Today, digital skills have become the edge of successful entrepreneurship. The landscape of business has shifted dramatically, and traditional methods are no longer sufficient to thrive in an increasingly digital economy.
Some business owners are digital natives, while others built their businesses at a time when the world had not evolved to the peak of digital technology. Notwithstanding, as new technological and consumer trends continue to disrupt the commercial status quo, entrepreneurs are more reliant than ever on digital skills to thrive in a competitive and economically volatile landscape. Unfortunately, soaring business insolvency levels point to a glaring skills deficit that could prove particularly perilous for SMEs.
What are Digital Skills?
Digital skills are any skills that give you the ability to find, evaluate, utilize, share, and create content using information technologies and the Internet.
Top 7 Digital Skills Every Entrepreneur Should Have
Here are 7 of the top digital skills that will help entrepreneurs to thrive whatever challenges the future may bring.
1. Social media
Whatever your personal attitudes to social media may be, it is an inescapable truth that social media is an invaluable tool for engaging with existing and prospective customers, promoting your offering and growing your brand. Social media is especially important since this is where people are spending the bulk of their time online. Being able to use social media effectively requires an approach that is both analytical and creative. It encompasses a range of essential skills including, Identifying the social platforms your target audience uses, examining the times when your target audience is most active on social media, designing compelling social media marketing campaigns, creating a community space for customers, and addressing customer feedback and complaints effectively and transparently.
2. Content marketing
Content marketing allows brands to generate value for their customers while also positioning themselves as reliable, authoritative market leaders in their chosen fields. Content marketing is equal parts art and science. Brands must research, plan and generate compelling, engaging content that is of real value to the target audience, helping them to address a common pain point. This content can come in many forms including, blog posts, podcasts, social posts, email content and newsletters.
3. Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)
Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) allows businesses to rank above their competitors in Search Engine Results Pages. This digital discipline is essential for businesses that want to make themselves more visible online and gain an edge over their competitors. Search engine crawlers deploy increasingly sophisticated algorithms to ensure that websites that post valuable, high-quality copy regularly gain a competitive edge in Search Engine Results Pages.
4. Analytics and Business Intelligence (BI)
In the digital age, business operations are driven by data. Businesses are huge data repositories, with vast quantities of data describing their customers’ buying habits, their operational functions, their markets and even what challenges the future holds. Data allow you to plan ahead and respond faster to changes. For example, if you see that your customers are preferring product A over product B you can then step up your marketing efforts on product B and increase the revenue. Entrepreneurs can leverage analytics and business intelligence tools to make sense of this data and use it to influence future decision-making. Without digital skills, your decision making will be crippled and this will reduce your likelihood of success as an entrepreneur.
5. Cybersecurity
Digital technologies bring myriad new opportunities for business. Unfortunately, they can also bring vulnerabilities, too. Phishing scams, ransomware and other cyber attacks can do massive reputational damage to your business, undermine customer trust, grind business operations to a halt and cost a fortune to rectify. Entrepreneurs should invest in a digital infrastructure that leverages the highest standards of encryption, while also ensuring that staff are properly trained in IT governance.
6. Leveraging automation
New advances in AI and machine learning have revealed the enormous scope for digital solutions to automate business operations. From using ChatGPT to generate e-commerce product pages to improving cash flow via automated invoicing, there are a wealth of ways in which automation can help businesses to run more smoothly without compromising the human touch that adds value and instils customer loyalty. While the automation of business functions may require some human oversight and management, it nonetheless has colossal scope to reduce the administrative load on employees and leave them with more time and energy to devote to mission-critical activities or activities that generate added value for customers.
7. Networking and personal branding
Finally, while entrepreneurs may have their hands full with the day-to-day of their business operations, it is important to remember that every business has a face. Think of brands like Apple and Facebook, and Steve Jobs and Mark Zuckerberg spring to mind. These businesses are not only world-famous and influential, but they also had a strong brand influenced by the founders. Everyone has a brand, and everyone is a brand. The way you talk, the way you respond to emails, the way you introduce yourself, the way you write is your brand. Without digital skills, you may limit your brand and reduce your chances of being successful as an entrepreneur. The digital realm helps entrepreneurs feel more connected to their peers with platforms like LinkedIn allowing them to communicate, collaborate and post thought leadership content to assert their knowledge, provoke conversation, and inspire trust.
It is no doubt that, digital skills are no longer optional for entrepreneurs, they are a fundamental requirement for building and growing a successful business in today’s world. Digital skills will greatly reduce your operating costs and this improves your chances of success as an entrepreneur. Digital skills will make it possible for you to compete with larger business and improve the efficiency of your business. Whether it’s engaging with customers online, making data-driven decisions, or scaling a business globally, strong digital skills empower entrepreneurs to navigate the complexities of the modern business landscape, seize opportunities, and drive their businesses to new heights. If you do not have digital skills you will be short changing yourself as an entrepreneur. So, investing time, effort and capital in your own digital skills can improve your company, enhance business operations and enrich the experience of your customers and employees.