Free marketing for those in the know

Anyone who isn't using social media to help market their business is missing out on an opportunity for global exposure, according to Webquest owner David Penn.
Webquest makes and manages websites. The company is based in Wanganui but through the internet it can encompass the world.
Social media websites like Facebook and Bebo started as places for people to chat and share pictures with online "friends". But like a face-to-face talk with a flesh-and-blood friend, their conversations have sometimes strayed to business matters.
This was a natural progression, Penn says, for a medium used for day-to-day communication.
Marketing first crept into social media in the early 2000s in the United States, says online marketing consultant Leah Villanueva.
It started with people who owned and managed their own businesses and wanted to tell their friends about what they had to offer.
These days, even share traders, especially those under 35, are turning to Twitter for immediate and real-time market analysis.
Using social media for marketing only works if people see it, and Facebook is the world's most-used social medium. It has more than 637 million users.
"Facebook is a very, very good marketing tool," Penn says.
About 15 months ago, he set up a group called Wanganui on Facebook. On its page he puts information about Wanganui events, clubs, community groups and organisations. He sent the link to some friends who were also on Facebook.
It spread like wildfire from those people to their friends, and Penn accepted anyone interested in Wanganui events as a "friend" of the group. "Within 24 hours of launching I had 1276 friends. It's got 3078 members, as of today. When I post a message there, it will appear on their Facebook page next time they open it.
"It's very powerful," he says.
Former Wanganui Mayor Michael Laws uses his Facebook page as a way of disseminating his opinions and drawing listeners into his talkback radio show.
"He has a huge following, posts personal stuff and accepts everyone," Penn adds.
Laws posted photographs of his children, taken at school, and said people could contact him if they wanted the photographer's details.
"This guy suddenly had all these people aware of him as a photographer," Penn says.
Penn is about to set up a Facebook page for Wanganui glass artist Katie Brown, who has recently made a set of chandeliers for a restaurant. The page will have a YouTube video of the chandeliers, lit up above people as they dine. Once it's on the Katie Brown Glass page, it will also be on the personal Facebook pages of everyone who is part of her group.
Putting things on the internet is just the first step, Penn says.
After that, they have to be managed in order to get maximum exposure.
Businesses want their content to come up high in search engine lists - making this happen is known as search engine optimisation (SEO).
SEO is carried out by specialists, such as Villanueva, who works mainly from her home in the Philippines.
She says she has learned her skills from mentors who had both commercial nous and the critical ability to analyse ideas and numbers.
For the glass artist, Villanueva will scrutinise the internet presence of glass groups and of individuals interested in glass. To do that she will use free tools that analyse social media trends, she will read about statistics and she will examine arts and business magazines.
She will then try to get links to Brown's group into the online places that those people go to. "I am careful about being tagged as spamming or over-promotion. So I have to be subtle." Seeing the chandeliers in use in a restaurant will make them desirable - without being obviously promotional, and should give the Wanganui artist an international market.
"No longer is your market confined to your local boundaries," says Penn. Everyone that isn't using social media to complement their marketing activities is missing the boat in my opinion." There are pitfalls though, he warns.
Fake Twitter accounts and Facebook pages pop up daily, and mistakes and unwanted information spread just as quickly as promotional material.
Villanueva says people who want to use Facebook to promote their small businesses need to consider why people go there in the first place. "It's likely those people in Facebook are not there to look for products or services but to get in touch with friends and loved ones."

THE FACTS
Top sites for marketing
Facebook (has more than 637 million users)
Twitter (for news posts of 140 characters or less)
LinkedIn (for business people)
World's top five users of  Facebook
United States
Indonesia
United Kingdom
Turkey
Philippines