By Dylan J. Stone
After the cancellation of last week’s ‘how to start a business’ workshop for the second time due to poor weather, Business HQ have confirmed a social media workshop will be held tonight – Wednesday – at 5.30pm via Zoom, with the focus on social media engagement between business owners and customers.
In this workshop, the organisers say you will learn insights into social media platforms and how it works hand in hand with business in the digital world.
The workshop will focus on tips and tricks for social media success, and creating and scheduling content for social media platforms.
The event will encourage business owners to consider how to develop a social media strategy, and why you should use social media in your digital marketing strategy.
Erica Haskard, Business Connect advisor for the Far West and Central NSW Business HQ program, stressed the importance of this workshop for both new and experienced businessowners.
“The facts are that this type of workshop is critically important, as we are becoming more and more engaged with social media,” she says.
Mrs Haskard says there will be further opportunities available in the future so that the learning experience continues.
“Tonight’s seminar will serve as a gateway for small businesses to interact and connect with this program, where further and specialised social media strategies and support can be made available to participants of this program on an individual basis,” she said.
A Broken Hill small business owner, who had fallen victim to social media attacks against their business in the past, told us, “social media can either be utilised by a business for a positive benefit, or social media can be weaponised by people to cause disruption to any business which doesn’t have the necessary skills to manage social media accounts”.
The business owner, who did not want to be identified due to embarrassment, had multiple fake social media accounts opened up in the name of their business.
“Due to my limited understanding of how social media works, I didn’t understand the seriousness of what was happening, and I certainly didn’t know how to try to stop it from happening,” the local business owner admitted.
While the workshop does not specifically deal with how to deal with hacking and the weaponisation of social media against a business, Mrs Haskard said that, “by developing social media skills to implement social medial strategies, business owners will be able to better understand the virtual threats to their business, and will be more comfortable in dealing with those threats if and when they arise.”
Tonight’s workshop is free to attend and will be held online via Zoom.
Businesses do not need to prepare to attend the workshop, and simply need to register via https://bit.ly/3THN7tM prior to 5.30pm today to secure their spot at the workshop.
