How to promote my business using social networking
I see many companies using social networking (Twitter, Facebook etc) to promote their products and services. I've never used sites like this, and don't really know where to begin from a marketing perspective.
What is the best way for me to exploit social networking to promote my small software business? (We sell a niche enterprise level application)
Marketing Advertising Social Network
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You probably don't mean it this way, but asking how to "exploit social networking to promote" is like asking how to "use workers to get more labor". Social networking isn't that different from this site: add value to get value. Treat it like something you can just wring value out of from the regular users, and it won't get you anywhere. – Jay Neely 14 years ago
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'exploit' was more a figure of speech :) I take your point about adding value though - any ideas on how to approach this? Would 'Tweeting' industry news be one way to go? Or maybe Tweeting about how our software solves specific scenarios? – Cocowalla 14 years ago
4 Answers
Check out Hubspot.com. Dharmesh, one of the hosts of this site, is a co-founder. The Hubspot website has a lot of useful marketing information, including free whitepapers on how to leverage Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn for your business, and lots of webinars.
Update: They posted a new eBook, How to Use Online Video for Marketing.
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I am half way through Dharmesh's book - Inbound Marketing - terrific resource! – Warren E. Hart 14 years ago
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+1 for great answer. Hubspot seems to be down though? =( – Frank 13 years ago
You ARE in a social website already.
Other websites like Facebook or LinkedIn are very similar to this one. They connect people that have the same interests and that want to discuss them with their peers.
One good place to start looking at would be LinkedIn.
There are thousands of LinkedIn groups where people meet to ask questions and find help.
You'll most probably find several groups where your prospects meet.
Joining these groups is free (although some are by invitation only).
Once you are in the group, you need to take a 3 step approach (which, by the way, applies to any social media site):
1) Start to listen to what others are saying, what questions they have, what they discuss..
2) Get involved, answering their questions, without pitching anything. Build a reputation. Help others. Make connections. Build your network.
3) After a while, people will start knowing who you are. At that point, it is ok to include a non-sales pitch in some of the answers, always making sure you explicitly say that "this is the company I work for, this is my product".
Hope this helps
The Hubspot site mentioned above and the Inbound Marketing book are excellent resources.
Another excellent resource is David Meerman Scott's outstanding book The New Rules of Marketing and PR.
Social media is all about interactions. Find a community, or build one. Contribute, be of service without expecting anything in return. Over time, people will start to notice.
