Quick, hide! Technology is coming!

At Left Handed Productions, our primary clients are small business owners. In 2009, there were 27.5 million businesses in the United States according to the Office of Advocacy, so you can imagine that small business owners come in all different shapes and sizes with unique preferences and techniques.

A common theme across this sizeable group, however, is technophobia: the fear or dislike of advanced technology, especially with computers. If you’ve owned your business for two years, technology has evolved and progressed rapidly in that short amount of time. But what if you’ve owned your business for ten, fifteen, even twenty years? Is this even the same planet anymore?

Technology has drastically changed the way you operate your business. Consumers expect a surplus of information to be provided to them through technological avenues – your company website, a mobile app for smart phones, via social networking accounts, etc.

Your business no longer exists only within the confines of your office property.

Consumers are interested in you – they want to be able to access information about you 24/7.

This amount of exposure can be quite intimidating. How can you maintain a positive reputation and branding strategy for your small business when everyone is always watching? Is it easier to just refrain from jumping on this tech train and stick to traditional brick and mortar practices? “I don’t even know what twitter is!”

Professor of psychology Dr. Mark Brosnan discussed “technophobia” and its’ effect on students with MSNBC in 2010. "Anxiety sensitive people, who may have technophobia, often think of themselves as failures or that they are stupid, but everyone has different strengths and weaknesses," states Brosnan.

So how does this apply to you and your business?

Do feel that you are taking complete advantage of the technological opportunities that are readily available to you? Or do you avoid them because they are of such a foreign nature?

Blogging and twitter and Facebook….oh my! (anyone else seen the Wizard of Oz?) Sometimes unfamiliarity with and lack of exposure to social media in our personal lives can translate over to business and turn out to be incredibly detrimental.

LHP can help you and your business develop and maintain an online presence that will serve as the link between your company and the sea of customers searching for information online. Never used Facebook? That’s ok. We can show you how to use online mediums to effectively connect with potential clients.

Have you ever had the opportunity to communicate your business to millions of people every day?

It’s here. Don’t miss it. And who knows? You may even enjoy it. :-)