Here is a list of some favorite marketing/organizational tools and a short explanation of how each one can help you in your own business.
Facebook Page for Business
With the page in place there are many ways to spread the news about your business and/or products:
use the Facebook badge and add it to your website, encouraging users to become fans
use Facebook’s paid advertising program to show your profile as an ad to users who are most likely to respond to it
add a link to your Facebook page in your email footer
The great feature about Facebook business pages is there is a real opportunity where your friends and their friends are likely to be interested in your products, and can spread the word on your behalf.
Twitter
Small businesses offers many reasons why you would want to "tweet":
- To interact with customers and prospects. Twitter is quick and easy way to spread news about what happening with your company.
- To learn what's happening in your world. Your industry is represented on Twitter.
- To show everyone that you not only know what's happening in your industry, but you are an authority in it. Make yourself a resource of information.
- To hear what your customers and prospects are saying. You don't always have to ask people what they want or need. Sometimes they'll just come right out and tell you.
Great article about Twitter →
Youtube
YouTube is a video-sharing website on which users can upload, share, and view videos. Video can be a very powerful tool for businesses of any size, but YouTube’s free-to-use model, ease of use and mass market audience means it’s a great channel for small businesses. However, like any tool, in order to get the most of it, it needs to be used well.
10 Reasons for using Youtube for Business →
Small Business Blog
Blogs are usually maintained by an individual with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video. "Blog" can also be used as a verb, meaning to maintain or add content to a blog. Many blogs provide commentary or news on a particular subject; others function as more personal online diaries. A typical blog combines text, images, and links to other blogs, Web pages, and other media related to its topic. The ability of readers to leave comments in an interactive format is an important part of many blogs.
Linked In
Many small business people are using LinkedIn in ways you’d commonly imagine: finding leads, growing their business globally, or finding the right vendors.
10 Ways to Use LinkedIn
SEO: Search Engine Optimization
SEO is the active practice of optimizing a web site by improving internal and external aspects in order to increase the traffic the site receives from search engines, like Google, Bing, etc. By optimizing your SEO, it will increase your chances of being found when someone searches.
MailChimp
MailChimp is a fun email marketing service designed with simplicity and ease in mind. The interface is bright and welcoming with a smiling cartoon chimp as their mascot.
SurveyGizmo
SurveyGizmo is the online survey tool for new business. Rich in feature and with an honest price, SurveyGizmo is ideal for the feature-focused marketers, researchers and educators. Whether you are doing simple surveys, complex surveys, evaluations, polls, or HR studies; SurveyGizmo is the right survey tool for you.
CMS: Content Management System
A content management system (CMS) lets you, a small business owner modify your own site without the help of your web designer, which means more money out of your pocket. If you are looking to replace some images of text, it is a great resource to have on your site.
StumbleUpon
StumbleUpon is an excellent bookmarking website which will bring you lots of free traffic to your website. Once people land on your site, they can then give the page a thumbs up, or a thumbs down. People can also leave a short review telling others what they like or don't like about your website they stumbled upon.
One Password: Too many passwords to remember?
1Password can create strong, unique passwords for you, remember them, and restore them, all directly in your web browser.
Delicious: Social Bookmarking Help
Delicious is a Social Bookmarking service, which means you can save all your bookmarks online, share them with other people, and see what other people are bookmarking. Delicious keeps all your bookmarks in one place so you will never lose track of your bookmarks again. Since we store your bookmarks online, you can get to them from any computer, whether you're at home, at work or on the road.
Great Video Explaining Delicious
