Business Marketing: Have You Staked Out Your Internet Turf?

In my inaugural marketing column here on Patch.com, I asked the business owners out there if you have crossed your "t"s and dotted your "i"s when it comes to making sure that your business has a reasonable opportunity to appear in your prospects' search results when they search on Google, Yahoo and other search engines.

It's three months later and we're three months older ... have you done what you needed to get on your prospects radar?

(If you're new to Patch ... welcome aboard! You can read the article to which I refer by clicking here.)

If not, what are you waiting for? If you're stuck, click on the "Email The Author" link at the top of the page next to my name, and I will help you get unstuck!

Let's take a quick look at the business and social networks that are used by the vast majority of both companies and customers.

On the business front, the two primary networks are LinkedIn and Facebook. LinkedIn allows you to create a personal profile into which you can build your business profile, services offered and as much detail as you care to provide. LinkedIn then allows you to connect to associates, colleagues and allied businesses to facilitate communication, contact and, ultimately, build your business' referral base.

During the past several months, LinkedIn has adopted many of Facebook's helpful features, such as status updates, to function as more of a dynamic interaction tool. Basic membership on LinkedIn is free.

Facebook, while primarily a social networking tool, has terrific currency as a branding building block. On Facebook, it's free to create a personal profile and even to create a page for your business. In spite of that "freeness", this year Facebook will displace Yahoo as the top internet display advertising company. 

Reuters recently reported that Facebook will tally $2.2 billion in display ads this year which is just short of 20 percent share of that market. How do they do it? Once you create a page for your business, Facebook makes it very easy for you to promote that page with display ads that blend so nicely with the content ... your customers do not even know that they are ads. You can select who, where and how much you're willing to pay for those ads. Is it affordable? The weekly tab can be less than a nice dinner out on the town.

On the social front, while Facebook holds the lion's share of most folks' online social media time, Google has rolled out Google Plus to tap into the social network phenomenon. Facebook has grown to greater than 50 percent market penetration in the US during the past few months, so it's a great place to build your brand.  

Google Plus is still in beta testing, and at this point, you have to be invited to participate. With Google getting into the game, look for both companies to vastly ramp up their communications offerings. This innovation ultimately means more opportunity for you to communicate your business's offerings to a public with an insatiable thirst for knowledge prior to making a purchase.

These are just a few of the many online marketing opportunities available for your business. On the news and information front, you have options ranging from national websites to hyper-local platforms like our own UpperDublin.Patch.com. The common thread is that the more focused and local your goals are, the more affordable the tools at your disposal become.