Where You Need to Be On the Web

There are so many sites and networks on the web these days, it can be hard to cut through all the noise to figure out where you need to be on the web to market  your products and services.  Generally speaking, the best place to start is with a web site, if you don’t already have one.  It doesn’t have to be fancy or artistic, but it should be uncluttered, professional-looking, with the information customers want laid out in an easy-to-find way.

Second, if you or any of your employees enjoy writing, a blog built into your website can be a very powerful marketing tool.   You can post your most important news there, creating a constant stream of fresh content that you can link on social media sites such as Twitter and Facebook, and which people can receive directly in their email boxes and blog-readers.

Or if you prefer talking to writing, you could do a regular audio or video podcast.  It’s becoming easier and easier to make your own audio or video content, which can, like blog posts, be republished on other sites and sent directly to subscribers.

Speaking of Twitter and Facebook, both of those social media sites have tremendous momentum and growth right now (summer 2009), and there are some good mechanisms for finding your potential customers on those sites.  Either or both of those might be a good place to to branch out after setting up your own website and blog.   Start with a personal account, observe how people and businesses interact, and do some posting to get an idea of how the sites might work for your business.

Certain niche social media sites may be more geared toward your customers, so don’t forget those–deviantart.com for artists, goodreads.com and librarything.com for readers, myspace.com for music enthusiasts.  You might even ask some of your customers about their favorite sites.

But don’t spread yourself too thin.  If you have very limited time, choose one or two venues and concentrate on posting and interacting with interested people there.   If family, friends or employees are willing to help, give them some guidelines about your goals, then observe and supervise them closely until you’re comfortable that their style is appropriate for your business.

I’ll have more specific stuff on these points in posts to come.

.me.

What is social media and why do I need it?

You can hardly turn around without hearing about sites like Facebook, Twitter,  and YouTube.  You might even have dabbled around with them for fun.  But what do they really have to do with my business,  you might ask.   The likely answer is a lot.  Okay, first of all–what does the term social media mean?  Wikipedia has a pretty good definition in its entry on the subject:

Social media is online content created by people using highly accessible and scalable publishing technologies. Social media is a shift in how people discover, read and share news, information and content; it’s a fusion of sociology and technology, transforming monologues (one to many) into dialogues (many to many) and is the democratization of information, transforming people from content readers into publishers.

This defnition covers not only Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube, but also blogs (like this one), Flickr.com and other photosharing sites, podcasts, live video sites like ustream.com, micro audiopodcasting from such services as audioboo.com, and movie and book-centered networks like flixter.com and goodreads.com (a personal favorite of mine).   You can put your words, information, video and images on these kinds of social media sites, bringing you in contact with more potential customers than ever before.  You can talk with them, learn more about what they’re looking for and let them know what you’re offering, what makes your business special and unique.

I’d also recommend this fun video on social media  from the excellent Common Craft series to examine the meaning of social media:

Like the ice cream makers, you can use social media to help people know and understand what you offer and how it can make a difference for them.   This is just a quick introduction, with more to come on this subject and on paticular sites and techniques you can use to market your business in the digital world.

I’d also recommend this fun video on social media  from the excellent Common Craft series to examine the meaning of social media:

Like the ice cream makers in the video, you can use social media to help people know and understand what you offer and how it can make a difference for them.   This is just a quick introduction, with more to come on this subject and on paticular sites and techniques you can use to market your business in the digital world.