As an entrepreneur in the 21st century, technology is your best friend as well as one of your biggest challenges. The digital age has opened the door to a whole wide world of opportunities—and competition. In order to succeed in such a fast-paced and crowded business landscape, small businesses and the people who run them must learn to embrace all of the latest tech resources at their disposal and use them to their full advantage.
Being part of a small business with a global presence, the FreeConference team knows a thing or two about using free and low-cost technologies to reduce operating costs and grow bottom lines. Here are a few of our picks for most useful tech tools for entrepreneurs:
As a service that offers free video conferencing and free conference calls, it should come as little surprise that the first item on our list of tech must-haves for entrepreneurs is a free conference calling app. But seriously—having video chat and conference calling at your fingertips 24/7 is a pretty useful thing for anyone running a business. Having it for free is even better! For those willing to pay a little extra to have a fully-customizable conferencing experience, Callbridge offers fully-branded portals, custom URLs, and customized greeting on premium dial-in numbers.
Perhaps we’re a little biased when it comes to our favorite web browser (Google Chrome), but, in addition to fielding over three-quarters of all web searches, Google offers with an entire suite of free online tools that make it useful for much more than just search results. From email service to synchronized cloud storage to web analytics, Google’s extensive tool box makes it a top resource for businesses of all sizes who are involved in marketing. Another great thing any marketing business should do is hire this social media marketing agency. Additionally, a fractional CMO can help you navigate and integrate these tools into a cohesive marketing strategy, ensuring you make the most of each resource to drive growth and engagement.
One of Google’s most popular applications, Google Analytics, is being replaced by Google Analytics 4. When you migrate to Google Analytics 4, you’ll benefit from more features, such as event tracking, data predictions, and an easier-to-use dashboard.
While there’s no shortage of information freely available via the internet, some knowledge requires a little more involvement to obtain. Thankfully, again, the internet comes to the rescue. As mentioned in Inc.com’s list of tech training tools for small businesses, subscription-based online learning resources such as Lynda, as well pay-per-course sites such as Udemy offer numerous training courses and certifications on a wide variety of topics.
Although you would be hard-pressed to find a 21st century professional who doesn’t own at least one of these, iOS and android mobile devices not only facilitate communication on the go, but make conducting business possible from virtually anywhere at any time. From checking emails to join online meetings from a mobile app, there is no question that smart devices such as iPhones and Androids have changed the pace at which business is done.
Though technically falling under the massive umbrella of Google, YouTube deserves its own mention for being (by far) the world’s most popular video-sharing platform, thousands of people try to find out how to get more subscribers on Youtube every day. How does this help your business? Besides more clips of singing cats and dogs chasing their own tails than you could ever watch in one lifetime, YouTube’s virtually endless video library includes many helpful instructional how-to's. In addition to being a great resource for self-learning, YouTube provides quite possibly the best platform to gaining exposure to a large audience for those with the means to produce branded video content fit to publish on the world wide web.
In 2022, it's a necessity for any business to have a professional-looking website. In this day and age, the internet is the go-to source for information and, as a result, your website will provide many people’s first impression of your brand. Fortunately, however, you don’t need to have a background in web design or development in order to have a website you can be proud of. WordPress is a content management platform that offers a variety of customizable website and blog templates as well as free and paid website-hosting options. The free website builder allows users to easily, add, edit, and publish content online while also providing a variety of tools to track how people engage with your website. If you want a professionally built and constantly maintained website though, consulting a WordPress agency with a track record of top-notch clients won't hurt.
Linkedin is a professional networking site enabling entrepreneurs, employers, and job seekers to connect with one another online. With over 500 million users worldwide, Linkedin provides professionals and business owners a platform to gain exposure and grow their list of contacts. Like Facebook, Linkedin allows users to view profiles, send contact requests, and even view mutual connections—giving users the keys to networking opportunities and potential business partnerships.
Create your FreeConference.com account and get access to everything you need for your business or organization to hit the ground running, like video and Screen Sharing, Call Scheduling, Automated Email Invitations, Reminders, and more.
