Q.-Suppose our shy business person is older, doesn’t know anything about the Internet. Should she hire a consultant?
A.-Ask your niece, nephew or grandkids to show you how to use it. Everyone under 25 walks down the street looking at their iPhone or BlackBerry. They don’t look at store windows. So the kids in the family can help you. I consulted with a 72-year-old pizza guy. You have to make a genuine connection with the customers.
Well, my mom is both older (not old, just older, mom!) and shy and until very recently, very much a Luddite. You can read more about my mom on her “about me” page, but the short of it is that she started up her own interior decorating business a year and a half ago to pursue a dream she’d always had to do so. Soon after starting it, she realized a website would be a good idea, since all of her good leads came off classified postings on Kijiji. At the time, I didn’t have the wherewithal to build her a basic website and teach her how to update it (I didn’t realize at the time the potential of self-hosted blogs. Maybe I was a Luddite too) on top of my own, which was a pain in the ass becuase I was still doing it without a CMS. Anywho, I got the bright idea of setting up a WordPress blog for her at one point and the rest, as they say, is history. She’s a blogging machine. She blogs more than I do. She is an unstoppable blogging force.
So like the man says, you don’t have to be scared to use social marketing or blogs if you’re older, shy or very much a Luddite. My mom was all of those things and caught on in weeks.
PS: My mom also still knows the rules of grammar much better than I do. I blame the school system.
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The blogging machine is making her first comment. Blogging is especially suited to older, shy Luddites. We don’t have to put ourselves out there, just our words. There are so many people in your life that will help you get started like my daughter Katie did. I had no idea what I was doing. She got me set up and started and I followed her instructions to the letter until It suddenly just all fell into place. I still have a lot to learn but it is interesting and fun and if this techno-dinosaur can get the hang of it anyone can!
Way to blog, Baileys… And nice post, Katie.