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Digital entrepreneurship for women

Digital skills for women entrepreneurship

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Develop your business website with ICT

Objectives & Goals

At the end of this module you will be able to:

	Learn how to design your company website with ICT Tools.		Entrecomp competence involved: Ideas & Opportunities->Creativity + DigComp Competence: Digital Content Creation
	Know the main social networks, their audience and main characteristics.		Entrecomp competence involved: Into action->Planning & Management + DigComp Competence: Information & data literacy/Communication & collaboration
	Use social networks to enhance your online business.		Entrecomp competence involved: Resources->Mobilising resources + DigComp Competence: Information & data literacy/Communication & collaboration
	Learn what cybersecurity is and the main cyberthreats.		Entrecomp competence involved: Into action->Coping with ambiguity, uncertainty, risk/Resources: Self-awareness & self-efficacy + DigComp Competence: Safety
	Learn how to protect our devices.		Entrecomp competence involved: Into action->Coping with ambiguity, uncertainty, risk/Resources: Self-awareness & self-efficacy + DigComp Competence: Safety

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How to design our website

The Internet offers us countless possibilities to promote our online business. More and more users browse frequently on the net, so it is essential to create a site to gain visibility and enhance our online business. This site is our website. Our website must gather all our information. This must include:

Our business’ name, description and characteristics.
Catalogue with our products or services.
Navigable and intuitive menus.
Contact information (telephone number, address, email, social networks…).
Logotype and good quality images.
Forms that allow the user to contact your company in an easy way in case of wanting to solve doubts or hiring services.

There are a series of criteria to take into account to make our website attractive for the user. Keep in mind that our website is our showcase on the Internet, so a good impression can make the difference. When implementing our design, we must ensure:

Usability: You must guarantee that the webpage is intuitive and user-friendly. Otherwise, users could abandon it before finding what they are looking for and access our competitors’ sites.
Accessibility: Structure your contents in an easy and quickly accessible way. Use organised and well-structured menus.
Attractive: Our website must be attractive both for users and search engines. For this we must make sure it is visually appealing and technically effective

Get Busy!

Now that you know the basic elements your website should have, and taking into account your corporative image, can you imagine what your website would look like?

Could you mention what basic information the website should have?

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ICT Tools for website creation

There are multiple ICT Tools (both free and paid) that can help us when designing, creating and structuring our website. Among the most used ones, we can find:

	WordPress: The ultimate website creation platform. Create and manage contents of any type of website, especially commercial websites. To create a website with WordPress, we will need to choose a domain and hosting service and install WordPress there. Then, we must create a database and our user and password, with all the permissions. After this, we will be able to design our website as we like. If you want to know more about WordPress, here you can find a tutorial for beginners about this platform: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B4MXA_yj8oI&ab_channel=CreateaProWebsite
	Wix: This platform is used for website development, and allows to create designs with complete freedom and several different options. In the following link, you can find a video tutorial on how to take the first steps on Wix: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YxpjW-Mq96Q&ab_channel=Tooltester
	SquareSpace: Squarespace allows website creation and contents hosting, metrics analysis… In the following link, you can watch a video tutorial to begin in this platform. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8isUiu4Bwx4&ab_channel=WebsiteSoSimple
	Joomla!: This content management platform allows contents creation and website development in a dynamic and interactive way. In the next link, you can find a video tutorial on how to get started with Joomla!: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nbtb8Ax4Mpc&t=17s&ab_channel=TheSocialGuide

There are thousands of online tutorials that allow you to create your website from scratch and learn about all the opportunities these platforms offer.

If you want to know more about any of the previous tools, do not hesitate to look for free online resources to enhance website development and entrepreneurship.

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Boost your company’s digital presence on social networks

What are social networks and what are they for?

Social Networks are digital platforms that connect millions of people. Thanks to them, their users can share messages, images, links, videos… Its scope is only increasing with the years. More and more users are active in these platforms, so social networks are therefore a great interaction media both in a personal and corporative way.

Social networks have several advantages for our online business:

Close and customizable interaction with users.
Enhance our online reputation and image in an organic and enjoyable way.
Immediacy and speed.
Share different types of files with other users: images of our products, promotional videos, websites…
Metric analysis, which allows us to know better the effectivity of our online strategy.
Know users all over the world, which allows us to access international markets.

If we implement a good social networking strategy, we can use all these advantages to enhance and advertise our online business.

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Main social networks

There are hundreds of online social networks; nevertheless, not all of them have the same features or target group. In the following paragraphs, we explain the most popular social networks and their main users’ profile.

	Facebook: It is the most used social network worldwide, with almost 2.500 million users per month. Its average users are adults over 30 years old, with more activity on 50 years old users. You can share interesting news, videos, attractive images, create a community or group to engage in conversations, carry out online polls or live transmissions… On Facebook, immediate and appealing contents work, so make sure to catch the user’s attention using interesting images and titles.
	YouTube: This social network has more than 2.000 million users per month. It belongs to Google and is used among a very diverse population sector (15-50 years old). Although YouTube possesses different content options, it is the ultimate audio-visual platform. Tutorials, reviews and instructive videos, as well as leisure and entertainment videos are especially relevant.
	Instagram: This platform is used for image and short videos (reels) sharing. It has more than 1.000 million active users per month. It uses is extended among teenagers and young adults (under 40 years old). You can use this platform for sharing your product’s photographs, images, videos and designs, as well as reviews and promotions.
	Pinterest: It is focused on sharing and saving images (pins) to find inspiration in several themes, especially in cooking, fashion, decoration and DIY (do-it-yourself) areas. It is very relevant among adult women, so we can use Pinterest to visually promote our business among our target group.
	TikTok: The most recent social media. Its main contents are short and concise videos. Its users are young adults and teenagers, so if your business has this target group, it is ideal to improve your presence. Share short and funny videos that catch your public attention with challenges, catchy music or attractive images.
	LinkedIn: This social network is still relevant in the working sector. LinkedIn allows to share your business information, find a job or contact with similar businesses to collaborate.

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How to promote your company on social networks

To carry out an effective marketing strategy on social networks, there are many aspects to take into account. Here we present some advice on how to enhance your visibility.

Choose the right platforms. Once we have researched different platforms, we must choose the ones that best suit your target group. It is advisable to use more than one social network, but we must make sure we can manage all the different accounts at the same time.
Take care of your online reputation. Online reputation or e-reputation measures the esteem or prestige of a webpage, service, company or product on the Internet. It is important because it will determine the trust and satisfaction of our customers or users, either current or potential. Furthermore, it will enhance our business’ loyalty and reliability. For example, if all the comments in our posts are positive, we will have more possibilities of reaching a wider public than if they are negative.
Be clear about your objectives. Depending on your company’s nature, your goal on social networks will be to gain followers, to sell a product, to advertise your website… Keep this objective in mind when taking a decision in your strategy.
Create quality content. Make sure that your content is fresh, original and good quality. Images and short videos are a quick and dynamic way to contact your audience, but you must make sure they have a good resolution.
Frequent updates. We must not abandon our social accounts; otherwise, it will be more difficult to access our public. Research your target group’s activity and schedules to know when to publish and which amount of weekly content is adequate to make users interested in your profile.
Interact with your followers. One of the main advantages of social networks is that it put into contact millions of users with similar interests. We can gain followers trough interactions, such as polls, challenges, trends, comments, questions… This will help us measure the effectiveness of our strategy and know better our customer’s interests and needs.
Contact with similar profiles. Do not hesitate to collaborate with similar companies, as it may be profitable for both businesses.
Measure your strategy impact. Measure the effectiveness and social network impact. To do this, you can carry out a SWOT analysis, where you can study your strengths, objectives, weaknesses and threats. Correct what is not working and boost what is. On the following link, you can find more detailed information on how to carry out a SWOT analysis (also known as DAFO or FODA): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JXXHqM6RzZQ

	Get Busy!
Now that you know more about the importance of social media for your company and how they can promote it, what strategic plan would you follow to boost your digital presence in social networks?. What would be your main objectives?

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Learn to solve your digital company cybersecurity problems

What is cybersecurity?

Cybersecurity consists of a series of practices that have the objective of protecting systems and information in our devices from potential cyberattacks. Among the most common threats we can find:

Phishing: It consists of impersonating a company with the aim of getting victims to steal their data or make a fraudulent purchase. Communication media such as fraudulent web pages or emails are often used.
Spam: They are unsolicited and bulk-sent messages. They often present recurring adds, unbeatable offers or rewards, or potential problems in your device. Nevertheless, all of these are frauds with the aim of stealing your information.
Malwares: They are softwares created to damage, prevent or impair the correct performance of our devices, as well as stealing our information. There are million of types of malwares, with different characteristics and objectives. Among the most widespread ones we can find trojans, worms, botnets, adwares…

There are thousands of threats we are exposed to when surfing the web. Nevertheless, not everything is lost: there are some measures we can take to avoid potential cyberthreats. In the following section, we will find some tips on how to keep our online business safe.

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Cybersecurity tips

Use common sense. The first and most important piece of advice we must follow is to keep our common sense. If something is too good to be true, it’s probably fake. Be sceptical and do not trust unknown sources.
Always keep a backup copy. Protect your data, files and information in case of suffering an unwanted damage. To achieve this, it is advisable to keep two backup files: an offline one (such as a hard drive) and an online one (the cloud).
Do not open unknown or unreliable links. Otherwise, we could be allowing access to malware. Make sure that the links you access come from a known source or are secure.

We can know that a page is safe if starts with https:// or has a padlock on the search bar. However, this does not guarantee that its content is truthful.

Keep your antivirus and different apps up to date. The technological world is constantly evolving, and cybercrime is not far behind. To guarantee our security we must keep our software updated: this is the only way to block new threats.
Encrypt your data. This consists of converting plain text into cipher (unreadable) text. Keep your confidential information secure by encrypting your data, so that only those with the correct key can decrypt it.
Create strong passwords. Secure passwords do not include personal information and have more than 8 characters that include uppercase, lowercase, number and special characters. Use different passwords on different platforms to avoid losing them all in case of being hacked. Most platforms offer two-step login (which offers greater security), as well as password recovery methods in case of forgetting it.

Log out when you finish using your platforms. This will ensure your security in case of physical theft or hacking.
Avoid connecting to public networks, as we could be victims of information theft. Disable the automatic connection to prevent this from happening without you being aware of it.

	Get Busy!
Thinking about your company's cybersecurity and everything you have learned in this unit, mention what measures you would take for the storage of your company's information, and what threats you think are the most frequent that you could face on a daily basis. How can you prevent them?.