Premise: The Financial Strategies of Women-Owned Small Businesses in Florida
Problem Statement The accessibility of businesses through social media and the web have made many entrepreneurs able to reach consumers throughout the world they would otherwise not be able to do business with. Women have often found themselves underperforming in the workforce and as traditional small business owners in comparison to similarly employed or self-employed men (Huarng et al., 2012). However, there has been little research investigating the extent to which these new social media, web, and digital marketing technologies and their strategies benefit women entrepreneurs of already profitable small businesses in comparison to men who employ similar strategies. A descriptive quantitative study is needed to investigate the use of social media, web, and digital marketing technologies in the businesses of successful women entrepreneurs in comparison to similarly successful men entrepreneurs by studying the effects of their digital strategy by concentrating on their digital analytical data on similar digital and social media platforms and measuring that data. This study plans to provide data that will help determine whether profitable small businesses are effected by gender on the Web 2.0 and help close the gender gap.
Practice-Focused Question(s)
• Q1: Examining the analytical data of men and women entrepreneurs with similarly profitable businesses who use the same social media channel
Social media being an ever growing industry, companies have incorporated their marketing and strategies to better their businesses. We explore that the reasons for the importance of incorporating this is: The daily use of handheld devices to access social media on a daily basis amongst computer use, Big data: online tracking produces oceans of data, challenging business analytics programs, Twitter, Facebook, and Pinterest
Using social web is probably the most cost effective marketing tool available that allowed businesses to manage brand reputation, advertise, served customer, broadcast, and network (Fine, 2010). The social media has become a widespread phenomenon and global trend because of the popularity of Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest and Facebook (Hinchcliffe & Kim, 2012). In the recent study conducted by LinkedIn, 94% of small businesses use social media as a marketing tool and 49% use it for research to grow business (Weiss, 2014). The social media maybe cheap but it is not easy to implement. Many small business owners still hesitate to implement it because of lack of knowledge. Small business owners also fear the cost of time to be invested in
Etsy and Macy’s have a strong social media presence in platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Pinterest. It allows followers to interact with these companies with a comment, like and/or share the new products or offers. Social media has become one of the easiest and most powerful tools when it comes to marketing. Is the “next big thing,” a temporary yet powerful fad that must be taken advantage of while it’s still in the spotlight. (Forbes, 2014) For small businesses such as Kurafuchi, social media is one of the best strategies to promote their product and increases their brand recognition by investing little or no money, where it allows the business to decrease their marketing costs.
This question is posed to open a more balanced knowledge on the apparent differences in culture and socio-economic environment of countries, seeing that different business models are only applicable to certain environments. Furthermore, this would help explain the gender dimensions of the business environment and the broad constraints revolving around entrepreneurship that affect women more than men. An example can be seen between developed countries like the
“Social media requires that business leaders start thinking like small-town shop owners. This means taking the long view and avoiding short-term benchmarks to gauge progress. It means allowing the personality, heart and soul of the people who run all levels of the business to show” (Vaynerchuk). Incorporating social media into one’s business plan, is no longer a mere suggestion, but rather a necessity for success. Success can be defined broadly as the accomplishment of an aim or purpose. But, in business terms “success” will be used to measure and define how well a company is doing based on statistics, input, output and how quickly they are achieving their goals without compromising or jeopardizing their original
Black Seed Bagels is one of the most promising small businesses that are currently operating in New York. The bakery concentrates on the provision of tasty bagels to the city’s numerous dwellers who love the snack. There are also exciting items on Black Seed Bagels’ menu that can entice any hungry fellow looking for a quick and delicious bite. Tuten & Solomon (2013) indicate that the success of most up and coming small businesses is highly dependent on their social media marketing strategies. According to Tuten & Solomon (2013), Social commerce refers to a branch of e-commerce that “uses social media applications to enable online shoppers to interact and collaborate during the shopping experience and to assist retailers and customers during the process” para 2.
Financial ratios are critical when it comes to the determination of not only the performance but also the financial health as well as stability of any given firm. In that regard, as a small business owner, I would utilize a number of ratios to find out how my business is really performing. Some of the ratios I would make use of in this case include the current ratio, debt ratio and net profit margin. According to Baker and Powell (2005), of all the liquidity ratios, the current ratio happens to be the most widely utilized. This ratio according to the authors "is computed by dividing the firm's current assets by its current liabilities." As a small business owner, this ratio would help me determine my business' ability and readiness to settle its short term obligations. On the other hand, the debt ratio according to Baker and Powell (2005) "measures the percentage of a firm's total assets financed by debt." It is essentially computed by dividing the sum of all the liabilities of a firm with the sum of its assets. A debt ratio of more than 1 in the case of my business would be an indicator that the value of the entity's assets is lower that the value of its debt. The reverse is true. The net profit margin according to Baker and Powell (2005) "measures the percentage of sales that result in net income." In the author's opinion, the same is computed by dividing the net income figure with the net
In today’s modern society, a business can’t simply operate successfully without having a digital footprint, the Incorporation social media into business is a virtue. Social media and mobile technologies have forever changed the way we work and communicate with one another, transforming our worlds into one global community. Social tools will continue to evolve, as will the expectations of how people utilise them.
We cannot deny how big of an impact social media has on our lives now, not only on people but businesses too. It has opened a whole new door to the business world and given them a big opportunity to interact and attract a larger amount of customers. It’s given us a new and faster way of communication by exchanging pictures, stories, news, blogs, online discussions, etc. In exchange businesses have benefited by a long shot just by the click of a button. With the help of the Internet a company no longer is dependent on a particular customer base to survive because now it can reach out to a worldwide audience within seconds. It’s imaginable the countless business attributes of all social media to this day and still is growing. Social media
Based on my completed skills assessment and other textbook worksheets, a field that might be a good fit for me is being an entrepreneur of a small business for clothing. Looking at the results of all the assessments I can think like an entrepreneur and I have the drive, passion, creativity, control, and ability to take on and face challenges of running a small clothing store. It will definitely be difficult, but it is a dream I have had for so long to own my own business and I know I would love it and never get bored. I can live my lifestyle, put in the hard work, and do something that interests me and makes me want to work every day. I may not have a lot of experience yet or all the knowledge to run a successful company, but I have a great
Many small business owners are wading in the waters of social media, struggling to figure out how to use Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, Snapchat (the list goes on...and on..) etc. to grow their brand. Although most small business owners are using social media in some capacity, it has become clear that developing a social media strategy is not as simple as it seems. It’s easy to believe that since millions of people are using social media, we should just be able to build brand recognition by simply posting content...right? Yet, when we start delivering content, posting well written blog posts, and making offers through our various social media channels, we find out that people may not be as interested as we originally believed.
Today, many businesses are experiencing the effects of social media. Government, businesses, and communities interact through social media and use it to access their investors and potential customers. According to Donovan (2016), “Most types of businesses today make use of different tactics and techniques to make a significant exposure of their website to its target customers.” The goal is to use social media to maximize their potential in order to be one of the strongest participants in the business world.
Women face gender inequality in businesses due to their perceived physical weaknesses and inferior mental capacity. Physical weaknesses is defined as lack of strength, endurance or stamina. Inferior mental capacity is the inability for women to make rational decisions that are economically beneficial.
Emerald Article: How women entrepreneurs lead and why they manage that way Dorothy Perrin Moore, Jamie L. Moore, Jamie W. Moore
Utilizing social network sites to market is extremely inexpensive as well as effective. Social media enables small businesses to overcome the challenges of limited budget, lack of expertise, and positioning against larger competitors. Small businesses are not the same as big businesses and therefore cannot be expected to have the same marketing resources. Competitive advantage often has to be sought from other sources and by other means. Several models of marketing exist that provide guidelines for businesses to survive and grow. However, marketing theory that a large organization uses cannot be generalized to a small business which has different characteristics and requirements. As a consequence, small firms are moving from conventional marketing practices towards more affordable, interactive, and integrated marketing.