Stepping Out to Social Media. Free or Pay The Piper

So you are ready to make the leap to social media. My first question is "Why have you waited so long in the first place?" My second question is "How are you going to develop your game plan?  If you have a limited budget, chances are
you are going to go after what is free out there over paying for a consultant or paying for various apps or on-line ads.  Free is not so bad.  There are a lot of free platforms that can work to help get your brand out. Paying for enhancing your brand is obviously better.  Let me briefly go over the pros and cons of both and you can decide for yourself based on your needs and your budget. Regardless of what you decide, just making the jump to using social media is a smart choice in this digital age we now live in.

Free Social Media Marketing

Your business exists because you made it happen. You probably built your customer base by having good products or services so your first happy customer told someone else thus word of mouth got you started and perhaps is still working for you. This coincides with repeat business. Your branding that you worked hard to build can be placed for free on platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn to start. These are all free.  While it will take time  intense monitoring of your sites to start, soon, you will build followers if you do it right. Create promotions, interaction with your customers, attach links via your website or email or even on your invoices. The bottom line is get your brand out.

Paying for Social Media Marketing

While we all like free, the other side of social media marketing is paying for related services, apps, and on-line advertising is going to get you better results most of the time. While you may have a free Facebook site, you
can do promotions, use their  per click ads or tap into Google ads top romote your business.  I use Woobox which offers a paid service to promote your business as does another company that integrates with your Facebook called Wildfire. LinkedIn also offers paid ads. Finally , if you have a website (technically not a social media platform) Use the social media platforms you have made to link to your website or vice-versa. Create the interest and make one big circle so everything interconnects!  Your on-line ads creates leads for you, especially if your website deals in e-commerce. Good luck and I hope these tips were of value to you.