Entrepreneurship 2.0
As business owners you have to think of the most effective way to reach your customers, and maximize your efforts and resources. Let’s say you had the bright idea to open up a retail store at a prime location, in the middle of Time Square, NYC for instance. Would you simply set up shop, and open a basic website to let people know about store hours, sales, events, and contact. NO! I would imagine the savvy way to go about it, would be to penetrate the e-commerce market, and put your product out there for the world to access! Joel put it this way – “As an entrepreneur you don’t need to be a pure-play on-line business, BUT you need to be better as creating an online experience.”
It is no longer feasible to be hesitant about putting your business online. Mainly because the tier-one companies are already on the web. In the book Joel mentions that the tier-two companies are not even next inline as competition, but in fact, it’s the small hungry entrepreneurs who are the market leaders. They’re the ones who have taken advantage of SEM (Search Engine Marketing), purchased the keywords and engaged with the community.
Define your strategy! Everyone is always busy worrying about which channels to use, and they completely ignore the strategy and brand. The most important questions to ask is “Why?”
• Why should you be on Facebook?
• Why should you make videos on YouTube?
• Why should you do a blog, and why would anyone care?
• Why should you try Twitter?
When you understand why, you’ll understand the love people have for your brand, why people buy from you, why people spread the word about who you are as a business, and why they should stay loyal. Having a brand strategy will enable you to decided which tools and tactics to use to aid in the growth of you business.