If you are really thinking of scaling big time, there are some tech skills necessary for your online business to succeed.
Long gone are the days of “I’m not a techie”, these days, everyone has to be.
You can learn any tech skills for free on Google, YouTube, or online courses, free or paid.
In this post, I will be teaching you the 5 tech skills necessary for your online business to succeed.
Before we go into it, here’s an ebook that I wrote for you, it will teach you how to create an online business from scratch.
Snag it below.
There are a lot of relatable articles that will teach you how to do stuff even if you’re not a techie. This is good.
However, as I mentioned earlier, you still need to know the tech skills that are necessary to grow your online business.
If you have a techie at your beck and call, that’s good for you, but what happens when Mr or Ms techie isn’t available?
And since you’ll probably be bootstrapping in the early stages, do you have enough money to pay for tech services?
Really, if you’re starting an online business from scratch or you’re trying to scale, you’ll not have the luxury of throwing money around too much.
There are tons of tutorials on YouTube that will teach you the tech skills necessary to grow your online business, you had better check them out.
Also, I have a YouTube channel where I upload tutorial videos on some of the tech skills necessary to scale your online business. You should check it out.
So without wasting any more time, let’s find out what these skills are.
1. Social Media Scheduling
One of the things that can make your business run on autopilot is automation.
If you fail to embrace automation, you will burn yourself out in your business.
Social media scheduling is simply about pushing out your posts at a particular time or date on your social media platforms.
For example, if you want a post to go up at 7.45 am on Monday and you know that you’ll likely still be in bed by then, all you need to do is to schedule the post the night before.
I’m being specific with my example because that’s literally my life. LOL. I don’t like to wake up too early on Monday, hence, I schedule my posts on Sunday night.
You too can do that, before going to bed, open your social media scheduling platform and upload the post you want to go up next.
Alright, let’s look at the different social media scheduling platforms that can help you achieve this.
Facebook Creator Studio
Facebook creator studio is my all-time social media scheduling tool that I love so much.
One of the reasons why this tool should be your most used is because it will allow you to post on Facebook and Instagram at once.
And really, most online business owners use just these 2 platforms for their business.
Although I don’t fully agree with having only 2 platforms, many marketers and online business owners focus only on Facebook and Instagram.
You can check out my previous blog post where I talked about the dangers of having just 2 social media platforms for your online business.
There are many third-party tools that are available to you, and I’ll cover them in the next points, but Facebook creator studio makes it super easy for you to share to your 2 major platforms – Facebook and Instagram.
According to this post by social media examiner, Facebook wants content creators, publishers, brands, and all kinds of different-sized businesses to be able to use this hub and share more video content.
The thing about Facebook is that they want to own everything, they want to create everything you need to grow your business so that you won’t have to go outside of their platforms.
Creator Studio is Facebook’s own built-in, native tool, and it gives you a lot of extra bells and whistles for creating and managing content, as well as deeper video insights.
Don’t confuse Facebook creator studio with Facebook Business Manager.
The Facebook Business Manager helps you to manage multiple business pages and ad accounts without necessarily sharing login details.
But Facebook Creator Studio helps you manage and organize your post content. To use it, just go to www.business.facebook.com/creatorstudio and get started.
Buffer
Buffer is another social media management tool that allows you to schedule your content across multiple social media platforms.
Unlike Facebook Creator Studio, Buffer allows you to schedule your content on various social media platforms.
Like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc. depending on the number of platforms you link to it.
You must be thinking, “why isn’t it anyone’s favourite?”
First of all, Buffer doesn’t come cheap. With only a 2-week trial period, you have to pay for it before you can access all its features.
Also, you can’t view your incoming mentions, respond to comments and messages, or engage with others’ posts.
But all in all, it’s a great social media management platform for any small business with limited time or money to spend on social media.
Hootsuite
Another cool social media management or scheduling platform is Hootsuite.
Hootsuite is a social media management system that gives users an integrated user interface from which to manage their social interactions.
You can integrate Hootsuite with Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, and TikTok. But as you can already guess, it doesn’t come cheap.
I have not used Hootsuite before so I really can’t tell you much about it.
Therefore, I’d suggest that you find out all you can about the platform.
2. Virtual Meeting Setup
We all have attended one online meeting or another so many times.
During the pandemic, online meetings were the only way to connect with colleagues, superiors or clients.
Someone would set up the meeting and all we’d need to do was join. Eazy Peazy Lemon Squeezy.
Now if I asked you, “Can you set up an online meeting?” What would your response be?
I’m not asking if you can set up a Whatsapp group call, no. I’m asking if you can set up a Zoom meeting, a Google Meet, etc.
There are many online meeting platforms out today as a result of the pandemic but the most used ones are:
Zoom
Zoom is the most used online meeting and collaboration tool. The first time I tried to use Zoom, I went on their website and fumbled with it for a long time.
Eventually, I was told that I needed to download the app before I could use it.
And of course, Zoom has both free and paid plans, depending on what you want to use it for.
If you want to use Zoom on your desktop, just download the desktop app and open it when you are set.
You can either join a meeting, provided you have the meeting link or you start a meeting yourself.
Zoom also allows the meeting host to record their meetings for record purposes.
Google Meet
Google Meet is a platform owned by Google. It’s a part of the Google Workspace apps (formerly called G-Suite).
You can start a meeting on Google from your Gmail app on your device or start a meeting from Google Calendar.
You can also start a meeting from the website meet.google.com
Zoom offers free users up to 40 minutes, while Google Meet’s free plan allows up to one hour for group meetings.
Breakout rooms and meeting recordings are available on all Zoom plans but only on paid plans with Google Meet.
And like Zoom, you can either start a meeting or join one.
These are the 2 most used online video conferencing platforms, so you want to start learning all you can about them for your business’s sake.
3. Website Development/Updating
As an online business owner, it’s a must that you know how to develop a website.
Many people might not agree with this, they believe you can easily hire a web developer to do that for you.
But I say, if you are serious about your online business, then it’s a must for you.
Look, unless you have a huge budget to run the business, you want to be able to manage costs as much as you can.
There are many website development platforms that will help you create a website in hours or free or at low prices.
Let’s look at 2 of the most popular ones.
WordPress
WordPress is the most popular website development platform ever.
It allows you to create, manage and publish material without the need for programming experience.
WordPress uses a Content Management System (CMS) that makes this possible. A CMS is a tool that helps you build a website without needing to write all the code from scratch.
WordPress is a very useful tool for business owners who want to manage things themselves.
More than one in 4 websites that you see on the internet are powered by WordPress.
I have been using WordPress for years now and I enjoy how it allows my business to look professional.
Let me tell you a short story about my WordPress journey.
When I just started blogging, I created a Blogger account and shared my content there. After a while, I discovered WordPress.com, which is like the less effective version of WordPress.
With that one, all I could do was publish blog posts and still be on a hosted website. Later, I discovered WordPress.org, the real version of WordPress that is super dynamic.
So I got a domain name, hosted my website and started blogging. After weeks of research, I discovered that I could create a website with WordPress.org and then have a blog accompany it.
So I did, and Voila! I became a website owner.
Everything on WordPress works with the help of plugins, a piece of software addon that enhances the capability of your website.
In the image above, all the plugins you see there are working to make the website look great on the front end.
With a WordPress plugin, you can sell products on your website, accept payments, connect your website to social media, collect information and so on.
You can also decide how you want your website to look by using themes or templates.
WordPress is open source, which means it’s free to use and isn’t owned by any organization. If you use WordPress, the only thing you have to pay for is your domain name and hosting.
Squarespace
Squarespace is another great website development platform that allows you to create stunning websites without writing codes.
Squarespace is a beginner-friendly platform with drag-and-drop features that you can play around with.
A lot of people have ranked Squarespace to be easier to use than WordPress. I have not used Squarespace before, however, when I tried, I didn’t find it easy to use.
I used to have a WordPress website before this one, and after it went offline, I tried using Squarespace to build another one.
Apart from the fact that Squarespace isn’t free like it has no free plan, it was a bit complex for me to use the drag and drop features.
But many of the bloggers you see on Pinterest prefer Squarespace and they all give it a 5 star. So if you want to go this route, better start learning.
Cpanel Management
Cpanel or Control Panel is where you manage all your website’s hosting accounts.
When you purchase a host from your hosting company of choice, they send your Cpanel login details to your email. Then from there, you work your way around it.
It is working your way around it that many business owners do not know how to do.
If you hired someone to build your website for you, you still need to get them to send your Cpanel details to you, and above all, you need to be able to manage your Cpanel by yourself.
When I built my first website, I had no idea how to use it, I’d send my login details to a friend who was a programmer to help me work my hosting issues out.
After a while, my friend got tired of that and so I had to roll up my sleeves.
You can also access your Cpanel directly from your web hosting platform as in the image above, and change your password if you want.
What can you do in your Cpanel?
Your Cpanel is where you go to connect your domain name to your hosting. If you bought your domain name and hosting from different web companies, you’d need to point your domain name to your host servers.
If you are using WordPress as your website platform, the Cpanel is also where you go to download WordPress.
It is also where you go to set up email addresses for your business. Having a domain name email address like hello@yourdomain.com makes you look more professional than if you had yourname@gmail.com.
Please note that Cpanel’s look and feel for all the hosting platforms are different but have the same functionality.
What I mean is that if you are using Godaddy as your website host, your Cpanel will look different from that of Hostgator. But they contain almost the same features.
You can also back up your entire website in your Cpanel so that in case anything happens to it, you can create a new one and still have all your files intact.
There are so many things you can do on your Cpanel, the faster you start learning how to use it, the better.
Cloud Computing
Every online business owner who wants to scale their digital business must understand how the cloud works.
Just a few days ago, I was teaching a group of people how to use Canva. I told them how everything you do in Canva autosave because it works with the cloud.
Let’s just say a lot of questions came out from that simple statement that I made.
How the cloud works is this, a network of remote servers hosted on the internet is used to store, manage, and process data, rather than a local server or a personal computer.
Meaning, rather than storing data on your personal computer, your hard drive or what have you, you’d store them on a network of remote servers called the ‘Cloud’
Organizations of every type, size, and industry are using the cloud for a wide variety of use cases, such as data backup, disaster recovery, email, virtual desktops, software development.
This prevents loss of vital information for your business, enables you to access your files from anywhere you are and also allows you invite other people to collaborate on your projects.
Let’s talk about platforms that use cloud computing that you can totally leverage for your business.
Google Drive
Google Drive is part of the Google Workspace apps rolled out by Google in 2012.
When you log on to Google workspace, you get 15gb for free.
Google Drive is a free cloud-based storage service that enables you to store and access your files online.
You can create a document on Google docs, create an exel-like sheet on Google sheets and create presentation slides on Google slides.
Also, if you received files in Microsoft Office forms (like Word, Exel or Powerpoint, you can convert them to Google for easy access.
If you are working with a teammate on the same Google Drive document, you can chat right there in real time to ask questions or exchange ideas.
I particularly love this part of it because it limits back and forth emails between you and the contributor.
You can even share your files with anyone and give them access to contribute to your work.
The best part is, you don’t have to fear losing your work because everything is backed up in the cloud.
Dropbox
Dropbox has the same functionality as Google Drive, the only drawback is that some of the features you get on Drive for free do not come cheap on Dropox.
When you register for Dropbox, you get 2gb storage space.
I really don’t have a lot to say on this, I don’t use it, but I know it has all the same features that Google drive has.
Just head over to dropox.com to get started.
Final Words
If you want to learn the tech skills necessary for your online business to grow, you need to be proactive.
As I mentioned earlier, you should make constant visits to YouTube to watch tutorial videos.
They are free and diverse because it’s coming from different creators.
You can start with my YouTube channel and see how far that takes you.
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