12 Ways To Run An Online Marketing Campaign For Free

Image from http://s3.amazonaws.com

1. Interns. Not enough business’ utilize the power of interns. They’re fresh from college, eager, and with an array of skills that they’re just burning to use. Interns can easily be your goldmine. Social media is not a “learned” thing for them like it is for the rest of us. Interns are in their early twenties which means that they grew up with it. They have a massive “friend” market that is totally untapped. Best of all, if you get an intern with a writing degree or a business degree, they might actually be able to teach you something. It doesn’t hurt that interns also work for free because they are also gaining the experience that they need to enter the job market. Why is everyone not doing this? Everyone wins!

2. Utilize employees and their social media platforms. Companies are so obsessed with productivity that they keep their employees in a chokehold and more often than not ignore their suggestions assuming that “they’re just employees.” The truth is that employees could be working for you in ways you didn’t even think of. Instead of punishing people for using social media why don’t you encourage it? You can sparingly use FB if you promise to send out at least two positive posts about our company or another employee every day. Totally fair trade and they’ll be thankful for the opportunity to take small mental breaks throughout the day.

3. Have a solid business plan. Your unique selling point should be on all of your social media stuff all the time. Everyone should know all the time why you’re different.

4. Be yourself.  The more you are yourself the easier it will be for others to connect with you, hence, connect with your business.

5. Demographic. Look at your existing customers and try to aim for that exact same demographic. The more you know your demographic the less time you waste and the less money you need.

6. Social media. Facebook, Twitter and wordpress.com are all free. Three huge platforms for selling  your products or services are free.

7. Make friends. Online and in real life being in business means being social. The more people you befriend the further your business will travel. Word of mouth advertising is the strongest and it doesn’t cost you anything.

8. Don’t be selfish with social media. Don’t spam people to death. Tweet, Update, Post blogs regularly but don’t make it all about you. Provide info that is also really useful to others.

9. SEO. When  you’re blogging make sure you use the same 5 keywords regularly as “tags” or within the text. Link to outside sites. If you do this regularly in no time you’ll be coming up in search engines.

10. Keywords. Choose keywords wisely. If your blog is about Italy don’t pick “Italy” because ten billion other people already use it. Try, “moving to Italy” or “Living in Italy” or something still relevant but not necessarily in direct competition with the world.

11. Never stop learning. It’s never a smart idea to decide that you’re an expert. The moment you do that it’s likely that you’ll stop learning. In todays world you always need to be learning and you always need to be listening to other people.

12. Share the love. Online there is no “competition” in the same way that exists with traditional marketing or business. In fact, making friendly with your competition will likely bring more people to your own site. Link to them, share their updates, “like” them, and soon enough their customers will see you too.

Related articles

• Social Media for Businesses: What You Need to Know (business2community.com)
• 10 Best Hashtag Tools To Increase Your Social Media Exposure (blogussion.com)
• How Employers Use Social Media For Job Recruiting (Infographic) (business2community.com)