Mayor Bloomberg has announced that New York City has just released a whole host of FREE online tools and resources to help area small business owners grow their businesses and create jobs with the help of digital technologies and social media. While the Small Business Digital Toolkit, as it is called, was specifically designed with the small NYC business owner in mind, much of what it offers also can be accessed by anyone who wants to understand and know how to maximize the potential of today’s most powerful online marketing tools.

For instance, take the toolkit’s “Best Practices for Social Media” or its “How-To Guide to Online Advertising and Google AdWords,” among a number of others. Both modules contain information that virtually any business owner or aspiring entrepreneur would find informative and helpful, all at the simple click of a mouse and at no charge.

According to the August 23, 2012 news release regarding the Toolkit’s availability, its primary purpose is to enable small business owners to “digitally attract customers, conduct business online and market their products or services through the use of e-commerce technology.” It’s a reasonable goal given this month’s newly issued report by the Center for an Urban Future, which found that too few of NYC’s small businesses are embracing today’s newest technologies to advertise their products/services and establish customer relationships.

The Digital Toolkit is part of a comprehensive plan by the Mayor and his administration to make NYC “the premier digital city in the world,” according to Rachel Haot, the City’s Chief Digital Officer. It will be augmented by a series of free NYC-area “Digital Bootcamp” workshops that will cover a range of related topics of relevance to small business owners beginning on Thursday, September 20, 2012 in Jamaica, Queens.

For more information on the Toolkit and to access its Business Library resources, click on NYC’s Small Business Digital Toolkit now! And to learn more about the Digital Toolkit workshops and other courses available to small business owners in the NYC area, visit NYC.gov under the Course Catalog or call 311.