When widespread access to the internet became available back in the mid 1990's our ability to use it for improving business was limited. Bandwidth (speed) was poor and you had to be a software (programming) expert to build anything. It took a long time and it cost a lot of money.
At first many established companies sat on the sidelines while fast, nimble new entrants came forward with hundreds of new ideas. The investment community got carried away and the seeds for the dot com bust in 2000 were sown. For a while it seemed like anyone with an idea could get money even if there was a badly flawed business model underlying the idea - so long as it was "online" then it was attractive.
Large established companies slowly took note and started (in many cases) to deploy standalone "internet" strategies in a defensive "just-in-case" approach. The thinking for fully integrated solutions and taking existing business models and improving them through use of online capabilities was not well advanced at that time.
The sophistication of thinking moved rapidly forward and organizations invested large sums of money into website development. Small businesses could not make comparable investments and the big guy's enhanced their competitive clout by sweeping up attractive domain names and investing significant sums to generate site traffic. For site traffic building in those early days, organizations were able to take advantage of the less sophisticated search engine capabilities than the advanced Google algorithms deployed today will permit.
However, fast forward to the current landscape and we believe it's possible for small businesses to deploy state-of-the-art websites, product catalogs, and inbound marketing campaigns to match that of any site or marketing campaign of a nationally or internationally recognized brand. Engaging in small business social media marketing can develop high quality organic web traffic for e-commerce purposes and become the foundation to underlie a complete business transformation.
For small and medium sized businesses the Internet has become the greatest "leveler of playing fields" of all time, so long as the business owner has a strategy for embracing it.
However, the opportunity cannot be taken advantage of without the use of sophisticated software tools and the knowledge of how to use them. Fortunately these software programs exist and access to them will not break the bank. With them it's possible to implement an effective strategy for social media in small business and to develop organic web traffic. Without them small business options are limited to paying for traffic or maintaining a site that has no traffic.
By implementing an integrated information technology platform small and medium size businesses can place themselves on a level playing field from a technology perspective.
Once on a level "technology" playing field, then small business can leverage what it does best and the big guy's do worst - namely, utilize those years of hard-won personal relationships in their local communities while taking advantage of their competitive edge to provide their customers with a superior experience.
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