10 Steps to promote your starting Small Business

As much as a web presence strategy is a must for a starting small business, you should not think about such a strategy without reading these two amazing insights written by Rob Waker and Dan Morrill at Insightcommunity. Here is just parte of what Dan Morrill wrote in his insight called "10 Steps to getting into social media for a new company":

"
Step One: Get started:
Figure out:

• what are you building,


• why are you building it,


• what niche does it fill in

Once you have the mechanics of the business down, and you know what you are doing, you are enthused and passionate about what you are doing, and you want to go to work every day, this is the best start you can have.

Step Two: Start a blog
(...)You are a startup, we want to know more about you, we need something to link to, you get Google page rank the more you get linked. (...) This gives us and your readers a way to follow how your company is doing, you will also provide inadvertently startup lessons for everyone along the way. Even if your startup fails, you might end up like Andy Sack, widely respected and followed because of his blog.

Step Three: Twitter
Oh yes, you do want to do this! Even if you think it is silly, microblogging. Tie your blog into twitter...

Step Four: Start a Facebook and Linked In page for your company
Make friends, tie "rule five" into your Facebook account. Friend as many people as you can, or at least those that look like legitimate people who honestly wish you well. Tie your Facebook page into your FriendFeed page (next step)

Step Five: Start a FriendFeed Account
Tie your blog, twitter, and other media (if you make a great video of your product and put it on YouTube, if you podcast, anything that is your own companies channel) so that there is a one stop shop for everything you are doing. Link heavily to your FriendFeed account; use a widget to tie your FriendFeed account back to your blog.

Step Six: Start a "Social Median" account and send all your FriendFeed traffic to that account, this way there is just one feed, and social median is a great way to get noticed... You do need to keep up with this though, the more social obligations you take on, the more people expect you to keep up with them.

Step Seven: Find industry thought leaders
If you are not in Seattle, find the local equivalents to these kinds of people(...) Don’t just send them a PR sheet, court them, talk to them, offer them coffee, come down for a visit. Make a personal connection, and then let them write about you. This means there are at least seven people in the Seattle who will talk about you and link to you right off the bat.Your town might have more.

Step Eight: Keep the conversation going
All of us are busy, we will forget about you in the fog of shiny shiny, let us know how things are going from time to time. Send us a personal note, let us know directly that something big is coming, another guided tour, another cup of coffee, a demo, awesome.

Step Nine: Go to conventions
If you can make it, save money and go to startup conventions like Techcruch and others. Get a booth, smooze, see what others are doing, allow yourself to be interviewed by everyone, this will require more coffee, and in some cases a beer or two. Have plenty of business cards, have a huge sense of humor, but go do this.

Step Ten: Go to every single local meeting for startups and make friends.
MIT Venture Lab, meetings at colleges, small halls, Your local Tech Startup list, and get involved in the conversation. If something grabs your interest, blog about it, tweet about it, keep the connection going. Then revert back to rule two and keep this whole process flowing. It is not so much that your idea is brilliant it is that you need to communicate how brilliant your idea is.

"

Now, read part of what wrote Rob Walker in an insight called "10 Ways to Promote Your Small Business Online":

"Below are 10 things small businesses should be doing to reach their local consumers online:

1. Facebook Company Profile. Create a Facebook company profile..

2. Google Maps. This free service lets you add your business' information into the Google Map results.

3. YouTube. Create a YouTube page for your business and start creating videos (see #4 below).

4. Video, Video, Video. Have someone with some decent film skills film you and your business.

5. Yelp. Create a Yelp profile for your business.

6. Create and Join Groups. Most of the Social Networking sites provide the ability for you to create a "group".

7. Have a decent Web Site. This one is not free but it's not that expensive either. If you don't know anyone check out the local college (they may work for beer). Link all of the above to your web site.

8. Email. Your domain name and web site provider will also have an email service.

9. Blog. Blogging takes two forms - you can create your own blog and/or you can become active posting comments on other blogs.

10. Pull it all together. Connect your online communication tools together and to your offline marketing. All of the above should link together. And all of your business cards, print ads, fliers, and other offline material should list all of your online contact points. Make fun ways for your customers to engage you online. For example, your restaurant could offer 10% off customers that provide their email address (send the coupon to their email), any customer that becomes a "fan" of your Facebook page gets a free bag of swag, Customers that create a video testimonial get a free meal.

Doing the above will greatly amplify your marketing message into your local market and create new opportunities for your customers and potential customers to engage in your brand.

"

You can find more about emerging online marketing opportunities at www.internet-marketing-db.com.

Insightcomumunity has other excellent insights and I'd strongly recommend you to read, at least, the two articles above completely before starting a small business.