Data Collected: http://www.wikihow.com/

NEED TO PROMOTE MY

BUSINESS

You can either set up your own website or you can pay someone to set

it up for you. You can usually have a nice website designed by yourself

for as l itt le as $5.00 per month plus yearly registration of your domain

name, the website address. Most importantly, your website needs to

have easily navigated layouts, be fi l led with useful and interesting

information and be free of junk or unhelpful things. Avoid using

anything that wil l discourage a customer from lingering; this is one

time when some upfront paid advice from a web designer can be well

worth it and wil l pay itself back in no time.

SET UP YOUR OWN WEBSITE.

Advertising online has a large reach and is the way many sites thrive

or even survive online. You can set a price that you would be wil l ing to

pay every time someone clicks on an ad that you write. You only have

to pay this when someone clicks on your ad. If no one cl icks on your

ad, you do not have to pay. These ad formats allow you to set up a

daily advertising budget and you have the freedom to cancel and

restart your ads any time you want.

USE PAY PER CLICK ADVERTISING

Perhaps one of the most popular and creative way to show more information about your business is to use videos. Some examples of how to do this include:

Upload a video of your company, and put on as many l inks as you can from all sor ts of topics so as many people as possible see it .

Videotape launches and other public events promoted by your business so that cl ients who couldn't make these events are st i l l able to catch up on what happened.

Video how -to information related to your business, so that when someone is looking how to solve a problem your business has knowledge of, they find your video answer and learn more about you. Self -help videos on common, basic problems can be a great way to show your business's sharing side and to garner interest from potential new customers.

Create an ongoing storyl ine showing customers using and enjoying your products or services. This may require a l i tt le more work but stories rope people in and they're far more l ikely to remember your business if there's a regular mini soap opera to tune into!

USE YOUTUBE TO PROMOTE YOUR BUSINESS

This is one way to help promote your product or services, showing

yourself as an expert and as someone who genuinely wants to help

resolve people's problems. Often you can do this for free.

However, this option has one huge caveat––be sure to post in forums

that are website promotion friendly if you intend on using your URL or

emblazoning the post with your business details. Not all blog sites or

forums allow promotion blog or forum posts and breaching this could

see your business blocked and even badmouthed. In some cases you

may have to pay a fee to advertise on their sites but usually you do

not. In many cases, simply stating that you're the

founder/owner/director/community manager, etc. of a certain site can

be sufficient to aler t people to the good your company is doing online.

Let them do the rest of the adding up and finding of you––consumers

are intelligent.

PARTICIPATE IN FORUMS AND BLOGS

You can create l ists of customers, or potential customers that you can

keep in touch with on a regular basis. However, be aware that many

recipients regard this as spamming and may complain. Always seek to

get the agreement of customers to be emailed first, and always take

into account spamming laws, which detail that you're not allowed to

send people information they do not want. It makes good business

sense to only send information to people who want to hear about your

products or services and not to those who do not. These e -mail ings

can all be sent out in bulk , as if you were sending them through postal

mail.

USE EMAIL MARKETING

Even if your business does have a Facebook account, make sure it is

optimized to get the most from it. Use Facebook ads, updates and Fan

pages to keep fans posted on your business happenings. As a

business, just be careful to get your business a Facebook Page and

not a Profi le; profi les are for individual people only and they are

l imited in what you can do as a business. Moreover, if Facebook

discovers you using a profi le as a business, you stand to lose the

whole profi le and all the friends your business has accrued. For more

ways to make the most of a Facebook page as a business, see How to

leverage your Facebook business page to boost profits and brand

awareness through Facebook Applications.

GET ON FACEBOOK IF YOU'RE NOT ALREADY

THERE

Get a good Twitter handle for your business and start tweeting

updates. However, remember that Twitter is a conversation, not just a

place to push your products or services. Be sure to instruct employees

to interact with online fans.

TAKE YOUR BUSINESS TO TWITTER

Pinterest has created an platform for visual social media input and

your company can make the most of this by feeding in well taken

photos of your business products and other relevant images. Make

them interesting, compelling and shareable though; some creative

effor t wil l need to be put into the photos to make Pinterest users want

to share the photos around. As with any advertising, focus on what

makes your products interesting and desirable and try to capture that

in photographs.

BECOME A PART OF PINTEREST

A more recent stream of consciousness in the world of social

media, your business really should be here as well as on Twitter and

Facebook. It 's sti l l unfolding and this is a niche time to establish your

business' presence. Join groups, share photos and information and

l ink up with your customers in Google Hangouts.

GO ON GOOGLE+ BUSINESS PAGES

You can l ink to surveymonkey surveys using your

website, Twitter, Facebook and Google+ accounts. And get this––

almost every person loves a survey. Ask people directly what they

want and you'l l find out in no time.Ask for feedback on

products, services and promotions. Be prepared for honesty!Keep the

survey short and interesting.

USE SURVEYMONKEY TO GET MUCH NEEDED

INSIGHTS FOR YOUR BUSINESS

Social media is a great tool for businesses but it can also be misused

and create follower fatigue, unlikes and unfollows and general

annoyance if misused

Take Away:

Remember your business basics. The best form of advertising is free–

–that's word of mouth. If you're an excellent business with superior

customer service, your customers wil l tel l everyone they know about

their experience. That makes their fr iends and family remember your

business name when they are in need of your products and/or

services.

KEEP SOCIAL MEDIA INTERACTIONS

MEANINGFUL AND CONSIDERATE

THANK YOU

Presentation created by Noman Ali from Cygnismedia.com