Digital Sharecropping: Why You Can’t Just Rely on One Website

What is Digital Sharecropping?

Sharecropping is a system where tenants farm on land owned by another person and give a portion of their crops to the landowner. In 2006, writer Nicholas Carr coined the term “Digital Sharecropping” to describe a phenomenon that has arisen among online businesses. It happens when a website relies on other users to provide the majority of its content.

According to Carr, “One of the fundamental economic characteristics of Web 2.0 is the distribution of production into the hands of the many and the concentration of the economic rewards into the hands of the few.”

While in traditional sharecropping, the landowner is in charge, online “landlords” are the websites: Facebook, Twitter, Google+, LinkedIn, Pinterest, etc.

What’s the Problem?

Anyone can create content on these websites. However, the content ends up belonging to the website, not the creator. The more content we create for them for free, the richer and more valuable the landlord becomes.

With any kind of sharecropping, the landlord is in control. The landlord receives the majority of the profits. The landlord can dismantle the system at any time. Even trustworthy websites can suddenly go under or become obsolete. This leaves all of their users suddenly without their services. Most importantly, the landlord doesn’t really care about its individual underlings. Facebook doesn’t care if a single business page gets deleted.

Let’s take a closer look at this Facebook example. Most businesses these days decide to make a Facebook page and update its content regularly. This is a good thing and provides many benefits. It brings in new viewers and customers, raises awareness of their product, and opens a channel of conversation between the business and its clientele. But what if Facebook suddenly decides that you’ve violated its terms and conditions? What if your account gets deleted and you lose your one way to talk to your customers? Facebook is fast-paced and constantly changing. This can come back to haunt you if you rely too much on its services to run your business.

What Should I Do?

There are several ways you can go about making your online business presence stronger. The great news is that by taking these steps, you not only protect yourself from the hazards of digital sharecropping, you also make your business stronger now.

The first step you should take to protect your business online is to have a well designed website that you host yourself. This should be your most crucial business asset online, since it doesn’t rely on other sites. When you use other websites, make sure you link back to your own site constantly to bring in viewers to your own property.

Diversification is your strongest weapon against the downfalls of digital sharecropping. Use many platforms and systems. Provide content on many social media sites. By using a variety of tools, you protect yourself when one of them lets you down.

Another useful tip is to create an opt-in email list on your website. By providing content through an email newsletter directly to your customers, you cut out the middleman in the conversation.

A crucial aspect of building an online presence is to develop a reputation of trustworthiness and value. Provide high quality content, take Internet security seriously, and avoid spammy practices. If your customers trust your business and value your content, they’ll continue making purchases and spread the word about your product.

Following the most recent social media trends is a great way to bring in new business and keep the interest of your customers, new and old. However, you should never build your entire online platform on an asset that you don’t own. By diversifying and talking as directly to your customers as possible, you can create a strong online presence that doesn’t rely on a company that you can’t control.

If you want more tips about SEO, content marketing, and other topics, check out Virtual Market Advantage’s other blogs here!

15 Ways to Boost Your Online Sales Using Old Fashioned Methods

Even if you have an online business, there are many old fashioned methods that can greatly benefit your company. Check out these tips to boost your online sales. Even using a couple of them could greatly improve your presence and bring in new customers!

Sell a Unique Product

Having a unique and newsworthy product is important if you have a lot of competition. Try to stand out from the crowd so you don’t get lost in the huge amount of Internet businesses.

Build the Right Relationships

Whether it’s online or offline, building the right relationships is one of the best ways to develop your business. Ideally you want to establish such relationships with people who complement your business without being direct competition. Keep an eye out for bloggers, suppliers, and others who could help out your business, and make a connection with them.

Set up a Cartel

Small online cartels can be a great way to get support for your business. Find a small group of complementary businesses and agree to promote each other. Just make sure you don’t group up with competing companies!

Sell Wholesale to Other Retailers

Especially if you’re having trouble selling your product to enough customers, consider selling wholesale to other retailers. Even though you’re selling at a lower price per unit, you’ll get the cash flowing by moving more products at once. It will also get your product to more people, spreading the word about your business. You can also reach out to local businesses to see if anyone is willing to put your products on their shelves.

Send Free Samples

The Internet is full of people who influence many others, such as bloggers, journalists, and entrepreneurs. By sending free samples to people who can spread the word about your product, you can form a mutually beneficial relationship that helps advertise your business.

Offer a Contest or Giveaway

Contests and giveaways are great ways to spread the word about your business while also establishing trust in your products. It takes very little time and effort to set them up, and can bring in lots of new potential clients.

Sponsor an Event

Sponsoring an event can be a great way to bring in business, but it can also be waste of time and resources. Make sure you choose an event that will host people who will have interest in your business. Take into consideration how many people will be there, where it’s located, and how it will reflect upon your company.

Make a Pop-Up Store

Even if you sell online and don’t have a store, creating a pop-up store can help supplement your online presence. Pop-up stores are much cheaper than owning an actual building, and allow you to move to the locations that seem best at the time, such as farmer’s markets, fairs, or shopping malls. They help with marketing and bringing in new business.

Write a Press Release

A press release can be a great way to spread the word about your business. However, it can be tricky to write a press release that’s interesting enough for news outlets to actually distribute it. Besides being interesting, the press release should be concise, professional, and have a killer title to draw people in.

Pull a PR Stunt

Think about how fast videos that go viral can spread. If you’re feeling creative, utilizing a PR stunt can propel your business to fame by word of mouth (and keyboard). PR stunts don’t require a lot of money to pull off, but they aren’t guaranteed to grab your audience, so don’t rely solely on such tactics to get the word out.

Advertise Offline

Even in the current world of Internet advertising, it can still be useful to use more physical forms. This includes resources such as billboards, flyers, and newspaper or magazine ads.

Deploy a Sales Team

As your business grows, eventually you won’t be able to handle all of the sales yourself. Setting up a sales team will allow for sustained growth, especially if your product requires a bit of convincing to get people to buy.

Delegate

Starting your own business can be overwhelming, especially when you’re just starting out. As your business develops and grows, you need to learn how best to delegate so that each task gets done quickly and effectively to maximize sales.

Start Word of Mouth

Family and friends can provide a great network when you’re just starting out. If they’re willing to help, they can help spread the word about your budding business.

Demonstrate Trust, Security, and Reliability

A small budding business needs to demonstrate reliability to its customers in order to grow. If potential customers don’t trust you, they are much less likely to make an online purchase. Make sure your website looks safe and trustworthy. Make an effort to follow through with promises. If problems arise, do your best to solve them (or delegate someone else to solve them) quickly and courteously. The more people trust your company, the more they’ll be willing to put money into it!

Looking for more ways to improve your business? Check out Virtual Market Advantage’s other blog that goes over ways to use your new website to boost sales.

How to Create Evergreen Content

Technology changes constantly, and the Internet is being updated and expanded every second. With ever-changing social media, it’s hard to keep up and know what’s most important for keeping your business’s online presence strong. It’s relatively easy to pay attention to the latest trends, but it’s possible to make a more lasting impact by providing evergreen content.

Evergreen trees are a symbol of sturdy, long-lasting life. Evergreen content marketing seeks to imitate this stability by producing content that will remain relevant and important over long periods of time. Some of the most influential websites rely on providing such content. For example, Wikipedia and IMDb are used daily by thousands of people to get pertinent information. This is achieved by constant updates and awareness of what people will want to know for years to come. You too can provide evergreen content of your own and make a lasting impact on the Internet.

Timeless or Sustainable

There are two major types of evergreen content: timeless and sustainable. Timeless content remains pertinent through long periods of time and changing trends. Sustainable content requires periodic updating to ensure that it’s still relevant to current trends and technology.

An example of evergreen content is “how to” guides, which can be either timeless or sustainable. Timeless guides instruct the viewer on tasks that won’t change much over the years, such as “how to cook chicken over the grill” or “how to braid your daughter’s hair.” On the other hand, sustainable “how to” guides, such as “how to transfer photos from my iPhone to Facebook” require updates to stay useful, since these technologies are changing all the time.

Blogging is an amazing tool for providing both timeless and sustainable evergreen content on your website. They allow you to provide tons of information about your product or field of interest and keep your site relevant, up-to-date, and interesting to your audience. By producing evergreen content (whether it’s timeless, sustainable, or a mix of both), you will constantly bring in new viewers and potential clients.

Evergreen Social Media

Sometimes it feels impossible to keep up with all of the constant changes, but some aspects of social media marketing remain the same over time. Social media allows you to establish a strong online presence, form new social channels, and engage and converse with your audience. All of these aspects contribute to your evergreen social marketing.

By utilizing social media, you can help reveal the human aspect of your business while also prolonging the shelf life of your social media content. Evergreen content will continue to pull in more views, and thus more potential customers, for a longer period of time than regular content.

Also keep in mind that every social media campaign has a target audience. This audience might be big or small. For example, Wikipedia can be used and enjoyed by almost anyone, but a specialized online store that sells face paint has a much more specific audience. Social media evergreen content can help in either case by drawing in the people who want to use that website the most.

Creativity goes a long way in social media marketing. Even if your product isn’t the most exciting, a fresh and enthusiastic social media campaign can be interesting and enticing. Feel free to use your imagination and go zany with your marketing to get those extra shares and likes. Focusing on evergreen content will ensure that people keep coming back for more. Remember to have fun with your social media!

Focus Your Content

Even if you come up with the most amazing evergreen post for your website, it won’t do much good if people can’t find it! Make sure that you don’t bury your evergreen content under your other kinds of posts.

You can set up your website to help solve this problem by directing people towards the evergreen content. This can be done in several ways, including “Where to Start” or “Top Posts” pages or a training section.

You can also focus attention to your forgotten evergreen content through your newer posts. As part of your regular audit, make sure to go through your old posts, update them if necessary, and re-share the most popular and/or pertinent ones. Unless it’s a news article, you can even remove the date stamp from an old post and re-post it if it’s still accurate and relevant.

Another great trick is to provide links to your older evergreen content from within newer posts. This will bring new viewers back to older content, and works especially well if there is a topic connection between the two posts.

Evergreen Content Examples

Here are a few more examples of types of evergreen content that you can try. If you don’t have some of these on your site already, this is a great place to start growing more evergreen. Keep in mind that these don’t necessarily have to be in the form of blog posts; they can be images, videos, infographics, or any other form you want!

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
Glossaries
“History of” Articles
“How to” Guides
Industry Resource Connections
Testimonials
Tutorials
Providing evergreen content is a great way to make sure that your website stays relevant and brings in new viewers regularly. However, don’t take this to mean that you need to only provide evergreen content. A good mix of timeless and current content is the best way to keep people engaged and willing to come back time after time.

If you want more information on social media, blogging, or other content topics, check out Virtual Market Advantage’s other blogs here. For example, here is a blog that helps you determine how to properly size your pics for various social media sites.