In today’s rate race of life, online exposure is your highest priced real estate! The number of people who search out businesses on the internet is growing at a staggering rate everyday. People want to locate you, contact you and Buy from you. Are potential customers finding your business Online?

Quick & Free:

The quickest way to the top of search engines for branding your business and providing customers with contact information is a Face Book page. Simple to create, easy to update, and allows customers to react with you and your business on a personal level. Using the leverage of the largest web sites in the world you can have first page rankings in no time!

What to do in a Nutshell:

• Create a Face Book account
• Create a Page specifically for your business
• Fill in all profile information in detail
• Use a clean picture or company logo
• List your website, email and phone
• Use keywords relating to your business (business name)
• Publish page & update at least 3 times a week
• Rank in the search engines

It is that easy and can be an extremely effective form of online advertising and company branding.

Already Have a FB Page?

Optimize it to rank better in search results. Use keywords, images and text relevant to your business and brand. Update status, post, links, photos, etc. a minimum of 3 times a week.

If you have a blog, post your articles to your FB page to add additional rankings.

Many people are using Social media website like Face Book, Twitter and Linked in to harness the power of free rankings. Use it to promote your business on the search engines and produce more traffic by simply showing up when people are interested in your business services.

Does it Work?

I use it and have a 3^rd and 4^th place ranking from FB as of today 6-30-10, when some one searches for my company name directly.  Type “Carbon Copy Consulting” into your search bar and take a peek!

What happened to the week? Seems like there is so much to do I can’t get anything done. What about you? Busy I hope.

If you think you are to busy to keep up with social media marketing then you are going to love the strategy I use for marketing my business with Social Media.

Sit down; learn this and you will harness one of the biggest and best online advertising methods available today.  Also start to get rankings in the search engines for absolutely no money out of pocket. Social Media marketing is worth your time, just not so much of it. Give this a few days and you will not only save time but your business will have a local presence simply through word of mouth. Not to mention direct website traffic!

Did I mention FREE advertising…FREE Referrals…FREE Promotion?

“How to” Keep Up With Social Media Marketing and Make It Work Effectively”

1. Set Up Profile/Page Completely

If you haven’t already been playing with social media then you will want to set up a profile or page on a site like Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn to name a few.

Either way, make sure you complete all the information available for describing you and your business. The more information you enter the more responses you will get.

If you are like me you may have profiles on 4 or 5 sites already. I recommend you set up an account with a social media update service. What this does is saves you from having to visit all of your accounts to say, tell or promote anything. Simply say it once and hit submit. All of your social media sites will be updated. I use Ping.FM for most of my updating. You can learn more about ping.fm here.

1. Pick One Site! Yes that is what I said. Focus on learning everything here and in time you can move to another site and repeat these steps. Choose the one you enjoy best, use as personal entertainment or business building, and the site that you have the most friends, connection or followers with.

Why? Well, keep in mind we are still going to be updating this site and all of our other sites from one location but our goal is to save time and be effective. I am a member of 6 social media sites. I focus on Facebook and keep tabs on the others periodically. I do however have email updates sent to me when someone makes a comment, replies to a message or contacts me through the site. That way I never miss a proposal request or question about my business.

1. Spruce It Up

Add pictures, videos, informative links and applications (for business) that connect your site posts to other social media sites simultaneously. Make it appealing! People love media and it will make visitors want to learn about you, interact with you and most importantly find out what you do and who you are by checking out your pictures, then your profile, then your site. No necessarily in that exact order but that’s how it happens.

Doing these things intrigues interest and comments, giving you exposure and allowing you to build relationships. People buy from people they know.

1. Posting Procedure & Etiquette

When you update your status be positive, intuitive or funny. Start conversations, don’t run people off. As a rule of thumb I post 3-5 times a day to all my sites. 80% of my posts are friendly conversation starters. 20% of them are about marketing my website, event or a product promotion.

I can not stress enough that this is sales with out being a sales rep. Do not push your product or service, try to sell every new connection or make it evident that you are only here for business. They do not call it “Social Media” for nothing. Spam your business or website link here and people will de-friend you, block you and even hurt you with negative comments to other people or connections they know.

1. Interact & Comment

Building relationships can be done from your computer. You can talk to 1000’s of people each day by using social media. Try doing that by going to lunch or meeting over coffee.

With people seeing your status post everyday it is undeniable that some of these folks will find what you have to say interesting. Being interesting or debatable in your posts, or by posting pictures you evoke peoples nature to put there two cents worth into the conversation.

Interact with them by posting a reply comment. By starting and continuing conversations people will tell you what they think. That big client you where looking to meet or better yet someone who has been looking for your product or service could chime in. Say hello and thank them for their comments. Now it is time to get to know them and let them get to know you. They will know what you do and inquire when they are ready.

Remember this tip: Do not get angry or hostile from the comments you receive. Do not appear to be right all the time. Take the negative comments and learn from them and reply with integrity and character. You never know when you will learn something. It also helps you build authority and leadership in your industry. If the commenter is abusive kick them out of your network!

Okay that being said here is a summary of things to do.

• Set up account profile(s) completely by filling in all information (this will take you the most time – once set up your looking at an hour a week).
• Set up social media updater like ping.fm and pick sites you wanted updated
• Pick one site you like and enjoy using
• Set up email or text notification when someone interacts with you on your other sites. Link sites together so if you use facebook to post it automatically transfers to twitter.
• Make your page appealing and interesting; Add pictures, video, links
• Post on a regular basis to all sites from one location or use your favorite site and link it to your other sites. What ever is easiest?
• Comment on other peoples posts and comment when others comment on your post. Talk to people, talk to people, talk to people. It’s all about who you know.
• Do this 2-3 times a day 3-4 days a week spending no more than 10 min @ a time posting links, pictures, making comments or entering your status updates.

That pretty much sums it up. Post comments below with questions or share your useful tips and strategies. Happy Marketing!

Brian McDaniel & Carbon Copy Consulting

Trusted Source for Online Marketing Information

P.S. Like this article, then share it with your friends on the social media site of your choice listed below. Much Appreciated!

Facebook advertising is relatively inexpensive and can bring a flood of traffic to your website. It is a great way to announce to everyone in Cookeville, TN and surrounding areas about the big sale, holiday promotion or new product launch of your business. You can also create a brand for your business, keep customers informed and increase credibility in the areas you service. One of the best reasons to start your online advertising here is to learn your target market and who your customers truly are.  Take these results and apply them to other online advertising platforms to create more business and increase your profits.

Advertising on facebook for you local business is easy and cost effective. Learn How and Why to get started with facebook advertising.

• What Makes Advertising on Facebook Beneficial for Local Businesses?

For starters it targets your local area, market and customer. Example; Do you sell a product that only women buy? Do you offer services that only apply to people in a certain age group? You can target a campaign to only show your advertising to a specified age group, marital status, sex, location and even education level if you wish. You might want to target everyone in a certain state or city. The gist of it all is this; place your ads in front of a targeted audience and boost your website traffic overnight. This will get your business name into the public eye, bring new targeted customers to your website and give you a better return on investment compared to offline media.

• How to Set Up Facebook Advertising?

All you need to do is go to the Facebook/Advertising page and follow the instructions given. You will set up a payment method and create your ad. In this section you filter your results and target your primary customers. Once you have designed your ad and set up targeting you can see how many people will potentially see your ad. You may want to broaden your exposure a bit or leave it highly targeted. Last thing you do is set up your campaign and bid. Give the campaign a name and set a daily budget. You will also be given a choice of CPM (cost per impression) and CPC (cost per click). Check the CPC option. Estimated bid price is provided and you should bid within the range given or possibly a tad bit higher.  When facebook approves your ad you will officially be advertising your small business online.

• Tips and Tricks for Best Results

A few things to keep in mind are daily budget, bid price, tracking and testing. Start out slow by running your ad a few days with about a $10-$15 a day budgets. Make sure you are bidding enough money per click to get your ad shown to as many people as possible. Track these results. If the ad does good and you like it, up the daily budget and keep it running. However most of us will get it wrong the first time. Test another ad, target a different market and continue to test your campaigns until you find something that works. My recommendation is to run facebook ads for only a few days at a time. Then change it up a bit with a different picture or reword your ad text and see how it works compared to your last ad. Pick a winner and try again.

More information on PPC advertising.