Using the web to market your business

Josh244

I`m a huge proponent of using social networking sites to market your business. They`re free, give people a chance to find you on something OTHER than google, allow you to UPDATE your info frequently (so that you can keep current customers up-to-date) and can give a real personality to your business that is sometimes hard to do with a static website. Some sites that I typically recommend are:CRAIGSLIST - post a free classifiedMYLOCALSPOT - myspace for small businessesSQUIDOO- make a free webpageWORDPRESS - free blogging softwareEBAY - make an online storeThat being said, the above sites are all FREE (with the exception of Ebay) and only require a MODEST amount of time (in terms of creating and updating your content). I wanted to get some feedback on YouTube marketing. It`s obviously a popular site and can be used in similar ways to the above, BUT it can take some serious cash and time to make a nice video (at least one that you`d want to represent your business). My question is whether or not the investment is worthwhile...i.e. is it worth the time and money it takes to make a video for the chance to market your business using YouTube?Thanks!Josh2442007-7-9 8:36:39

vwebworld

Aside from the social networking benefits...
The advantage of using YouTube for your video (instructional, introduction, marketing, etc) - it is hosted at YouTube and thus doesn`t eat up any of your web hosting bandwidth. Put your video on YouTube and link (embed) it on your website.
~Rolandvwebworld2007-7-10 9:19:3

searchguru

A word of caution about using the free WordPress.com blogging service. They can and will suspend your account for no apparent reason, and delete all your work.I lost a number of blogs that I have been working on since 2003, and WordPress refuses to tell me what I did wrong.

searchguru

Craig,A lot of people have been misusing CraigsList for SEO, and there have been several so-called "experts" who have written ebooks advocating this technique.As a result, the owners of CraigsList tend to overreact and throw anyone who gets a bad mark against them off.The guidelines are crucial to understanding how a community or search engine functions.

mynameisrod2

Craig, to reply to your question "Which is a better marketing scheme:
Standing on a corner in downtown New York City, or putting up a billboard
outside of a growing suburban community?" checkout this video I found on
the Adobe Developer site yesterday. The url is http://www.adobe.com/
designcenter/gallery/swf/index.html#u_sContent=freedomintera ctive.

For information about internet marketing people can visit my site
www.askbigpapa.com. I just started the site, but I`ve posted several articles
I think will be helpful to the business community.

Josh244

Wow, it`s great that so many people are posting on this thread!
Does anyone else have some helpful sites to list in terms of free (or low cost) marketing (web 2.0 related)?
Thanks!
 
Let`s keep it going!

jwatkins

I think that the key to social site marketing is to try not to market at all. People can see right through it. For instance, making a myspace spot for your business is not going to do as well as a personal myspace that aims to gather friends who just happen to find out about your business. Aim to be truly social and you`ll do better.