Some of the marketing services currently available over the Internet today can be found on Google, Yahoo!, Bing, Go Daddy and a variety of other search engines. If you do not want to pay for these services and desire to create a presence on the Web you may want to consider some social sites to do some advertizing for you. Some of these alternatives for less costly, or free, Internet marketing can be found on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Meetup.com and Gmail – just to name a few.

Using these less expensive alternatives may not get you to the top of the Google page however; these social networking services are also being fished daily for key-words found within the text contained on the pages generated on each of them. Further, the people who use these alternatives have found a way to create leads and generate interest that has proved to be an invaluable part of doing business.

The following is a breakdown of some of the services you can expect to find of each of the aforementioned sites:

• LinkedIn will allow you to create a personal and/or professional profile where you may include who you are, where you are located and a detailed description of the services your company – provides.
• Facebook provides the user with a personal profile as well as an option to generate a business profile within their existing account. It is easy to toggle between your two pages and share your business profile with all of your Facebook friends and gives them an opportunity to click a ‘Like’ button at the top of your profile. Clicking on the ‘Like’ option generates another post to your friends Newsfeed whereby all of your friends’ contacts are then also able to click to view your business page instantly.
• Gmail provides a free email service as well as a chat option that several companies use for sales meetings as well as to train employees all over the globe. One business owner shared with me recently that she “found the people that don’t do well in the beginning are the ones that don’t use the Gmail chat option.”
• Twitter allows users to create a public account that gives the option to post your page to Google for free. Utilizing the status message on Twitter also gives your friends and ‘followers’ updates to what may be happening with you or your business instantly.
• YouTube is a free viral service that has been used by people to express their more creative side. Creating a professional business video and posting it to YouTube is a great way to educate the public at large about the services your company provides and to generate interest and leads that will inevitably grow your business.
• Meetup.com is unique in that it allows people to search for events taking place within their local community. Posting an event on this site can greatly benefit a business owner, or someone looking to generate leads and is well worth taking the ten minutes to sign up and post your event to their site.

Additionally, if you are looking for an inexpensive way to promote your business, Vista Print provides a wide array of creative services that business owners can use to market themselves at very little cost. The first 250 business cards ordered through VistaPrint are free.

While there seems to be a plethora of information and services available on the World Wide Web, the Internet, as a vehicle of marketing and doing business, is still in its infancy stages of what can be created and accomplished. As Walt Disney said, “We keep moving forward, opening new doors, and doing new things, because we’re curious and curiosity keeps leading us down new paths.”

References:

Geoffrey Kutnick, Marketing Director, Rudeluv Designs & Marketing, RD&M,; Lecture; 26, July 2011