By Austin Madinga
Over the past few weeks, I have conducted two training sessions. I took twenty semi-finalists selected for the What Will You Do With 20 Million Kwacha Challenge! through digital skills for entrepreneurs training. I also facilitated digital skills training for young entrepreneurs and school leavers. Both workshops were organised by mHub, a tech innovation hub in Lilongwe.
The training covered the use of online collaboration tools like Google Apps and equipped the participants with digital skills to enable them to put their businesses online, create meaningful content and effectively market their businesses.
Desirable digital skills for entrepreneurs
I talked about the desirable tech skills required of any entrepreneur. One of the more important ones is the ability to effectively communicate online specifically on social media. Communication, in this case, is not just words but the ability to use pictures, infographics, audio and video to get your message across.
The other important skill is the ability to use online collaboration and productivity software like Google Apps, Microsoft Office 360 and Asana to name a few. With the world gone mobile, it makes no sense to be tied to your desktop to work or be productive.
Online tools for brand building
The internet has got a multitude of tools that entrepreneurs can use to build and market their businesses. Web services like Shopify are an example of platforms that people wishing to sell artefacts, clothing or locally produced goods online can use with minimal effort and cost.
Youtube provides an excellent opportunity to not only communicate your message but to showcase your products too. Being the second largest search engine after Google, it’s not a bad place to invest your marketing efforts in.
Email marketing is also an area that seems to be largely ignored. Yet it provides the best way to see who your customers are, and what they are interested in. The platform enables brands to have more meaningful engagements with their customers.
The training also touched on social media and social media management tools and ways to build online content.
Should you be interested in digital skills training please get in touch!
