I can't afford a huge billboard, I can't buy a spot in my local newspaper, and I can't purchase an ad from Google. This doesn't mean I can't advertise. There are so many opportunities for advertising it isn't even funny. All of the big businesses use it from Home Depot to The Today Show. If it's good enough for them to get free advertising, why can't I?
Blogs are social networks it's worth your time to have one that isn't connected to a business site unless it's your own.
Popular blogging sites include:
Wordpress.com You can't put advertising on this version. You can place a donate button but other than that you can't make money off of it. This is the free version. I can say, though confusing at first, it's fairly easy to navigate. You can keep an eye on stats and much more.
Wordpress.org The same people who brought .com have this version. This particular version you pay for but you can have advertising on a .org site.
Blogger This blog is on blogger and it is, by far, one of the easiest sites to maintain. I can move widgets any where I like without much thought. HTML and JAVA are no brainers and any site that is worth it's weight has HTML to load videos. Blogger has the capability of loading videos. If you're looking for traffic, do youtube. You may as well kill two birds with one stone.
Tumblr It claims that you can keep a partial private blog. Which means you can have some of it for yourself and some of it is public. It can run off Google analytics or automatically tweet your posts. It even sends your blog feed to Facebook.
Posterous Can be done via email. In all honesty, so can Blogger. This is a free service and whatever you mail, will turn into a post. Don't understand how to post a youtube video using HTML? Just grab a link and send it.
Serendipity "is a PHP-powered weblog application which gives the user an easy way to maintain an online diary, weblog or even a complete homepage. While the default package is designed for the casual blogger, Serendipity offers a flexible, expandable and easy-to-use framework with the power for professional applications." For those who don't know, PHP (Hypertext Preprocessor) is a popular general-purpose server side scripting language which can be embedded into HTML to create a wide variety of mini-applications, but can also be used to build large-scale complex applications.
Pixie is located in the UK To run Pixie you need a weserver that supports PHP and MySQL and your browser needs to be Javascript enabled. It's a free platform and claims it will always be.
TypePad Their own blog began in August 2003. This is a service that you need to pay for but they seem to have blogging help in the background. You can post from virtually anywhere your iphone, mobile phone, or email. They Feature blog hosting and site stats.
Compendium .The claim they make, "Compendium Blogware is the only Software as a Service blogging platform built for businesses and organizations. Compendium offers businesses the ability to effortlessly incorporate blogging into their search marketing program for the purpose of:
1. Getting found in organic search results
2. Acquiring new business
3. Adding a human voice to your organization
Micro- Blogging
FriedEggs.com How often have you been on a micro blogging site and said "Oh, darn! I have too many characters!" With FriedEggs that will never happen.
"sometimes 140 characters just 'isn't enough. When you're interested in something or someone, you want to read more, know more or write more. FriedEggs gives you this option. Though again, doesn't require it.
Do you want to add a photo to what you write? It's simple.
What about adding a video? That's easy too.
Now it's all in one place and it can spread to many. It's about choice. Your choice.
At it's yolk, FriedEggs is a hip community of interesting members who share fascinating, funny, and hip stories, news events and entertainment. Sometimes a joke. Sometimes serious. The community is about you."
Twitter I don't think you can talk about mico-blogging without Twitter. It is a head scratching 140 characters sometimes requiring a URL shortner. Nearly everyone uses it which also means people like Maria Shriver and her cool self does friend people on occasion.
Yammer "Yammer is revolutionizing internal corporate communications by bringing together all of a company’s employees inside a private and secure enterprise social network. Although Yammer is as easy to use as consumer products like Facebook or Twitter, its enterprise-grade software is built from the ground up to drive business objectives.
Yammer enables users to communicate, collaborate, and share more easily and efficiently than ever before. It reduces the need for meetings, increases communication across silos, surfaces pockets of expertise and connects remote workers."
Yammer can be used freely or as a premium service.
Present.ly "We don't pretend to know exactly how you will want to use Present.ly in your business. That's why we give you tools to make Present.ly work the way you want. Present.ly's Twitter-compatible API makes it dead simple to create novel ways to interact with the system. And all the tools built for Twitter can be adapted to Present.ly with just a few small modifications."
This is a free service
Jaiku Is run by internet mogul Google "Jaiku's goal is to bring people closer together by enabling them to have conversations. It offers a way to connect with the people you care about by sharing updates with them on the Web, IM, and SMS - as well as through third-party applications built by other developers using the Jaiku API."
Cromple "cromple was created so everyone could start blogging and see what their friends are doing. It's for people who want a simple, no frills blog which they can post to quickly when ever and where ever they want!."
Hellotxt Can be used on your Android, ipone, ipad, and on the web. You can even doodle your updates.
Many of these sites provide a way to connect to potential customers. Don't be afraid to friend people. If you can avoid shortening URL's then go for it. If I don't know you I don't click on links. You need to build trust. I think that's the first thing. You can't have customer loyalty without trust.
Read part 2 More social Networks
No comments:
Post a Comment
Welcome to Jeweltastic! Please feel free to look around.
Spamming is strictly prohibited. I delete anything that isn't related to this post or is completely irrelevant.