My digital tools
My current working tools
Daily in my job I use Microsoft Office tools. I use Outlook, Excel and Word on daily basis. Also I use financial management program provided by Western Systems, this program is linked to bank application and it can be used for billing and handling invoices. Program provides also material for Tax Office and pension companies with direct link. We have had Western System’s financial program in use over 15 years and it’s under constant development according to customers requirements.
Because of Covid19 situation within last two years I have also used much more Teams than ever before. Most of our meetings with customers and international suppliers have been online via Teams and for that it is a great tool. I believe in future after Covid19 most companies will still use Teams much more than before pandemic.
Our Company has also internet pages but in the other social platforms our company is not so active: we use only Facebook for time to time.
Pros & cons of social media
Social media has made lot of things easier in our everyday life. For companies it is great tool for effective marketing in low price (compared to the traditional marketing channels). In private life via social media it is easy to keep in touch with old friends and other people with who you would not see or call normally. But there is also risk that you are not meeting so much people physically anymore that you would do without social media. In my opinion social media could never replace normal face-to-face communication in close friendships or other relations.
In social media you need to be careful what you post because in many case you are representing also your company where you are working. Once you publish something on the web you’ll never get it totally back…So always remember to think twice before sending or publishing anything.
New possibilities
In addition to Facebook we should think about Instagram usage. With open account Instagram account get’s world wide publicity instantly. And you can control you posts publicity with tags. With this kind of platform visibility and publicity is much wider than it would be only with Facebook. But on the other hand you can link your Instagram posts to Facebook so that they are visible also to Facebook users. Our company should use also Instagram because you don’t have to put extra effort there; you can handle both platforms at the same time. Negative side of Instagram could be that if someone want’s to misuse your post’s, they can. They can re-post your pictures or videos from your open account and for example if your logo is visible in post this can lead to misunderstandings or negative publicity.
LinkedIn is a platform that our company should take into daily use. We could build network with in farming industry and search employees and managers through this network. LinkedIn provides good amount of information about persons interests and education.
I have never used Twitter at work or personal use but I think that would be a good tool with tags to catch up our customers and other important stakeholders in serious purposes for promoting domestic farming and production.
WhatsApp could be used more for communication inside the company: we could establish different groups between employees and provide work information through this platform. We have already running to this but there is much more possibilities with WhatsApp than we are using now. Good side of this platform is that you can see if the message has reached the desired person. Bad side could be filling the work WhatsApp group with all kind of trash posts. Who could (or should) moderate the group? Who sets rules and regulations for the group and are the employees committed to follow those rules? And can the company demand that every employee joins that kind of WhatsApp group, does anyone has a phone required or does everybody wants to give their number to other employees.
Last year my sister (she is our company’s depoty director) started to make Youtube videos and we have learned easiness of this kind of publishing. Youtube channel is interesting platform to provide educational and informational videos. Our company could use videos to spread information and knowledge about agricultural working, field work and also product videos. Good thing in Youtube is that you can publish long videos, much longer than for example in Instagram. And the company can adjust publicity of video, you select for whom you wanna publish video; private, public or to selected persons. You can select publicity for each video differently. And you can share these videos in other social media channels too.
All these social platforms are known by me but taking them into company’s daily use hasn’t for some reason happened yet. But now it is great time to go and take them for use!
Successful digital application
In my opinion a good digital application should be easy to use. Registration must be clear and easy without many steps or instructions. Sure it is good if the application is logical and nice in visually but these come after an easy user interface. Of course for every digital application should have some certain and understandable purpose that would make users every day life easier.
Self evaluation
This was interesting task. Many social media tools are familiar for me in private use but I haven’t thought the possibilities of them in business use that much before. It was interesting to think how them could be used in work or business purposes. I’m quite sure that we would use much more social media channels if we worked more in BtoC-market. Nowadays we are working mainly full capacity in the BtoB -market with our longterm customerships and there is not so big need for regular marketing purposes in social media.