10 Free Steps for those who wonder, Is it Too Late to Start Social Marketing?

The New Tricks motto is,

It is never too Late

Here is a list I created of 10 free steps that will jump start your business into the New Year using social media technologies. Do it yourself or call New Tricks to do it for you, but please do it! You will be glad you did.

1. Google your business name and find out what comes up.  Do you come up? Is it what you want to see?  Does your business site come up or maybe a Yelp listing, or listing on some other site? Are those links correct, if not some of them allow you to “claim” your business so you can and correct the info, add pics and so forth. Are you satisfied with your placement or do you have work to do?
2. Set up a Google Profile for your personal name so people can find you and your business. Add all of your websites or links to it.
3. Add your company to Google’s local business center which puts you on Google Maps and so much more.
4. Ask your friends/employees/clients to give you feedback on your current website. Get a free consultation on your current website from a web designer who builds content management websites. There are new technologies available ( WordPress for one) that make it easy to have a great site that you can maintain yourself.
5. Sign up for Google Alert on your business name or brand. What are people saying about you or your business?
6. Set up Social Media Sites. Definitely start with a personal Facebook, a Twitter and a Linked -In account and go ahead and fill out your entire profile to include a real photo of yourself. Describe your business and regularly promote your products, but especially on Facebook do not make it only about your business, these are your fiends and they want to hear about you. Work it. Promote other things you come across, whether it be a  great blog post or  news item that your readers might be interested in. Recommend people you have worked with on Linked-In.
7. Get a TweetDeck account to direct your Twitters to the right accounts, ( multiple Twitter accounts and to Facebook) and have full function of  bity urls and pics on your tweets.
8. Create an e-mail signature that contains your contact information including social media addresses, blogs, websites and logo. You can add this pre-formatted signature to each and every e-mail you send out. You can easily add a text signature but we have a great post on adding a photo to your Gmail signature.
9. Google Social Media and find a few people that you like what your hear. Subscribe to their blogs or follow them on Twitter. Ask people who you admire who they follow.
10. Go to the Gravitar ( globally recognized avatar) website and add your profile picture. This photo will appear whenever you leave a comment on a Gravitar enabled website.

Have fun. The cool thing is all of these things are totally FREE. Social Media Guru, Seth Godin says,

The problem is no longer budget. The problem is no longer access to tools. The problem is the will to get good at it.

Remember this: Three frogs were sitting on a log. One decides to jump in. How many frogs are sitting on the log? Three. One decided to jump in – but he didn’t actually jump in. So jump on in.  It’s never too late. But you need to  go ahead and jump.

Tagged as: judi knight, seth godin, Social Media Atlanta