So you want to promote your business but you have zero budget for additional marketing or outreach. What now?
Not too long ago, this problem would mean that your business had hit a wall, where growth is limited by budget and your small/medium business could never begin to compete with larger competitors. Well, thanks to the infinite wisdom of the Elders of the Internet, the greatest and most efficient promotional tools ever created, don’t cost any money at all.
In short, it all comes down to one simple cliche, “content is king”. Thanks to the internet and social media, you can create this content in practically any form, from a simple blog, to video or even a podcast. And then, pushing your content out to social media will significantly increase exposure to your target audience and drive valuable traffic to your website.
Just follow these simple steps and there’s no reason why you can’t compete with even the toughest of competition:
- Create content in a variety of formats, including text, video, audio, etc. and promote it on the social media (LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Instagram). Since Google doesn’t penalize for duplicate content, you should multiply your efforts by posting the same content on multiple social sites. However, when posting your content to social media, you should only post part of your content and prompt readers to click through to your site to read the rest.
- Search Google for forums relevant to your business and respond to questions. Within your forum response, add a signature that includes your website. The better your responses and the more frequently you post, the more you set yourself up as a thought leader to an increasingly large audience.
- Quora is a platform which allows users to ask questions and uses Twitter-like following to track your favorite contributors and is therefor, an excellent platform on which to set yourself apart as a true thought leader in your field. Just go to Quora and search for questions that relate to your business and answer them. When it makes sense, you should link back out to your website. By helping more potential customers, you’ll be reaching a more relevant audience and inevitably, you’ll see noticeably growing returns on your time.
A wise man once said, “Your ultimate resource is your resourcefulness” and in the shadow of budgetary limitations, your greatest resource boils down to the one thing that money can’t buy, thought-leadership.
No one knows your business as well as you, but no one will ever know that if you don’t put yourself out there.
