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The explosion of social media sites in the last few years has changed the way consumers learn about businesses. Let’s face it – today if your business is not a member of Facebook or Yelp, it is likely to be overlooked by many potential consumers. And if your business is without a website, you might as well be non-existent.
Fortunately, most of these popular social media websites are free to use and are a sure way to help you increase your traffic, get a better search engine ranking, build a name for yourself, and promote interactivity while maintaining customer relations.
I compiled a list of 7 popular social media sites that I suggest you look into if you want to market your business on the web more effectively. I have used these to market my own law practice, and the benefits are hard to ignore.
1) Facebook – Facebook is the world’s biggest social networking site. The best way to market your business on Facebook is to create a “Fan Page” and encourage your customers to join. This way you can easily notify them when you have updates to share such as specials or important news about your business.
2) Yelp – Yelp is one of the most popular review sites for local businesses written by customers. It is important to have your local business reviewed on Yelp, as these reviews are used by customers to make decisions on what businesses are the best for them.
3) Twitter – Twitter is a “micro-blogging” social networking site where members send each other short messages and status updates. It is gaining popularity by the minute. Members can see what other members are “tweeting about,” follow these other members if they find their “tweets” interesting, and share their own messages on this micro-blogging platform.
4) YouTube – YouTube is the number one video-sharing website where members can share and comment on each other’s videos. You Tube can be used to establish yourself as an expert in your industry by creating “how-to” videos that show your specialization. To direct traffic to your website, you can even link the videos you upload to your website.
5) LinkedIn – LinkedIn is the most popular business-oriented social networking site with over 400,000 registered users. This is a great website to find potential business partners as well as customers who may be interested in what your business has to offer.
6) Digg – Digg is a popular news-sharing website where members post links to their favorite news article and make comments. If you receive a good rating on an article that includes a link to your site, it will result in a large increase in your traffic.
7) Delicious – Delicious is a popular bookmarking site in which members save links to their favorite websites or articles and share them with other people. When members write comments, it links to their personal profile where they can include a link to their website. The more comments you write, the more you promote your site, resulting in increased traffic.
By joining these sites, you will be able to introduce yourself to new customers and learn more about what consumers are looking for. You can also potentially build a network of loyal customers who may be likely spread the word about your business in various locations all over the Internet. As you may know, word-of-mouth advertising from a trusted source is the most effective type of advertising.
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