Experts have urged small business owners and media entrepreneurs to use digital marketing to their advantage, and grow their online presence and businesses.
The experts from Digify Africa and the Government Communication and Information System (GCIS) hosted a masterclass on Wednesday to equip small business and media entrepreneurs with the skills they need to thrive in the digital economy.
Digify Africa is a non-profit organisation that has been delivering free digital skills and literacy to communities across Africa since 2011. The organisation strives to empower communities with digital skills to build sustainable livelihoods in the digital economy.
The masterclass was attended by various small business owners and media entrepreneurs from different sectors.
Digify Africa’s Business Development Manager, Xolani Sedibe, took the entrepreneurs through training, offering them steps to establish a digital presence and share important information about their businesses to their customers.
He said it is critical for small business owners and media entrepreneurs to have a Facebook business account in order to reach a broader customer base as opposed to just people in their areas.
Sedibe explained how entrepreneurs can utilise the Facebook Business family of apps such as the Facebook Business Suite, and how to make their pages more appealing to customers.
He said that these tools enable businesses to tell customers who they are and what they are able to offer them.
“One major thing that drives social media is content. People are on social media to consume content that appeals to them and their interests. As a business, you need to have your consumer in mind and know what they like. As a new business, announce yourself and why you are on the platform and what you are offering.
“It is important to understand your target audience before you create advertising posts. This will help you determine whether you should use long texts, images or videos to communicate. It is always imperative to create content that speaks to your audience,” Sedibe said.
He explained to the entrepreneurs that the most important part of the business page is the insights sections, which shows the analytics to measure the growth of the page and how many people one has reached with their posts.
He reiterated that this will helps the business owners with managing and measuring their progress, while making changes on what is not working for their businesses.
Sedibe urged entrepreneurs to download the Facebook Business Suite, which helps to manage all their accounts in one go.
Digify Africa will deliver the second session of the workshop, which will explore how to use WhatsApp to grow business, on 17 November 2021.
Source: South African Government News Agency