Marketing Questions

[Jo-Anne Peck]

Has anyone found any of the following internet sites useful in their marketing and branding: Twitter, Facebook, Squidoo, Merchant Circle, blogging? (Any others I left out that you've found successful?) I feel like I'm spending a lot of time with Internet marketing, but don't know that it's doing any good with our local market (and it is wearing me out).

As a side note, please consider becoming Facebook fan of our business page (just in case it helps) at http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/pages/Brooksville-FL/Historic-She.... We will do the same for anyone on the list. Thanks!

[GalleriaLinda]

Hi Jo-Anne!

I find Twitter to be invaluable. Sign up for www.twitterfeed.com and you can RSS anything you have that has an RSS. Perhaps you don't now, but do you have an online store? A blog? These things can be fed to twitter without you being there.

I have two blogs and 2 online shops that are fed through twitterfeed every time something is posted so I try to post frequently.

Also, check out my business blog at http://indieCEO.blogspot.com that is targeted to indie businesses. I am working through a list of great marketing resources and am in the middle of a series called "Blogging is an Art" that could give you some ideas.

I will go to Facebook to friend you! I will be "Linda Harrell." Best wishes for the new year!

Linda

[Ester Venouziou]

Here at localshops1, we're relatively new to Twitter, but have found it's already us make lots of connections and stay in touch with people. We have rss feeds coming in from our blog and from our main web site (localshops1.com), so it's also getting more local business names out there ... when businesses update their entries, that shows up automatically on twitter.

A blog is great, as far as search engines go. Make sure it's updated frequently, though.

We maintain Facebook, MySpace, blog, Twitter. Plus LocalShops1.com and LocalShops1.ning com, of course ... and we've found it's easy to get wrapped up in all of this. It's important to check in frequently, on all the networks, but stay focused. Respond to all messages, join some forums, check in with people you haven't heard from in a while, update your status. But don't get lost in all this. Figure out how much time you can realistically set aside for the internet marketing/networking and stick with it. Make it part of your work day. Maybe half hour, three times a day, and see how that works out.

But don't get so lost in it that you fall behind on other aspects of your business, or on real-live interaction.

[jj v]

esch industry has different results

Twitter- Facebook etc is a new marketing style and has fantastic results for different industries and we also use these marketing tools but also for our i nternet advertisment we post ads on different networks that are focused on the industry that we work with and the industry we sell and of course the old fashion way trade shows still you get results

[Jo-Anne Peck]

Thanks for all the great comments and advice! I have decided to stop checking and fussing over all the sites quite so much, which has made me more productive already (funny how that is working out!). I am going to set aside a certain number of hours each week to internet marketing, and hold it at that for a while to see if that gives me a better sense of balance. I was dreaming up new topics for Squidoo lens while I slept, so I think I've been over-stressing the web marketing side of things :)