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.

The experience of my old college friend David Schwartz serves as a good case study to demonstrate the power of public relation.  David is a solo practioner lawyer in San Diego and he has a number of interests outside the legal profession.  Several years ago, David came up with the idea for a product that would eliminate the need for an indoor cat litterbox.   He explains that cat owners frequently have to dedicate a bathroom or small room in their homes to the cat litterbox because of the unpleasant odors.

David built a prototype of what he calls the outdoor litterbox for indoor cats.  It consists of a tunnel connected to a pet door, and an enclosed outdoor litterbox.  Cats exit the home through the pet door, travel through the short tunnel into a small enclosed space where they "do their business."  Since the litterbox remains outside, all the associated odors stay outside as well, allowing the homeowner to recapture his cat litterbox room.

David discovered that there was no similar product on the market, so he enlisted the help of a patent lawyer and obtained a patent for his idea, with the idea of licensing the patent to a pet product manufacturer.   David found that potential manufacturing partners expected him to have a web site for his invention.   At that point, David contacted me and I helped him put together a website for his invention – the Outdoor Litterbox for Indoor Cats.

Because David does not have a product to sell, he did not want to spend money on pay-per-click to drive traffic to his web site.  Further, since his invention was new, keyword optimization would be something of a challenge.   After discussing these options we decided that public relations would make the most sense for him to build a little "buzz" about his outdoor litter box.

About three weeks ago, I ran across an article by a humor columnist in San Diego who was looking for "offbeat" gifts.  I forwared this blurb to David, who responded and ended up being interviewed and published.  CNBC then picked up the reference and one of their reporters wrote about it.

Last week, David got a call from a talk radio station in Montreal, and he was interviewed on the radio for an entire 16 minute segment about his invention.

Note that all this free publicity has been generated in less than two weeks.

Now, David is looking into the possibility of manufacturing his outdoor litterbox independently.  I can' t say for certain, but I suspect that the positive reaction David has received in print and on the radio has motivated him to take his business to the proverbial "next level."

Only time will tell if David will be crowned the nation's "litterbox king," but I know he is having fun with his invention and I am sure that this experience will open many new doors for him.

[tags] public relations, David F. Schwartz, free publicity, outdoor litterbox, cat products, doggie door [/tags]