology such as this helps people who have visual impairments understand what or who is in photos or videos shared on Facebook or Instagram. We also build sophisticated network and communication technology to help more people connect to the Internet in areas with Small Business Online Skills – Inception Training ©

limited access. And we develop automated systems to improve our ability to detect and remove abusive and dangerous activity that may harm our community and the integrity of our Products. Research ways to make our services better: We engage in research to develop, test and improve our Products. This includes analysing the data we have about our users and understanding how people use our Products, for example by conducting surveys and testing and troubleshooting new features. Our Data Policy explains how we use data to support this research for the purposes of developing and improving our services. Provide consistent and seamless experiences across the Facebook Company Products: Our Products help you find and connect with people, groups, businesses, organisations and others that are important to you. We design our systems so that your experience is consistent and seamless across the different Facebook Company Products that you use. For example, we use data about the people you engage with on Facebook to make it easier for you to connect with them on Instagram or Messenger, and we enable you to communicate with businesses that you follow on Facebook through Messenger. Enable global access to our services: To operate our global service, we need to store and distribute content and data in our data centres and systems around the world, including outside your country of residence. This infrastructure may be operated or controlled by Facebook or its affiliates. Small Business Online Skills – Inception Training ©

2. Using workplace information responsibly While some practices may be legal, it is likely that the general public may not be aware of this fact. However, as professional marketers (as in paid to do a job) you are expected to know the conditions that you are allowed to use the information you have, particularly when it comes to social media platforms. Mishandling information, either by design or by accident, can cause major reputational damage that some brands may never recover from. In business, you want to deal with people you know, like, and trust. When building relationships, can they trust you always comes first. People don't care how much you know until they know how much you care. Building trust is not about you. However breaking trust is about what you do. Small Business Online Skills – Inception Training ©

Applying privacy policies to data devices unauthorized access by internal or external people can cause financial loss, reputation/brand damage, or lower consumer confidence. Common data security measures include: Authentication technology that verifies if a user’s credentials match those stored in your database. Includes using a combination of ways to identify an authorized user, such as passwords, PINS, security tokens, a swipe card, or biometrics Encryption Encryption is used to protect the data that you store (called data at rest) and data exchanged between databases, mobile devices, and the cloud (called data in transit). Backups & recovery Data security also requires a plan for how to access your company’s and client’s data in the event of system failure, disaster, data corruption, or breach. Doing regular data backups is an important activity to help with that access. Access control Limiting the number of users who have access to information happens through the process called access control. Systems can include discretionary access control (the least restrictive based on the identity of users or groups), role-based access control (based on organizational role), and mandatory access control (system administrator). Data masking Hides data by obscuring letters and numbers with proxy characters. The data is still there, behind the masking. The software changes the data back to its original form only when an authorized user receives that data. Erasure When electronic data is no longer needed and must be permanently cleared from the system, erasure can overwrite that data so that it is irretrievable. Erasure is different from deletion, which is a process that simply hides data in such a way that makes it easy to retrieve. Small Business Online Skills – Inception Training ©

Operating procedures Many data security measure are already incorporated into the business standard operating procedures for example: strong passwords; a firewall; Updating; Secure mobile phones/laptops; Scheduled backups; emails and surfing the web; educating employees. Many Small Business build websites using the WordPress application, and over 60% of the worlds Content Management Systems (CMS) also use WordPress. For information websites that may also sell some products, free plugins like Wordfence can protect you from hackers, including “brute force attacks”. If you are scaling up to an eCommerce website, you should be getting in a web developer to set it up so it doesn’t crash losing you customer. This would also include security upgrades that would allow you to process credit card transactions without having to pay fees to third parties (such as PayPal). Small Business Online Skills – Inception Training ©

Organising data sets Every business collects a large amount of data through sales, marketing, networking, even giving advice. This, however, does not build knowledge, particular valuable “know-how”. Data only has value to a business if you can access it easily when you need to convert data into a message. The are many ways you can organise data, and even free software small business uses for marketing has basic functions to import, sort, and export data for you to use. Getting the basic’s right from the start will save you time later, even if you don’t know how to use software like Excel or google sheets. File explorer This is where you store files on your local computer (or office server) and looks like this: Tip to make it easier to use file explore as you build content, files, and data: Use “naming conventions” that give you clues to the content without opening the files. This “metadata” (data about data) can be used to keyword search for files if you loss them, or someone moves them to a different folder. Small Business Online Skills – Inception Training ©

Don’t go more than 4 folders down the tree. If has been a standard for years that customer want to find what they are looking for within 3 click of a website, so people using your data (internal customers) get frustrated if you try to put too much in a directory tree. If you are moving files to cloud storage like google drive or SharePoint, you will soon have to shorten your folder and file names as you can run out of characters in the file URL (which includes each folder name on the tree). Adding a dash (“-“) is a good habit to get into as blank spaces between words take up 3 characters in the URL. Save you image files with an SEO friendly name. not only so you can find them in the file explore search, but every photo also you put on your website needs to tell Google what the photo is too. For example, the image below is called “Drawing-hobby-art-class-studio-yellow”. Keep a full-size hi-res copy by all means, but if you are going to use it on a website it only needs to be downsize images to 72 DPI and around 150kb to look good on a desktop. Looks even better on a mobile. If you download a photo uploaded to Facebook, this “optimizes” the images for online use for you (but no good for printing). Do this when you change the file name (above) so you know the photos that are ready to upload to a more “mobile friendly” website. Web designers will usually not do this for you, unless you are paying for SEO as part of their service. Figure 2 https://www.studioyellow.com.au/ Small Business Online Skills – Inception Training ©

Import/export data using CRMs Just about all the customer contact apps you will use for business with have a way to import contact all at once to start off a new list. If you are already using software, you can “export data” into comma-separated value file (CSV), and then spreadsheet like Microsoft Excel or Google Sheets to sort the data. If you are looking to import contact into a CRM, for example, Mail Chimp, you can manually add a couple of contacts with “tags” with types of customers you want to send emails out to on different “mail lists”. The export file will have the headings in the column order with the information and the tags and it will look something like this: You can embed signup forms created in Mail Chimp (and other CRMs) into your website and have checkboxes that allow customers to tag themselves onto specific mail lists. This is handy when you are using free accounts that don’t allow you to create different audiences as you can still contact different lists, without spamming people that didn’t want emails about different topics to what they signed up for. You can then share content stored on your website to you target market list, and also see how interested people are as you can see how many people click on your links in you mailout/newsletter. The premium options for each CRM will have details of the extra automation you get to make your life easier on the products purchase comparison table on their website. For more information on the import/export process, here is an example from MailChimp. Click on the image to go to the website link (we are not checking if you click the link… but MailChimp may be doing it). Small Business Online Skills – Inception Training ©

Sorting data into a message You only need basic spreadsheet skills to sort data or create charts into something that makes more sense to answer the question you ask. For example, if you do want to find the people with the most activity when you export your mail list (as in the example on the previous page), you can sort columns into descending order with one mouse click. Actually, maybe a couple of clicks. A click and drag to highlight the data rows, then click on the “sort” icon. It is also very easy to create your own charts to share information and create info graphics. This is explained in this short 45 second video: Small Business Online Skills – Inception Training ©

Using social media platforms to share information Sharing/leveraging content has become a big part of keeping the amount of work required to manage social media under control. While the general public may spend on average over 135 minutes per day on social media, social media managers will generally only spend around 30 minutes a day on social media. How to they do that? Focus, and planning, but also sticking to the plan that is usually set and reviewed every 6 to 8 weeks. 1. Create goals for social that solve business challenges. 2. Choose the right social media platforms. 3. Create unique content for social media. 4. Cross-promote your brand. 5. Analyze then optimize your social media strategy. Scheduling software While there is software available to spread your posts across platforms, this software can harm you “organic reach” (unpaid) on Facebook as it has its own inbuilt post scheduling software that it wants marketers to use. The same thing may happen if you share a video from YouTube to Facebook as Facebook wants to encourage you to upload original videos on their platform. Other platforms have partnerships with software companies to make it easier to plan content. For example, LinkedIn gives you an option to share post to your twitter account, just as Facebook also offers to place you boosted posts onto its subsidiary Instagram. You are talking to a different target market on each platform, even though some of you customers are on multiple platforms. Consistency is the key, both in your message and schedule, is a common key to success, particularly on platforms that visually appealing content is prioritized in newsfeeds If you think one size fits all, you need to rethink your social media strategy. You would be better off focusing resources on the platforms that you know work rather than trying to do too much and chasing people that are not your customers. Small Business Online Skills – Inception Training ©

Engage customers Social media management platform Sprout Social says “Engagement is a big umbrella category to track. It essentially boils down to how much audience accounts are interacting with your account and how often.”. While Likes and Comments are considered by most as “Vanity metrics”, as in they look good but may not have any real value to a business, shares and link clicks provide data on a higher level of engagement from the audience. This give the page or group admins usable metric to see what works, so you can duplicate these posts and see patterns in potential customer engagement. If you are looking to build your authority in your industry, you can test how interest your markets is in what you do by putting up a “click to view” CTA on your Facebook post to see what percentage is actually interested in your topic, and you can also “split test” topics titles as part of an SEO strategy and get almost instant feedback. The downside of ignoring vanity metrics altogether is you may end up with a page with 20k followers that only gets a couple of likes or comments on each post. That basically says to the whole world that you are not providing content that is interesting to your market. Common engagement measures include: • Likes, Comments, Retweets, etc: Individual engagement metrics like a Share or a Retweet add up. In a Twitter report, you’ll see a total number of engagements per post • Post engagement rate: The number of engagements divided by impressions or reach. A high rate means the people who see the post find it interesting. • Account mentions: Organic mentions, like @mentions that aren’t part of a reply, or tagging a brand in an Instagram story without prompting, indicate good brand awareness. Small Business Online Skills – Inception Training ©

Meet brand needs True North is your orienting point - your fixed point in a spinning world - that helps you stay on track as a leader. It is derived from your most deeply held beliefs, values, and the principles you lead by. It is your internal compass, unique to you, representing who you are at your deepest level. Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, claims “Your brand is what people say about you when you're not in the room.” More specifically, your personal brand is the confluence of your professional experience, your network and your online presence that comes to define your reputation, on and offline. To recruit talent to their organisation, leaders will often advertise the vision, mission, and ethics of their brand on social media as a way of advertising what they do, not what they sell. Vision statement – “Why” you do what you do, the aim of your strategic plan for the next 2 to 5 years. Mission Statement – “What” you plan to do over the next 6 months to 2 years to bring your vision to life. Ethics - How you do what you do. Do you want to “win at any cost”? Innovation – How do you react to the “What if” situations and manage change Figure 3: Triple Bottom Line business goals Small Business Online Skills – Inception Training ©

Reach target customer When we say, “your ideal customers”, we are not talking about an “Avatar”. An Avatar is an average, or stereotype, of the potential customers in your target market. However, many businesses focus on this rather than actual customer needs. This shows up in marketing when a business focuses on selling the feature of the products/service, and it’s not about the benefits for the customers. To get back on track, a business needs to put the humanity back into the sales process. The quickest way to do this I’ve found is to write down a description of your ideal customer (Avatar), then write down what you know about your 5 best customers, starting with the customer’s name. If you don’t even know the name of your 5 best customers, no matter what you criteria for the “best” is, it is likely you don’t know your customers well enough to be talking to them at all on social media. We are the average of the five people we spend the most time with – Jim Rohn This statement holds true for a business, but if it wants to be profitable, a business should spend as much time as possible with it is 5 best customers, then just find more people like them. This is what Social media allows you to do, however you need to be able to identify the cues your best customers give away and understand the motivations behind these actions. Otherwise you will spend most of your time chasing the 20% of your customers that cause 80% of your problems. This downward spiral often leads to losing the 80% of the customers that don’t cause you problems. The 20% is often the most vocal, but also the most likely to point out the weakness in your product/service features. Maybe the product is not right for them, but if you don’t walk away from this type of customer, soon you have more problems than you have resources to handle. Your best customers leave, and the ones you have left have unrealistic expectations. What would you rather double, $50 or $10? Double sales in your strengths, then you can afford to overcome your weaknesses. If you don’t you are just delaying the inevitable. This is hard for businesses to accept but remember Small Business Online Skills – Inception Training ©

while you are building your 6 or 7 figure income, profits include the 2 figures after the decimal point in accounting terms. To take advantage of your opportunities on social media, you will have to deal with people you know, like, and trust. I the field of conversational intelligence, trust comes first, and triggering trust issues can have both negative and positive reactions from humans. Building trust across multiple platforms becomes harder when you add in cultural differences from the global reach that the major social media networks have. Most active social media users use more than one platform, so consistency is essential for online success. In general, social media trends seemed to match across regions—a possible testament to the globalizing effect of the internet. The platforms people like and trusted were generally the same across all regions we surveyed. Although the distributions were similar, there were some differences in how much trust respondents from each place felt. Latin Americans were more likely to trust content from every social media platform we asked about, while Europeans and U.S. respondents were more sceptical. However, Survey Monkey’s research found European media’s emphasis on digital privacy around GDPR, additional regulations, and antitrust suits against internet companies like Google doesn’t seem to have sowed deeper distrust of social networks. Small Business Online Skills – Inception Training ©

Trust levels for different platforms followed similar distribution patterns in the U.S. and Europe, and were mostly positive. Americans were also the most pessimistic about social media’s impact on society and most likely to report plans to quit most forms of social networking. That said, the country with the least trust in social media was Germany, while Colombians consistently listed the most positive feelings. Latin Americans were also most likely to put Facebook as their favourite form of social media. You might have suspected that the generation that grew up in the digital age would be have less natural distrust of technology, and you’d be right. Millennials and Gen Z respondents were much more likely than baby boomers to trust every form of social media, but they were also significantly more likely to quit. Trust might be higher for younger generations, but patience is not. Small Business Online Skills – Inception Training ©

Sourcing information and content Social media management platform Hootsuite says Understanding social media demographics (the different audiences that each platform has the potential to reach) allows you to: • Reach the right audience • Craft a compelling message • Fine-tune your marketing strategy How? Simple: The best social media marketers know where their audience is. That means choosing the right social platforms for their brands. The best way to choose the right platform for your brand is by taking a look at the demographics. Here is a summary general demographical points of reference, and you can click on the image to see the report on each of the major social media platforms. Key features and uses CRM software developers HubSpot has also done research on users of Social media platforms in 2020 to help its customers choose the right social media platform to focus on. Here are some of the results. See which one sounds most like your ideal customer. Facebook • Facebook has over 2 billion users. (We Are Social) • Facebook users are 74% female and 62% male. (We Are Social) • 75% of Facebook's users are located urban areas. (The Rainmaker Blog) • 96% of Facebook users access the site via mobile devices. (Statista) Small Business Online Skills – Inception Training ©

Instagram • The most popular age range is 13-17, at 72%. (The Rainmaker Blog) • Instagram has over 1 billion monthly active users. (Instagram) • 500 million active users interact with Instagram Stories. (Instagram) • 60% of users say they discover new products on Instagram. (Instagram) Twitter • Twitter has over 330 million monthly active users. (Statista) • 79% of people on Twitter like to discover what's new (Twitter for Business) • 32% of Twitter users have a median income of $75,000. (The Rainmaker Blog) • 27% of Twitter users are between 30-49. (The Rainmaker Blog) LinkedIn • LinkedIn has 660 million members. (We Are Social) • The website is available in 24 different languages. (We Are Social) • The region with the most users is Europe, with over 206 million. (We Are Social) • The fastest growing membership rate among 18-24-year-olds. (We Are Social) TikTok • TikTok is available in over 150 markets in 75 languages. (App Ape Lab) • There are 500 million monthly active TikTok users. (App Ape Lab) • Half of TikTok users are under the age of 34. (MarketingCharts) • 37% of adult users have a median income of over $100,000. (MarketingCharts) • 41% of TikTok users are teens. (Oberlo) Using secondary data While the best way to research what trends are important to you customers is to ask them, data is now the most traded commodity in the world. Your business does not operate in a bubble in a global market. You must be able to find and understand the massive amount of secondary research data available. This is data collected from outside of your organization but deciding what is relevant to your organization will depend on the industry you operate in, Small Business Online Skills – Inception Training ©

and what you do in that industry. To use secondary data, you also need Primary data, which is gathered internally from your day-to-day operations. While the amount of free data that is available for businesses has dramatically increased over the last few years, the oversupply has created demand for “Data Miners” to find, extract, and convert the data into something that can be used by consumers. The Big Data as an industry with products resembles both the second highest traded commodity, Oil & Gas, and the third largest commodity, Coffee. It powers the direction organizations travel in, and often over stimulated by instant access through social media platforms. Research by Survey Monkey says “with “fake news” in the real news (headlines) for the past few years, how willing are consumers to let their guard down on social media?” The oversupply of data means there will always be a market for interpreting it, but if a business trusts the message created is another story. Survey Monkey has the following 3 tips to help build trust online 1. Tell your story with numbers. In previous research they found that 73% of people find articles that rely on data to be more persuasive than other types of writing and 74% think data stories are more trustworthy. 2. Pictures speak louder than words. The prevalence of YouTube and Instagram across all demographics in our study mean that visual content is a rich area of opportunity. Images are also consistently proven to stand out more and be more engaging than other kinds of content. 3. Use real human voices, not marketing language. Most social media is predicated on relationships and personal networks. Even on professional platforms like LinkedIn, social media users are usually more interested in personal interaction. Thirty percent of people would quit using a social network because of ads, and only 8% of respondents considers marketers to be trustworthy. If the voice of a brand isn’t cutting it, maybe the voice of an individual will: According to Survey Monkey’s report on buyer trust, 82% of people trust the words of a customer over brand or product messaging. Small Business Online Skills – Inception Training ©

Case Studies Business Model Canvas Select a small business you are familiar with and do a Business Model Canvas to help you work out which social media platform you will find the most customers. How many of the sections on this template do you think you can fill out. If you talk to the business owner, do you think they would have different information? Small Business Online Skills – Inception Training ©

Legislative requirements applicable to developing web content Cambridge Analytica and Facebook: The Scandal and the Fallout So Far Revelations that digital consultants to the Trump campaign misused the data of millions of Facebook users set off a furore on both sides of the Atlantic. In March (2018), The New York Times, working with The Observer of London and The Guardian, obtained a cache of documents from inside Cambridge Analytica, the data firm principally owned by the right-wing donor Robert Mercer. The documents proved that the firm, where the former Trump aide Stephen K. Bannon was a board member, used data improperly obtained from Facebook to build voter profiles. The news put Cambridge under investigation and thrust Facebook into its biggest crisis ever. The NY Times reported that in 2014 contractors and employees of Cambridge Analytica, eager to sell psychological profiles of American voters to political campaigns, acquired the private Facebook data of tens of millions of users — the largest known leak in Facebook history. The articles drew an instant response in Washington, where lawmakers demanded that Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s chief executive, testify before Congress. Small Business Online Skills – Inception Training ©

Why don’t you keep going? If you have read this far, you could already be halfway there to starting work for a small business! In the 2nd week of our course, we give you a list of Small Businesses that want work done and are happy for us to teach you how to do it for them so you can get experience and testimonial from Business Owners for your course work. Don’t have the confidence to do it yet? You don’t have to do it on your own. We have monthly Meetups and supportive closed social media groups for meet others on the course. You can do it at your own pace individually through weekly email and get one-on-one attention, or you can join our group learning environment anytime and get answers to your questions from mentors and other students who understand how you feel. They can even refer work to you, and the mentors usually find out about jobs before they are advertised. Got to https://inception.net.au/small-business-online-skills-training/ Or email [email protected] Small Business Online Skills – Inception Training ©