Your business page is up on Facebook, and it looks fantastic. Now you need to tell people about it.
First off, you can invite your Facebook friends to become a fan. Send them a link to the page and ask them to refer you to anybody else who might love your work. Add some content to your main page — talk about what you’re doing now, your marketing ideas, your current projects, the meal you had last night — anything. Keep it short, and try to tie it into what you’re already selling. Remember, anything you push to Facebook is public, so keep it clean.
You can promote it on Twitter (sign up, and link your FB page to your Twitter profile, or use ping.fm). Tweet about your new page and your work, and what you’re doing. This doesn’t need to take much time, but it may help you get connected to other sources. Try signing up with as short a name as you can, cause Twitter messages are only 140 characters long, including your name if folks reply to it. Follow other people with the same interests.
Keep adding comments to your page’s wall. Practice writing a little bit on a regular basis. Keep feeding content to your other streams. You can add status updates to LinkedIn, Plaxo, Facebook and Twitter simultaneously using Ping.fm. It’s bit tricky to set up, but if you follow the directions precisely it is a timesaver.
Start building an email list. Use it to send out regular updates on your business, what you’re doing, promotions, whatever, to clients, potential clients, whoever. Vertical Response lets you pay as you go, has templates, and makes it easy to manage your list as it gets larger. Emma and Constant Contact are also good. You can do this on your own, but after trying this route, I do think that the online method is more efficient in the long run. It’s very tough to keep up on this.
Check out these inspirational resources:
http://chrisguillebeau.com/ – Chris Guillebeau
http://www.fluentself.com/ – Havi Brooks & Selma
http://www.ittybiz.com/ – Naomi Dunsford
http://www.problogger.net/ – Darren Rowse
http://www.artbizcoach.com/ – Alyson Stanfield
http://www.artbizblog.com/ – Alyson Stanfield
http://www.squidoo.com
Chris Guillebeau’s blog is awesomely good. Check out his free guide to World Domination. Seriously.
Havi Brooks is just plain fun to read. Like Chris, she’s from Portland. Must be the water. She always, always makes me think, and always makes me smile.
Alyson Stanfield’s book, “I’d Rather be in the Studio” is VVG, even though it’s slanted at artists. She has a lot of useful information that relates to marketing, working practices, etc. (artbizcoach.com)
Naomi Dunsford (ittybiz) has great insights into marketing. Plus if you buy Darren Rowse’s book from her, she donates the full price to charity. Wow.
Squidoo is a new kind of site dedicated to expert opinions — a little like about.com, but much much better. Started by Seth Godin. Oh yeah, he’s a good read too:
That should give you plenty to think about it. More than I can handle in a day. Be patient. It takes time to build a following, but if you truly truly believe in what you’re doing, business will come your way. Have faith.
0 Comments