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Using Social Media Tools for Marketing: Why I No Longer Advertise My Business
Original Post by Niamh Arthur
Obviously everybody these days is on some form of social media online. It’s the new way that we communicate and work together.
People are essentially social. Gone are the days when we trusted big companies and brand names, now we prefer to know who we are working with or giving our money to. We want to know their stories, their likes and dislikes, we like to work with people like us.
Using social media tools for marketing allows me to simply be myself online, provide valuable information and content to anyone who is looking for it, and I attract people who share common interests and feel that they already know who I am, to my business. The benefit is not just that they know who I am and what I’m about, but I get to deal with the type of people I want to work with. I want to work with people like myself and my team, big-thinkers, positively motivated, want to be a force for good. Nothing is more frustrating in business than wasting your time with people you just do not resonate with. It’s frankly depressing when you try to deal with people who are negative and pessimistic.
When you advertise you have absolutely no control over the type of people who respond to you. You know nothing about them, and quite often they have a “show me” attitude. They approach the interaction with suspicion because you are a stranger to them. When you attract people to you using social media they already know that you provide value, they know that you are a moral person, and that you are genuine. These people only contact you if they feel they would like to work with you, so by the time you are spending time with them they simply have to decide if they like what you are offering, they already know they like you.
For several months now I have not advertised my business at all. I have not placed any ads (well, apart from ones on Craigslist, which is also a community). By only using social media tools for marketing the difference is now I get to collaborate with others, I get to provide a service, I get to find the people I want to work with and who want to work with me. One of the best parts is…it’s absolutely free! You just have to spend some time to create good content for people and to make connections.
This is a great video that outlines some of the statistics of social media tools. It goes a bit fast…but you can pause to catch some of the stats. Really fascinating… ”
