Savvy online
business owners can take advantage of all the free marketing opportunities the
Internet has to offer. In order to maximize
the results by using free marketing, you’ll need to put in a little bit of
elbow grease and quite a few hours of time, but once you get the hang of it,
you’ll be astonished by how well you can get the word of your business out
there and start seeing real conversions.
The best way
to go about marketing your site without spending a dime is definitely the
social media route. There has been a
literal explosion of interest in sites such as LinkedIn, Facebook, MySpace, and
Yelp in recent years, and any online business owner who’s interested in getting
the word out about their products and services would be foolish to not take
advantage of these congregation spots.
The trick for
making social media marketing effective is the method in which you go about
it. Many business owners simply sign up
their businesses for accounts and then send off hundreds if not thousands of
friend requests and expect interest to come flooding back in.
The reality
of the situation is that it’s not that easy – a smaller approach is definitely
much more economical insofar as generating real interest in your business is
concerned. Start by joining smaller
groups – no larger than twenty people.
If somebody sees that you’re trying to friend over two hundred people,
chances are they’ll think you’re a spammer and not reply to your query. Smaller groups make you look more genuine and
interesting. Also remember only to
friend groups and individuals who have a stated interest in the product or
services that you sell; to do otherwise is considered spam.
When sending
out news feeds on these sites, the number one rule to consider is keeping your
send-offs interesting. Before you send
anything out, be it a “tweet” or a status update or an email announcement, take
a minute and think about whether or not what you’re sending out is relevant or
interesting. People will enjoy hearing
about your product offers occasionally, but not three times a day. Again, you don’t want to come off as a
spammer, because then people will stop checking you and the whole process will
be for naught.
Also, be sure
to take the time to look at the profiles of your friends and occasionally
comment on what they have to say. This
helps build your credibility as a “friend” and show that you take an active
interest in the people who are following you on the social networking
sites. Once again, more personable and
less spam-like makes your social media marketing strategy much more effective.
