How to Promote your Business with Social Networking?

(My Original Blog Post: http://ping.fm/qmilY)
Online businesses now dominate the internet. It seems that a lot of business owners want to tap on the global market for increased sales figures. How can you generate traffic for your business site? Novices in internet marketing are wondering how they can effectively promote their business. Well, there are various ways to promote an online business and one is through social networking.

It is possible to promote your online business without spending any money. You see, you can obtain free tried and tested traffic techniques online. All it takes is a bit of research on the right places. Since you’re just starting out, it’s natural for you to cut down on your expenses so you don’t need to spend on the traffic techniques.

Using the free techniques, you can succeed in internet marketing. You can find lots of free tools online like social network sites. Just sign up in one of the popular social networking sites and try to make friends. Once you made enough number of friends, you can start sending promotional materials. Social network sites are like piggy banks and they are quite effective in generating traffic to websites. However, you must first identify your targeted traffic.

Facebook and MySpace are great for starters so that you can test the environment. Aside from these two social network sites, you should also join topical network sites but just make sure that most of the subscribers are active.

Setting up a profile is easy. Don’t forget to post the link that leads to your business site. You can also tell something about your business so that others will know about it. Try to create a table or a subscription box on your profile so that interested individuals can easily reach you.

Making friends is vital since social networks are basically all about connecting with people and developing good relationship. You can’t just bombard other users with promotional materials. You see, you will need to make friends so that you can get their attention, confidence, and trust. Put it this way – if you’re the consumer, you probably don’t want to purchase a product from someone you don’t trust.

The design of your profile should indicate the ones whom you want to meet and try to use appropriate keywords. You can make friend requests and don’t forget to post comments to show your appreciation. Communication is very important if you want to establish a good relationship. Even if you’re already friends, try to limit your promotions.

You also need to look for forums and groups that are related to your business. You must be active in forum discussions so that you can start healthy conversations. All your posts should bear your signature so that other people know that it’s from you. Just put a single link and use the appropriate keywords on your anchor text. Avoid making blatant sales pitches. All the information you provide should be real and valuable.

In using social network sites, try to avoid spamming and obtrusive sales talks because your friends and audience will surely get annoyed by it.