What are the best tools and platforms to scale your social enterprise online?

Think beyond just static websites to more multi-dimensional approaches, such as social media powered by AI. Identifying social media platforms that can reach your target audiences with campaigns, powered by generative AI, is essential to grow the business and scale reach. Don’t target all platforms but think carefully about which are best-suited to your audience.

A well-designed website is the foundation of your online presence. Consider platforms like Wix, WordPress, or Squarespace, which allow easy customization and integration with e-commerce solutions. For a social enterprise, Shopify is excellent for scaling, especially if you want to sell sustainable products or services.

Building a website yourself requires three things: 1. Website builder 2. Domain 3. Hosting For hosting and domain, porkbun.com is cheap and reliable. Wix is one of the easiest drag and drop website builders to use. But if you make a very custom design or theme, it can break easily. WordPress out-of-the-box allows for a lot of customisation, but this also makes it more complex. However, if you want to create a portfolio style website, consider getting WordPress and purchasing the Semplice plugin. It's designed for artists who want to make aesthetic websites without worrying about the hassles of technicality.

When choosing an accounting software, consider: -do they have 24/7 support? -is their documentation easy to access? -does their data privacy meet the requirements of your industry? -can invoices be generated easily and with customisable templates to match your brand? -is both their mobile app and desktop app functional and usable?

Managing finances is crucial, and platforms like QuickBooks, Xero, or Wave provide cloud-based accounting tailored for small and growing businesses. These tools are perfect for tracking your social enterprise’s finances, automating tax calculations, and ensuring compliance.

For my social enterprise work, I've prefer FigJam subscription over Miro as it's slightly cheaper and offers almost the same functionality. It's great for online group workshops and documenting the design process stages (i.e. research, synthesis, ideation). I prefer Zoom Pro over Google Meets as it's easier to record meetings, the connection quality is better and less tech savvy stakeholders have more familiarity with it. Atlassian offers a 75% discount for nonprofits, which includes tools like Trello, Confluence and Jira. Zoho also has a non profit discount, which covers their tools like CRM, accounting, marketing etc.

Social enterprises often involve remote teams or partnerships. Tools like Slack for communication, Asana or Trello for project management, and Google Workspace or Microsoft 365 for document collaboration can streamline team efforts and improve efficiency.

The most important marketing tool for a social enterprise is ChatGPT Plus. I've used this process to help small organisations with their marketing: 1. Give ChatGPT a persona to make the output more targetted e.g. branding strategist with 30 years experience 1. Ask ChatGPT to create a brand identity based on your business assets (e.g. copy from your website, business plans, social media captions) 3. Use this brand identity framework, ask ChatGPT to create specific marketing content (e.g. social media post caption, seasonal promotion, email marketing automation flow)

To increase your social impact and brand awareness, use platforms like Hootsuite, Buffer, or HubSpot for managing your social media campaigns. Google Ads and Meta (Facebook/Instagram) Ads can help in targeted advertising, driving traffic, and promoting your social mission to the right audience.

Measuring your social enterprise’s impact is essential to attract investors and demonstrate value. Tools like Benevity, Social Suite, and Sopact help in tracking social, environmental, and economic impact in real-time. These platforms also help in generating reports to show the tangible outcomes of your initiatives.

Having spoken to many social enterprise owners, the common thread is that they feel overwhelmed by business software, finding it complex and prone to breaking. But there is simple and affordable software available to automate many admin tasks. This allows businesses to focus on customer service and social impact. For example, instead of manual 1-1 bookings via Instagram and sending bank transfer details, businesses can use Stripe for payments, Calendly for bookings, Linktree to centralise important links and Instagram for promotion.

As a technologist the advice I always give is to start with your customer and their pain points rather than with software. Minimise what you use in the beginning as it is both costly and timely to create software or use platforms. As yourself - what can I find out using paper / mockups / interviews. Really understand your customer painpoint and test our designs etc using toold like figma or no-code low code as much as you can. Also find yourself a seasoned IT professional (or Fractional CTO) to help you to understand what you need to buy and when. This may seem costly but you'll avoid so many overheads it's really worth it!

AI Tools: Leveraging AI-driven platforms like Grammarly for content writing, Jasper.ai for copywriting, and Canva for design can save time and resources. E-commerce Integrations: For social enterprises with physical products, integrating tools like Etsy and Amazon Handmade can expand reach and sales. CRM Systems: Tools like Salesforce and Zoho CRM can help in managing donor relationships and customer outreach efficiently.