Elisabeta Moraru, Google Country Director for Romania, Bulgaria, Hungary and Moldova, says in an interview with MyImpact that there are numerous online tools that can help Gen Z entrepreneurs follow their dreams.

Alex Daragiu: I am now in my early 20s. Let's say I want to start an online business. I'm from Generation Z, I'm used to vlogging and I probably want to promote myself there. What advice would you give to someone or a small company looking to start online, to promote their company or brand? What tools should they use?

Elisabeta Moraru: First and foremost, I think it is important to understand your audience. There are tools like Market Finder. It’s a free platform that can show where there is interest, in which country (...). The first recommendation is to think about selling your products not just in Romania, but also in other countries. As I mentioned, Market Finder can definitely be a helpful tool.

In the data area, for measuring all the traffic that comes to your site, there are various analytics tools you can use. Most of them are free, in fact.

At the beginning of your journey, it is very important to use tools that support you, but there are also tools that require investment and bring back profit. Here, digital marketing is very relevant, with many platforms, not just those of Google, which are very interesting and I believe they bring the audience closer to your offer.

Millennials can still remember the dial up, what it sounded like (...). Generation Z was born with a computer, with a phone that has greater computational power than the computer, which obviously changes the usage pattern a lot.

This appetite, which most people call native – being born with this technology – means that the two generations use technology differently. Statistics show that both we and they look at our phones about 150 times a day. So, there are things we have in common.

There is a great interest (from Gen Z) in discovering the world through the lens of technology. I perhaps only had the option of going to the library. Now, the library is anywhere, anytime, just a few clicks away. And the way we consume content is changing.

Alex Daragiu: What interests does someone from Generation Z have on the Internet when they start searching for something?

Elisabeta Moraru: I have seen a lot of interest in gaming and education (...). As soon as they discover something, they want to learn more about it. Or as soon as they buy a product, they go online to see how it can be used. The speed of this transition fascinates me.

Alex Daragiu: Do you think we should have sets of rules or perhaps regulations or maybe a certain education on what not to search for or at least what to filter when searching?

Elisabeta Moraru: This is a topic I really like because we, as a local team, have wanted to support education and the parent-child relationship in using the Internet safely. I would ask those who are watching us, if they have children or know people who have children, to recommend a very valuable tool for learning to use the Internet safely – it’s called Internet Heroes.

It’s a platform we have made available to both schools and parents and children, to understand what online bullying means, to understand what a credible and safe online source means, based on the concept that just as we learn to cross the crosswalk, we must also learn how to use the Internet.

In addition to such a tool, we offer an application – Family Link, which is free, and which we recommend because it allows the parent to communicate with the child and agree on rules together, which must also be in line with legislation.

For example, it is not legal to have an account on a social platform until the age of 13, and such an application allows you to set up the child’s phone or tablet, or any device they use, accordingly.

YouTube Kids is another example of how content can be age-appropriate and safe. And, not to mention parental control, an area where searching can be used in accordance with the user’s age.

Alex Daragiu: Regarding data privacy… If we search for something on Google, what happens to the data afterward?

Elisabeta Moraru: (...) The company considers this element perhaps the most important because it involves the user's trust. And it’s important to point out that absolutely no personal data is used by the company in any commercial way.

Moreover, in recent years (...) we have prepared many products or tools that we make available precisely to demonstrate how important this element is (...). We launched the Transparency Center, a center for transparency regarding the ads we see, where we can validate what happens with them.

Another example is My Security Center, where we can see all the information about our online presence concerning the Google platform. Another example in the search area: if you want to see where a result comes from, you have the option "about this image". So, in everything we do, we consider this critical element.