Social networking

**businesgoonline** · 02-01-2009 01:40 AM

Do you think is social networking site like friendster and facebook help in small business or home based business sales?

**SIMPLEROBB** · 02-01-2009 02:25 AM

Yes! Definitely. It's free marketing.

**Jbolden1987** · 02-01-2009 02:53 AM

Yep youtube is also huge as u probably know

**SIMPLEROBB** · 02-01-2009 02:54 AM

Originally Posted by Jbolden1987

Yep youtube is also huge as u probably know

Yeah! You can't leave out Youtube

**Nordstrom** · 02-01-2009 05:06 AM

I believe these sorts of threads are quite "deceptive". To be able to say if it is a "good" way to get sales we need to know how much time you have each day to spend on marketing. If you have 1 hour you will probably be better off with some other methods whereas if you have an infinite amount of time, every single marketing technique is "good".

If I make the estimates myself, I would reccon it to be a good idea for someone like you. With a good targeted group with your market it can even be a very profitable way to take it.

**businesgoonline** · 02-02-2009 02:10 AM

with youtube, you would probably need to have a video for your product, say for instance, if you are selling flower, you have a flower related video with your web link or contact info in the video, and surfer watch the video as well as your link or contact.

But do you think if the youtube user today will search for "flower" in the search box?

I am quite frustrated in effectively using social networking website for promoting business

**justindentin** · 02-03-2009 09:30 AM

I've actually contemplated creating a MySpace for the business but have hesitated mostly due to the very nature of MySpace. It's primarily, as you state, a social networking site that's really geared towards person-to-person socialization.

I also think that the nature of the small business will determine if a valid presence can be made or not. For example, businesses geared towards the entertainment industries may fare better than say insurance companies due to the inordinate amount of musicians, wanna be models & actors on MySpace.

There are a few avenues on MySpace that may be worth exploring:

1) Groups: Create a group centered around your small business. Recruit members, encourage discussion, publish posts, etc.

2) Events: Create an event centered around your business, be it in a physical location or out in the virtual world.

3) Classifieds: Pretty self-explanatory

Hmm, now that I took some time to devote some thought to it, I may look into MySpace again. Thanks for the inspiration imisidro!

The social network sites that seem to be more advantageous to small businesses are Squidoo, Ryze & LinkedIn. I'm a member of all three but admittedly have not had much time to devote to exploration.

Hope that helps!