Skills for the Digital Age

As technology moves forward at a fantastic rate, you need to keep updating and reworking your skills for the digital age to stay in profitable business online.

Despite the obvious rewards for maintaining an online income from passive sources, many people lose interest in their cash cow over time and allow it to slide into the mire.

There are times when an online businessperson can get a bit fed up of running a business online.

skills for the digital ageSure there are many, many advantages to awakening the millionaire in you, but there are some drawbacks too.

Keeping the Business Afloat

It is already well known now that the major bonuses of running a digital business are not having to rent dedicated business premises, leading to much lower running costs. Without a need for employees, or at a push fewer than traditional companies would require, there is another huge saving.

However, in human terms there's a lot less physical contact needed with customers. This is not necessarily a problem when you are marketing digital products as an affiliate marketer, as you are unlikely to ever have any contact with the end customer.

Of course, you can communicate via social media platforms such as Twitter or Facebook for instance and of course there is always email or a phone app like Whatsapp, but it's not quite the same.

No Face to Face Communication

For example to illustrate the point I was engaged in a discussion about a product last week via a Facebook group. Somebody I knew only digitally made a comment which was completely wrong, but how do you correct someone on an open forum without some element of ridicule?

The statement he made was misinformed, but it's easy to correct someone face to face off the record than it is to do so in front of friends, customers and associates. In the end I didn't correct the statement, which could possibly end up being a mistake.

Working Online

This is the difficulty for many business people when working online. There are different rules and it's important to remember the context of your discussions.

As many a celebrity or top sports personality will have discovered, a platform like Twitter is not something to toy with, especially after a few glasses of wine!

Any ambiguous or misinterpreted post can be disastrously image destroying, especially if you have hundreds of thousands of followers.

For example, a stupid comment made to a friend during an after-work party is not going to get the same mileage as a misguided tweet that is seen by 20,000 people on their phones or laptops!

Guard Your Typed Words

So my advice for this post if you care to take it, is to be very careful of your online personae.

Treat it carefully and remember that a careless word online will be there forever. Imagine the skeletons that will be brought up against future political leaders who are growing up in this connected world.

How many tweets, status updates or ill advised photo's will rise to the surface in 10 or twenty years time? Today's politicians can deny their past transgressions, while the future ones will be faced with digital evidence!

Use Your Time Wisely

It is perhaps fitting to end with a couple of points to reinforce the need to keep your digital self discreet and under control.

Instead, use your time online productively. Write that website article, draft that video script or jot down ideas on a scratch pad for later use in brainstorming with other business colleagues.

You'll be surprised at just how much more useful, productive and profitable work you can get done with your time when it's not being squandered on social media or watching videos of people or animals doing stupid things!

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