Using the Internet, e-Commerce and Social Media to promote your business

This is a rather broad topic, that I will only briefly touch on so as to provide some food for thought.

Firstly, you need to decide if you need to make use of these channels to promote your business and/or products.

If you choose to go this route, you then need to decide what aspects or portions of your business you wish to promote via these channels.

Once you have decided the specifics of what will be promoted via these channels, you need to decide on if you wish to use these for e-Commerce purposes, or merely as another marketing channel. These decisions inform how you proceed from here.

If you wish to simply get blog posts out there that will inform people about your business, products or services, you could use free platforms such as Wix.com to create a blog site and publish your blog posts there. You could then either inform your target audience or customers via email or WhatsApp, etc., or copy the URL per blog into social media such as Facebook or LinkedIn and increase exposure that way.

If you plan to make use of a website to sell products, you should research your options for creating a website that gives you the kind of exposure and reach you are looking for. You could make use of an internet service provider to reserve a domain name for your website for you, or you could do so yourself. You could make use of web hosting through someone like absolutehosting.co.za. The cost hereof is minimal (round R200 per year). You could use WordPress to create a new website yourself. Refer to WPBeginner.com for guidance.

If you need to include images and not have to create them yourself, you can search for them on the internet, and if you are looking for royalty-free images you can use, you could find them on sites like unsplash.com.

You will then need to enable it for e-Commerce and have payment options, such as giving people your banking details for EFT payments and/or including a payment portal add-in such as Payfast or Yoco, etc. that allows customers to pay via credit card, both locally or internationally, and these add-ins can automate a downloading link to your product the customer has purchased, instead of you having to send them a link manually, as is the case with EFT payments. Please always ensure that you have valid proof of payment before releasing your product to the customer. Also, be advised that there are fees involved with card payment options, so best you do your research on these options before proceeding with them.

With your e-Commerce enabled website, you will still need to ensure it reaches your target audience. You will thus need to set it up so that it is optimized for internet searches (Search Engine Optimisation/SEO). There are various strategies for this that an ISP, or experienced PR or social media professional can assist you with. You can also make use of Facebook, including their various marketplaces, as well as LinkedIn, etc.