SMB Marketing Blog

The days when all you needed for online marketing was a nice website have long passed.  In order to be effectively represented online, you’ll need effective campaigns on several critical platforms.  The platforms vary depending on the type of business you are in, but for those of you still finding your footing; here is a short checklist of platforms you should consider.

Stable Content

• Website: Since its 2010, you should have professional website.  If you don’t have one, get on it.
• Bonus Points Wikipedia Entry: Businesses haven’t fully embraced Wikipedia but it is the authority for information reference.  Having a Wikipedia entry will become increasingly important for online credibility and exposure.

Regularly Updated Content

• Blog: A critical platform for establishing credibility with the online community and search engines.  If your organization doesn’t have a blog, you are missing out on establishing yourself as an online authority in your industry.
• Bonus Points Periodical Press Releases: Press Releases still have their place online, particularly when pushed out with a service like PRWeb.com.  It can do more than just a blog posting or website update as it pushes to many channels, allowing for more exposure and credibility.

Social Networking

• Twitter/Facebook Fan Page: Twitter and Facebook are the kings of social networking and an increasingly important platform to promote dialog between companies and the online community.
• Bonus Points LinkedIn/Foursquare: LinkedIn and Foursquare aren’t for everyone, but depending on the kind of business you do, these maybe valuable platforms to reach potential customers.

Video Media

• YouTube: YouTube continues to be a predominately an entertainment focused community, but its reach is undeniable.  If you have how-to videos, or a business presentation, they are good candidates for YouTube.
• Bonus Points Webinar: Webinars are a great way to interact with customers and the community.  Webinars add great value for any customer base.

Search Engine Marketing

• Google AdWords: This isn’t a must but for those of you who are just starting out, or struggling in competitive markets, pay-per-click campaigns with Google can get you that exposure when you need it.
• Bonus Points Pay-per-click on Facebook/LinkedIn/Yahoo/Bing: Although Google is the most recognized player; pretty much every major platform (Facebook, LinkedIn, Yahoo, Bing, etc) has a similar version of the pay-per-click program.  They may present a less competitive and more targeted environment to push marketing efforts.

Depending on your business and goals, the platforms mentioned may not be critical.  Also keep in mind that just because you are represented on these platforms doesn’t necessarily mean you are being represented well on each platform.  However, how to assess your effectiveness on the various online platforms is the topic for another post.

Do you have other platforms that are critical to your business’s online marketing strategy that you feel should be on this list?  Please share it with us in the comments.

You likely must have heard about social media by now.  Social media is not a personal communication tool any more, you can use it for your business as well. You may have noticed that large number of websites have the three most famous; Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn symbols on them so you can easily follow and broadcast websites that you like.  This has been quickly adopted by those in the ‘know’ because it makes it easy for your social networks to know about websites that you like.

In fact, you can now give the Facebook ‘thumbs up’ for websites, assuming the website has the Like button installed. On April 21, Mark Zuckerberg, founder of Facebook announced that there will be over 1 billion likes across the web in the just first 24 hours of the “Like” button. Over a million websites have added this feature to their websites and blogs in just 48 hours, and the number grows steadily each day.

So why should you care? You now have the ability to harness the power of other people’s virtual networks to bring visitors that might be interested in what you do – without spending a dime or pushing them to react! It also has instant credibility because it was passed by a friend or business associate. And don’t think it’s just about your small network of 100 friends, but also about those 100 people’s networks.

Besides the obvious referral your website might get, there are SEO factors at work in the background, making your website/blog come up more frequently on search engines, that will get search engine and ‘feed’ traffic as well.  You can get heard over the noise by letting your social network endorse your content. Google likes to rank content that is popular with real human beings, and this is an easy way to that.

For those that were still skeptical about social media for business, this should convince you and perhaps make you a believer. For an example of how the like it button works, go to FoundPages or ActiveConversion, to see how it has been implemented on these websites. And remember to click ‘Like’ if you like what you see!