I have been meeting with various business leaders and business organizations in the last little while. I’ve been hoping to try to get support for creating an eCommunity™ in our area. So far the feedback has been positive and the interest has been good. There has been a lot of great input from several wise business leaders. It’s all about creating a way to help promote your business to an ever changing world.
In my last article I wrote about the concept of the eCommunity™. I want to explain how this can help your business. Any business can benefit from increased visibility in the world. I want to make your business more visible, so that you can do more business. For this, I’m going to need your input and your support to make this come to pass. Looking back, one of my greatest challenges has been trying to let other people and businesses know that I exist. An eCommunity™ will help you and your business get found by other businesses and other customers. People are searching the Internet for products and services. You need to be found in the search results.
So let us talk about what’s in it for you in an eCommunity™. How will this work? I see a large website or web portal as the primary tool for directing customers to a page about your business and the community. An example you can look at is “www.sandiego.com“. There are various areas that people can view such as things to do, where to stay, area news, and local business information. I would like to see lots of ways that customers can interact with the site. From that site, the customer could be given your business e-mail address, a website, a phone number or other contact point to connect with your business. I would also like to see a link to your business Facebook page where customers can engage you using social media. They can write on your wall and ask you questions. They can chat with you. They can view video that you have created to show them what your business is about. You can also highlight special services or special products that you provide. The one thing I want you to understand is this, the eCommunity™ is all about connecting you with and engaging your customer.
These days, customer perception is very important to consider. Truro has a lot going for it. It’s a great place to do business. It has great educational institutions here. We are centrally located in Nova Scotia. There are so many great things about Truro and the Colchester area that need to be promoted to the world. Organizations like CoRDA are doing an excellent job at promoting our area to the world. We need to continue to aggressively market ourselves to the world.
What is lacking? Engagement. An eCommunity™ excels at engagement. Static websites that don’t allow engagement will not get the job done. What do I mean about engagement? Simply this. It’s always been about you connecting with the customer or other businesses. This old principle is maximized in an eCommunity™. To do more business, we have to be better engagers with the world.
What is it going to take to get the done? It is going to take a community working together to make this happen. It is bigger than one business or many businesses. It’s about working together, putting the past aside, and moving ahead together. It’s about embracing new ideas.
