When you are working on marketing something, whether it is a business, a charity, or anything else, know that you will have to spend some time and possibly money investing in the event.
One of the best things you can do is get the word out about it to try and get people to attend and help with whatever your goals on. A great way to do this these days is with social media. You will have to spend some time and effort using social media, but it does not have to take much money. This is more of a sweat equity investment than a cash investment.
For instance, many people are now on Facebook. You can create a personal page as well as a business facebook fanpage to help you with your business. The best way to promote yourself is to get to know people on a personal level, and they will get to know who you are from the messages you post.
But if the first time you stop on someone’s page and you say “Hi, I am with such and such business”, you likely will not get very far. The investment is getting to know others and that it may take a bit before you get tangible resources. Of course, if someone posts asking question that is relevant to your business, than it would be appropriate to reply with your business information.
This can be an investment where you are not sure when or if it will pay off. You likely will not be successful if you only post a few comments every day or two, you need to get into it and connect with people. A large part of business relationships is networking, and this is yet another type of networking, done through the computer instead of in person. If you connect with the right people, your business could really explode, and isn’t that what you want?
One of the greatest investments that you can make is to create a fanpage where people can interact with you and your business. Invite everyone to become a fan, and then make sure that you are posting relevant and helpful information. Every post should not be a sales pitch, but information that may be helpful for your readers.
Maybe in October your sales page will post information about breast cancer, even though you sell books. This helps to endure you to your readers and will allow you to build those relationships. You may also gain new customers with these types of approaches.
While you may feel that you are wasting your time on the social media sites, it is important that you get to know people and they get to know you. People are more likely to deal with someone that they know and have a relationship with than a random stranger, if they are able to.
It can take a while to harvest these relationships and see results, but you could also have someone who comes out of the woodwork right away who is looking for someone offering exactly what you are offering.
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Image Credit: OverSocialized
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Lena Morrish and Dima Nikolayenko are the owners of Bridge To Success Co. Starting your own home based business can be full of stress and worries unless you know how to do it the easiest way. Lena & Dima's FREE e-mail course is a useful 7 step guide on building a business website that earns money.
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{ 11 comments… read them below or add one }
Hi Lena and Dima,
Interesting post on social media and facebook. I do agree with you that social media takes time and a lot o f it before any tangible results are seen.
It is a lot of sweat and not much equity for a long while but then one may be lucky in the end and all that effort will pay off.
I like your point of not always promoting your business but also be personable.
Vance
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Good post. You’re right, by it’s very definition Social Media = interaction. Hence, your investment into it, when handled properly, is very different from, say, investment into a paid search marketing campaign.
Geno Prussakov recently posted..RSS Feeds – Different Level of Customer Engagement -amp Ownership
…if the first time you stop on someone’s page and you say “Hi, I am with such and such business”…
We’ve had pretty good luck with Facebook marketing, however, we dare not ‘talk shop’ too much. One sure way to turn folks off is make them feel like they are your next sales ‘farm.’
Colleen recently posted..Three Rivers Community Roundtable’s 2010 Summer Workshop
It’s funny how Facebook creeps into all of the categories.
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You do need to network yourself no matter what business you are in, as well as making those vital connections. It’s awesome to know that in 2010, all those tools you have pictures in the image, are free!
Can’t get any better/easier than that for the wallet.
Till then,
Jean
social media is not waste of time. I think it’s an effective method to communicate with your fans directly.
There is no replacement of social media platforms, they are the revenue generator if it’s done smartly.
Social Media really helps in generating traffic and branding for your products.
Social media is a great way to network and to get more traffic. If you use it right it can be a great promotion tool.
Social media takes effort and time. But just like you said in the post, it’s time well spent. Thanks for the pointers, I really need to start utilizing Facebook more.
Mathew Day recently posted..Make Money Online Creating Mini Niche Sites with WordPress
Social media is very useful nowadays if you want to promote your business or company towards the huge network by doing the most effetive efforts in it.
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