The world is constantly changing, your business needs to keep up

February 20th, 2014

Embracing change is incredibly important as a business. The world is evolving faster than ever before and businesses need to stay as up to date with these changes as possible.

To prove our point below are 5 changes in the last 10 years that have revolutionised businesses world wide.

 

1 – 10 years ago Facebook launches

That’s right, we’ve all seen the Social Network and we know all about it. 10 years ago Mark Zuckerberg was sitting in a dorm room and enjoying his initial launch of The Facebook  heralding the true rise of social media. Now, ten years later Facebook has a 1.3 billion monthly active users giving it a user base that is set to overtake the population of China later this year

Impact on business

  • Social marketing becomes a very real way to impact the largest possible audience available
  • Likes for businesses Facebook pages pays a huge impact on year on year revenue
  • The job of Social Media Manager was born
  • Businesses who don’t embrace social media are almost guaranteed to lose out to those who do

 

2 – 10 years ago YouTube didn’t exist

YouTube wasn’t actually launched until 2005. For a lot of people out there it is probably hard to remember an internet without it. What is harder to remember is that before YouTube if you wanted to watch a video then the majority of the time you had to either go down to your local Blockbuster and rent one or go to a shop and buy one. Today YouTube is the  second largest search engine in the world (behind only Google who own them anyway) and their users watch over 6 billion hours of footage every month.

Impact on business

  • The beginning of a massive reduction in sales for the Video Publishing market
  • Videos become a cheap and viable way for businesses to advertise and explain their products
  • Youtube becomes a social network of its own where people publishing videos are followed
  • Advertising on Google can reach a larger audience than TV

 

3 – 10 years ago Google was just a search engine

10 years ago Google were concentrating mainly on just being a search engine. Gmail was still in beta and Google Maps was still a year away from being born. Google actually had its IPO in August 2004 and now, 10 years later, it is one of the largest businesses in the world. If you want to know how big google has gotten then take a look at the video below. It is 12 minutes long but it is well worth watching.

Impact on business

  • Getting your business on Google Places for Business so that you appear in local google searches is  a must for any local business
  • Adwords rules the internet for being the best way to advertise your business
  • Google’s offers a variety of free services like Maps, Google Drive and Gmail that can vastly increase business productivity and efficiency
  • Google Analytics is vital to anyone looking to have an online presence

 

4 – 10 years ago smartphones weren’t so smart

In 2004 Nokia and Motorola ruled the roost when it came to mobile phones. Motorola’s thin phones with a clam shell form were the most popular phone of the time and there was nothing smart about them. About this time Nokia had just started developing phones that could access the internet. Today almost every phone is a smartphone and has the ability to access the internet and in the most cases they have all the functionality of a computer.

Impact on business

  • The world is now mobile orientated, anyone who doesn’t pay attention to how their digital presence works in mobile format gets left behind
  • Pretty much everyone in the developed world owns a mobile phone and things like SMS marketing is a surefire way to get in touch with them
  • More than half of all emails are read from a mobile device so any form of email marketing has to cater for mobile phones and tablets

 

5 – 10 years ago the iPhone didn’t exist

Without the iPhone there is no app revolution to free people up to walk around with all the functionality of their home computers in their pockets. From this revolution a whole industry has been born and it is now one of the most profitable industries in the world.

Impact on business

  • Apps can be a great way to boost income for your product or service
  • Not catering for mobile app markets can severely limit your potential market
  • The job role of App developer has been created

 

As you can see the world has changed a great deal over the last 10 years and those who don’t change with it get left behind.

How has your business been affected by changes in the last 10 years? Would you even be in the business you are in 10 years ago? Share your thoughts with us on this topic in the comments below.

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