Wednesday, March 9, 2011

Thought Leadership Sharing by SMEs Online: docstoc

For every Small and Medium Enterprise, its crucial today to create and establish a strong differentiator in the market. This is important not only from the aspect of establishing a strong presence in the particular domain that the business is in, but also from the point of view of positioning the business strongly in the market, to attract the right talent and generate business.

How has business communication changed with the Internet?!
With the advent of the Internet, one of the most crucial aspect of business which has changed is communication. How businesses today brand and position themselves and try and engage their target audience is far different from what it used to be a couple of years back.

Web 2.0 has changed business communication forever. Now its no-more a one sided business to consumer communication, it has infact become a business to consumer and consumer to business conversation. Customers today are well informed and empowered with the right kind of information, which enbales them to take just the right decisions.

Social networks have further evolved business communication. Businesses today realize that their future customers and talent are all present online and are sharing and collaborating on social networks.

Let your documents speak for you online and free!!
There are many ways which businesses can leverage to communicate effectively with their target audience. One of the simplest ways to build brands online is by sharing thought leadership and other content on free online document sharing and collaborative networks.

There is a whole new generation of content creators who are willing to share their knowledge with the world on every topic which can be possibly discussed on these free document sharing websites.

Eg: Docstoc, a website with over 23 million documents on topics ranging from Legal to Current events, from business to technology. These documents are sources of knowledge and in many ways, points of view of people all across the world. These documents are free to access and share.


How do I use docstoc?
Docstoc is simple to use and powerful as a platform to reach out to potential target audience for any business. The simplest manner to start using Docstoc is logging in with your 'facebook' account, by clicking the 'flogin' button on the top right of the page. Otherwise you can always register on Docstoc and create a profile on the website.

How do I share my first document online?
Lets say you have a corporate presentation about what you do and what is your business really about. what value do you add and how are you positioning your set of offerings and services in the market. All you need to do to upload the same online is login the website and click 'upload your Documents'!


While uploading any content on this platform, as a publisher you must keep in mind that your content must be original and true. Also the file formats that this platform accepts are: doc, xls, ppt, pdf, rtf, txt, docx, xlsx, ppts.

What all categories of documents can I find or upload?
There may always be new categories of content generated and every platform eventually will evolve. Currently the available categories on Docstoc are (as shown below in the screen capture):


Advantage for SMEs 
For any small and medium enterprise, online content sharing platforms such as Docstoc is a fantastic option to share thought leadership in the form of research papers, case studies, interesting presentations, subject matter expertise etc. with the world at large.

Your content and search engines fetch you more business and good talent
The content on such platforms is also indexed by search engines like Google. This ensures that while the target audience which are searching for you online are able to access this content uploaded by you about a certain topic. Powerful content being indexed and searched can go a long way in positioning your business the right way to your target audience.

What approach should your business take?
SMEs must concentrate on creating powerful and engaging content which is meaningful and engages the target audience in a conversation, which drives them to take an action. Eg: a presentation which provides the right mix of knowledge, opportunity and benefits would drive your prospective target customers to take an action and show increased interest in your business offerings.

There are many such online platforms and tools available, which are benefiting the Small and Medium Enterprise segment. To know more, get in touch with the experts at IndiaMART Knowledge Services. Do drop in a comment to this post to let us know what else would you want us to share about!

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