by Samuel Gitukui

There is this negative perception around the gig economy that companies use freelancers for cost cutting. The media doesn’t report on the high skill levels of the freelancers.

However, the truth is that online platforms allows companies to connect with some of the best service providers and allows the company to actively seek out specific skills. Here gender, age or location is not a driving factor and the result is a level playing field.

This opens up a whole new world of opportunities one where social barriers do not get in the way of someone trying to showcase their talents.

The modern business environment is always talking about the need for diversity. What better way to uphold diversity than through the gig economy?

Diversity creates value

This is one of the main advantages of the gig economy in that it provides value.  Workers are more accessible through online platforms and people are able to work even from home. You can think of stay at home moms that need to raise their children.

Companies get more accessibility to workers and vice versa. It also offers the best way for retirees to make some extra money and not just rely on their pension.

Access to the best skills

One of the main advantages of the gig economy is that it provides businesses with the opportunity to gain access to high quality skills. These are skills that would be more difficult to come across if the business used the traditional way of job advertisements.

What’s more is that by employing short term skills the company is able to considerably reduce the cost of having workers around when there is no work.

The gig economy will work both ways and is an efficient way of earning a decent income as well as getting tasks done.

For example, suppose you wanted some graphic design work done. It is much easier to send an advert online than to drive to the nearest graphic design firm. Once you have agreed on the job and what needs to be done, you can then send payment once the job is completed to your standards.

Access to international talent

One other way that the gig economy adds to diversification is that it allows companies to gain access to global talent. There are no geographical barriers and the more reach that you have the more you are likely to come across the best talent for your business.  

It breaks down old narratives and allows businesses to compete much more efficiently. Look at it this way, a business only hires workers for a specific task which allows it to ultimately cut down on the costs. Even better, the business is able to get a higher quality job from a worker who is in japan or Germany.

In fact, if the business wants to remain ahead of the game, then having short term workers can allow it to dedicate more of its funds to marketing. The internet opens up whole new possibilities.

by Samuel Gitukui

Perhaps people got tired of the constant hassle of looking for a job. With how things were going, getting a job was one of the hardest things to do, and overqualified graduates often had to settle for less than ideal jobs just to make ends meet.

It must have been the constant adaptation of humans that brought about the gig economy, these very adaptive qualities that made us conquer every corner of the globe.

Now more and more people are choosing to work as freelancers rather than being permanently employed. It is a new way of entrepreneurship where you get to use your skills to work for multiple clients.

Freedom, having to work within your own schedule and fulfilling your own goals rather than that of someone else is what the gig economy is all about.

By the looks of it, it is here to stay and the great thing is, people are able to make more money than they would have otherwise done in full time employment.

The statistics will shed light on the prevalence of this gig economy. In the west, up to a third of the workforce are working as freelancers.

A contractor’s theme

In the older days, a contractor would have been the blue-collar job guy who came to fix your plumbing or cut down trees in your back yard. Now everyone in the gig economy is working as a contractor.

Freelancers work by finding their own clients which has in turn resulted in the formation of service aggregators. These are online sites that connect service providers with customers further fueling the gig economy.

It makes it that much easier to connect and find work and it doesn’t always benefit the service provider. Companies are finding it more efficient to hire skills instead of a static work force.

So, the concept of the gig economy, when it’s all said and done is nothing new. It’s just a remodeling of the old franchising business model.

The downside

With the aggregators, there are better lines of communication between customers and service providers. But there is a downside to this.

There are also plenty of service providers that could provide substandard work. There is after all no rigid or systematic way to judge the value of the service. That said, it also exposes the business to high quality service over and beyond what you may be able to get in your geographical region.

The upside

Every freelancer will agree that making the decision to freelance their skills was one if the best they ever made. You get to create your own schedule and since workers are less stressed and are motivated by the terms of their contract, they are far more likely to provide high quality work.

Even better is that it provides owners of skills the opportunity to scale up, make more money and live a better life.
The gig economy is a win-win situation for both service provider and customer.

by Samuel Gitukui

Are you ready to set up your new business? Your target market should be at the forefront of your business’s objectives.

In fact, it is the target market that is going to define which products or services you are going to offer.
But how do you decide on the products?

Well, a good place to start is to interview a few members of your target audience and ask questions such as, what do you think would help in your situation? Would you use the product frequently? and would you suggest this product to your friends in similar circumstances?

With the answers from your research, you can then develop your product.

But here’s where it gets tricky.

How do you market this new product to the rest of the target audience?

Let’s take a look at a few tips, shall we?

1.    Develop a networking system

The main problem that is initially faced by most startups is the fact that few people are aware of its existence.
Which is the most efficient way to get your business known, you might ask?

By using your few clients to network by giving them an incentive such as a discount if they refer a new customer who would be interested in the products or services that you offer.

But there’s method to this!

Always make sure that the incentive is big enough to catch their attention but not big enough to affect your profits.
You need to find the right balance.

2.    Enlist bloggers and Vloggers

A cheaper way to get the word out about your business is to contact vloggers or bloggers that have a large number of followers.

By offering them a free sample of your product, they could write or vlog about it helping you reach even more potential customers.

3.    Targeted Ads

Everybody comes across an ad every time they are using the internet. This has caused many people to develop an add blindness where they simply overpass the add and concentrate on what they are trying to find.

By getting the potential customers demographic information, you can develop ads tailored to the specific customer. This increases the odds of making a sale and helps startups save on the much-needed cash.

4.    Taking part in events

One of the most effective ways to get your business known especially within your local community is by taking part in events such as conferences, seminars, and festivals.

By renting a space or booth and having your products on display, potential customers can try out and sample these products for free as you highlight the benefits.

Another great way is to hold public talks which has the advantage of showcasing you as a worthy participant in the industry. This helps to gain customer trust which builds on your business brand.

Being able to identify and market to your target audience gives your business an edge against the competition. This provides your business with a great foundation from which to develop and grow.

by Samuel Gitukui

Market research is key to the survival of your business. It should be included when starting a business and much so before coming up with a product.

And the reason is simple.

It is the customers that are aware of their own challenges and the problems that they face every day. While many entrepreneurs design products based on an idea or a hunch, the savvy businessman aims to fully understand the customer’s needs.

And understanding the customer can only be done through direct contact and interaction.

The aim here is simple.

Learn about the customer’s way of thinking, psychology, challenges as well as economic, emotional and cultural situations.

Only then will you design a product that caters to those needs.

While conducting market research may sound like a walk in the park, the truth is that it is faced with many challenges.
Lack of a process is one of them. This is where the researcher simply goes out into the market with the intention of collecting information, without any plan. Sometimes even with a plan, a researcher may fail to follow through which could cause the entire process to fail.

A second challenge is information bias. The researcher choses only the information that confirms what he is thinking as opposed to collecting all information and analyzing it without bias.

Family bias could step in where the researcher is trying to gain information from family members. They may not want to offend you so they tell you what you want to hear. This obviously is not a good representation of the market.

One good way of overcoming the biases in market research is to have multiple people conducting the research with some, if not all of them understanding the possibility of the bias that comes with the process.

The first step is to make a plan. The market research plan should include the goals and objectives, the criteria for recruiting interviewees, how to run the program and how to digest the results from the research.

It’s always helpful to conduct secondary research, from various sources to gain a good introduction into the market.

Next conduct a qualitative research. This will involve asking open ended question allowing the customers to provide you with long answers. Only then should you focus on asking quantitative questions which you will draft from the responses from the qualitative data.

Go to where your customers are likely going to congregate. This can be looked at two-fold, physically and digitally. However, it is always a good idea to interact with your potential customers directly to be able to obtain better responses. Using Facebook and other social media platforms will not give you the face to face interaction that you might want.

Getting customers to give you a few minutes of their time to talk is not easy and you will get plenty of rejections. But do not worry, it gets easier with more experience. Ask your contacts to refer you to someone else they know that buys the products you offer but approach them with a purely inquisitive tone rather than a salesy one. 

by Summer Worsley

We read a lot online. Well, we start reading a lot of articles and blogs online but according to data from marketing firms, we often don’t finish what we start. In fact, the average web user will leave a page, or “bounce” in marketing speak, within the first four paragraphs.
 
The most common explanation for these bounce rates is that people on the internet have very short attention spans and don’t always “engage” (more marketing speak) with what they’re scrolling through.
 
It’s food for thought. So for those bouncers among us, let me give you the condensed version of this article now, so you stay engaged.
 
Is SEO Changing the Way we Read and Write Online?

Yes.
 
 
Still here? Let’s continue then.
 
If we have short attention spans when it comes to web use, it’s reasonable to assume that we don’t want to spend a lot of time going through pages 2–10 of the Google results. We’re far more likely to choose from the first few hits displayed when we make a search. Are those first results the best sources of information or are they simply SEO optimised to perfection?
 
If the latter is true, there’s a very real concern that SEO is dictating what we read and what we don’t.
 
At this point, it’s handy to ask:
 
What Is SEO? 
Search engine optimisation, or SEO, is a method which aims to generate the best possible search engine rankings for a web page or piece of content published online.
 
To achieve this, writers and digital marketing agencies utilise primary and secondary keywords. Keywords are terms, phrases, and even short sentences that consist of what people actually search for. So it could be something like “best hotel Vienna” or “pain in lower back”.
 
Have you ever been reading online and suddenly come across a phrase that was grammatically unsound in a piece of writing that otherwise had excellent spelling and grammar? There’s a high chance that was a keyword.
 
Keywords are just one part of the equation though. SEO marketers also gear their content so that it is rewarded by search engines in other ways. Above and beyond providing valuable content to readers, this involves writing that consists of short and easily scannable sentences, an uncomplicated style, and ample use of headings and subheadings.
 
Let’s take the popular SEO plug-in Yoast as an example. Yoast rules dictate no more than 300 words of text without a subheading, no paragraph longer than four lines, sentences no longer than twenty words, and a carefully constructed keyword density rating.
 
The preferred reading age is a 7th to 9th grade level. The passive voice is discouraged, as are adverbs, frequent use of adjectives, and multiple clauses.
 
The Dumbing Down of Content 
As we saw above, search-engine-friendly content is simple, easy to read, easy to understand, and never too taxing on the reader. Several phrases and reiterations of that same phrase are repeated at regular intervals throughout the text. Just in case the reader — who, of course, is assumed to read at an 8th-grade level — forgot what they were reading about. Short attention spans after all.
 
It’s not much of a stretch to make the charge that we are dumbing down the internet. All writers who put their keyboards to use for content writing are guilty of it. I’m guilty of it too. Not all clients allow me creative freedom and the chance to use long sentences and multiple clauses (thanks Alexandra!) [You're welcome. I love your style. xxx]
 
But here’s the strange bit, my own style has started to change. It’s become more SEO-friendly without any effort on my behalf. Now, I might do this for a job, but whether you’re a writer or not, we’re all absorbing information from the net. We’re all subjected to the new rules which dictate what and how we read.
 
It’s easy to imagine that the changes brought about by SEO are affecting everyone’s taste, and everyone’s preference when it comes to style. Are we homogenising writing? This is an interesting question which is closely related to the homogenisation of online culture as a result of rising global connectivity.
 
Answers to this question aren’t readily available (even on Google) but as the academic field of digital literacies grows and gains prominence, which it must, there will surely be debates surrounding our changing reading-and-writing mores and the style of writing which is taking over the net.
 
The style and formatting preferred for web writing make it easy for the reader to skim through the content, getting a basic understanding of the general gist without having to pay much attention. This is affecting both online and offline reading patterns, to the point that the Guardian has declared skim reading “the new normal”.
 
The knock-on effect of this is that we aren’t really grasping the complexity of what we read and we aren’t critically engaging. Perhaps we too will become as dumbed down as the content we read online.
 
But are our new reading patterns purely a result of our hindered-by-technology attention spans or are SEO’s rules and style guidelines to blame?
 
The Chicken or the Egg? 
In many ways, the SEO versus style and content debate is kind of like the chicken and egg scenario. It’s impossible to ascertain if SEO practices are driving the change or if changing reading habits are responsible.
 
More likely, a complex interrelationship between the two is making us adjust our expectations of a text and the way we approach it. As digital marketing and marketers become even savvier than they are now — and trust me, they’re pretty crafty when it comes to gaining exposure and minimising bouncers — the new, preferred style for online content is likely to continue gaining momentum. Until the next big shift, that is.
 
That this current style is affecting the way we read both offline and online, is, in this web writer’s opinion, a crying shame.
 
What do you think? We’d love to hear your opinion so please leave us a comment below. 

by Samuel Gitukui

Social media’s impact on modern business is undeniable. With billions of people using social media every day, it opens up a whole new market for businesses to exploit.

And the platforms are many.

From Pinterest to Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.

Which begs the question…which social media platform is the best? The simple truth is that you can market your business’s products on all of them.

However, given the limited resources and time, it would be inefficient to use all platforms. The trick is to identify your target market and start from there.

Let’s discover!

1.    Defining the target audience

Before you can even begin to think about marketing your products, you need to first identify who your target customers are.

These are the people who will be most interested in buying your products.

There is no getting around this fact.

For the business to be successful and be able to compete in the dynamic and always volatile modern business environment, targeting a specific market group is paramount.

2.    Going online

Once you know who you are marketing your products to, it’s now time to go online and find them.

Suppose you have a product that is geared towards the older generation. Facebook will be their preferred social media platform.

On the other hand, if your target market consists mainly of millennials, then Instagram is the best platform for developing a good online presence.

This is not to say that you pick just one platform. It is perfectly fine to choose two or even three social media platforms provided you don’t pick too many that you cannot effectively and efficiently perform marketing on all of them.

3.    Study the competition

Your business can benefit from the competitors’ activities. Search them out on social media and find out who is following them.

But be careful.

You should only seek out the competitors that are in a similar niche as you. You’ll be able to see who they are targeting, and how they are tailoring their marketing campaigns to the target market.

Then you can come up with similar or even better ads for your target market.

4.    Social media insights

One very important tool to gauge the success of your social media advertising is using insights from the major platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, and Twitter.

And what’s more…

You can even find out the interests of your followers through these insights. If for example your followers are food enthusiasts and show an interest in fitness, you can use this information to branch out on the content you offer.

By offering content on fitness, you have an extra touch point with your followers which further strengthens their interest in your products.

5.    Analyze your website’s traffic

Okay, granted we are talking about social media.

However, isn’t the goal of social media marketing to direct traffic to your website where people can then make a purchase?
​
Now that we have that out of the way, using tools such as Google Analytics will help you gauge whether your target marketing efforts are paying off. More people to your site will ultimately mean more conversions.

by Samulel Gitukui

One of the most important aspects of product design and improvement for any business is useful feedback from the customers. It is the customers themselves who know what they are looking for and what exactly they need from a product.

However, it is no easy task to get reliable customer feedback and many entrepreneurs would rather not go through the seemingly grueling task. Still, with the right strategy, you can get customers to tell you everything you need to know to turn your product into something that conquers the market.

Here's how!

1.      Ask for feedback

It might sound simple but as much as asking for feedback is the most direct and effective way to get it, it still needs to be approached in the most efficient way.

The idea here is to get as many responses as possible, since fewer answers can be skewed by the noise. The more the responses are, the less susceptible they are to being skewed, making the results more reliable.

You can get useful feedback by getting customers to leave comments. To do this, there are tools that you can utilize such as Zendesk for sending comment requests through emails. You can also ask customers to take surveys.

2.      Know the ‘WHY’

Most times on the comments, customers will send you feature requests on what about the products they would like to see improved.

Naturally, any business person might be tempted to alter the products as per the customer’s requests without understanding why they are asking for them in the first place.

It’s important to know the reasons behind the requests otherwise you might find yourself making changes all too often.

3.      Identify trends

Feedback will tend to be quantitative in nature. You might find yourself being biased by all the information and proceed to provide the simple solutions first.

By developing a list based on frequency of requests, you can instead focus on providing solutions to those that have the most impact. After you’ve done this, then you can focus on the second request on the list.

4.      Segment your customer requests

Some requests will be from paying customers while others from free customers. However, the free customers may only focus on the features about the products. Even if you were to spend a considerable portion of your resources to fulfill their needs, it would still be unclear whether they would convert to paying customers.

This is not to say that you shouldn’t put any focus on fulfilling free customer requests. The trick is to know what to prioritize. With paid customers, there is a high chance that providing solutions to their requests will create loyal customers.

5.      Go with the largest impact

Regardless of the type of business, there is one challenge that every entrepreneur must face—limited resources.

You will not be able to handle all the requests. By prioritizing on the those that have the largest impact, you can utilize your resources more efficiently and come up with solutions and product changes that reach the most people.