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Get Your Bespoke Privacy Notice for Your Small Business Today
Get Your Bespoke Privacy Notice for Your Small Business Today
The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) has launched a privacy notice generator which allows you to create a bespoke privacy notice for your business in under 15 minutes.
Why do I need a privacy notice?
A privacy notice will let people know what information you have and what you’ll do with it. Under GDPR many organisations realised they weren’t displaying a compliant privacy notice on their website. The ICO had provided privacy notice templates but this has now been replaced by an easy-to-use generator tool which has been specifically designed for sole-traders, start-ups, SMEs and charities.
So, what can you expect?
Within the tool (which can be accessed here) there are sections specifically for the following sectors:
- Finance, insurance and legal
- Education and childcare
- Health and social care
- Charity and voluntary
- Retail and manufacturing
You can pick a notice for customer and supplier information or one for staff and volunteer information.
Privacy notice generator – for customer and supplier information
This notice will let your customers know how you will use and store their information, giving them confidence to use your products and services. As well as displaying the notice on your website, you could send it in a newsletter or add it to your email signature.
- Firstly, choose your sector (we chose professional services).
- It then asks you to read a few links so that you have a better understanding of data protection, personal information you will collect and so on.
- You then fill in your business details, why you collect personal information, the personal information you collect, special data, reasons for collecting or using personal information, where you get the information, retention schedule, who you share the information with.
Once it is completed, you can then download it.
Privacy notice generator – for staff and volunteer information
This tool is for charities and SMEs. Once again, you fill in some basic contact details, read some links which will help you answer some questions within the tool and then you answer the following questions:
- Why do you collect or use personal information
- The sources of the personal information
- Retention schedule
- Who do you share the personal information with
- Whether you share the information outside the UK
Once it is completed, you can then download it.
You may also wish to check if your business needs a privacy notice. Or whether you need to pay an annual fee to the ICO.
If you want additional support for your small business, please get in touch: mel@reddesk.co.uk.
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Online Reputation Management
Online Reputation Management
As a business owner, you need to consider your online presence: what messages are you conveying, how do customers view your brand and what are the reviews saying about your service or products? If you are struggling to keep on top of this, perhaps it is time for a chat with an Online Reputation Management specialist.
Red Desk Virtual can help improve your online presence. We work closely with web designers, looking at SEO and social media strategies. This includes keywords, the types of content to post, and the best social media outlets for your type of business or product and how to respond to reviews.
Digital Presence
If you want your brand or business to be taken seriously then you need to ensure that you have a website and some social media. Through these, you can control the message that you want the public and your target audience to see. Never under-estimate the power of social media. Think about how many times you have based your purchasing decisions on information you find online. It could be either the way the website looks, if they are active on social media or their reviews. It all links back to online reputation. So, make sure you are at the top of your game with an updated website, regular social media posts and remember to respond to those reviews.
What are people saying about you?
How can you control what others are saying about you? The best way is to set up monitoring tools so you are informed when comments are posted (positive and negative) and you can then respond accordingly.
The simplest tool to use is Google Alerts. The only prerequisite you need is a Gmail account. Just type in the name of your product or business into Google and then select the “news” tab. At the bottom of the page there will be a button to click saying “create alert”. You can then select the frequency you would like the notifications sent to you.
We often find that if your business is located in a particular area then joining local Facebook groups can help you monitor referrals and comments as well.
Another recent strategy we have used, is to restrict who is able to comment on your social media posts. You may have posts that don’t require comments ie they are announcements or you might be writing something that may provoke trolls, hate speech or negative interactions. You can read more here.
Online Presence Tips
- When someone has taken time to write a review (Facebook, Google Business or other platform) try to respond in a timely fashion
- If the review or comment is negative then you might find our article helpful
- Repost positive comments
You may also be interested in the related articles:
Brand Awareness: Using Social Media to Successfully Reflect your Business Brand
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