“Unpaid public speaking is a fantastic way to drum up new business. Associations and Chambers of Commerce are always looking for free speakers educate and entertain at meetings. You’ll make your money from the “back of the room” after the event selling products/services, getting referrals and booking more gigs.”

—Leslie Guria, SpeakingBonanza

“As the person responsible for marketing our new website, I am online all of the time, blogging on all different websites. I share content from our site with others that currently have more traffic than ours, create links, and use Social Media (Twitter and Facebook) to post relevant information.”

—Julie ArnheimCo-Founder, RubbingNickels

“I launched a home-based publishing business in 1997 and by 1999 I was running it full-time and was able to hire my husband away from his “real job.” One of our marketing tips is to publish a free, opt-in weekly ezine or newsletter that provides high-quality content to your readers (potential customers) that they can’t find anywhere else. This reminds them that you and your products are there for them.”

—Angela Hoy, Publisher, BookLocker, WritersWeekly

In her Small Business Trends post, “20 Reasons People Unfollow You On Twitter,” Barone shares the results of a quick poll she did with Twitter users.  All of the tips are insightful and worth reading, especially these four.

1. You’re a self-promoter: Lots of people mentioned that they were turned off by Twitter users who do nothing but promote their own content. You want to drive traffic to your site, but there’s other content out there.

2. You’re too self-centered. Twitter is about connecting with others and not making it about you.

3. You auto-DM: Nothing hurts more than choosing to follow someone you think is cool…and then being hit with the dread auto spam DM. There will always be something annoying and creepy about getting a sales pitch via DM. Build a relationship before you try to sell something to someone.

4. You don’t share anything new. There’s nothing wrong with retweeting unless that’s all you do. Share new information when you can.

Doing it on your own
PR firms can help a small business grow but not everyone can afford to hire a firm. That means it’s up to you to spread the word in hopes of being featured in a national article, doing an interview on a national show or being included on a popular blog.  The tips in the post  “6 Ways To Get Press For Your Startup Without Hiring A PR Firm” are a good guide for getting the word out.

• Start a blog and write about this industry. Don’t just write about your company, but write about the broader industry you participate in. Cost used to keep folks from starting a blog but there are several affordable options out there for transforming your blog dream into a reality.

• Start an informal email blast list of industry journalists and/or thought leaders. After you write a good blog post, shoot it out to reporters so they know it exists. When a reporter or producer is covering your topic, your name should come to mind first because you’ve kept in contact with key journalists. Make sure your e-mails don’t come across as sales pitches.

• Participate in industry chatter on Twitter. Reporters are now increasingly looking at Twitter for stories and quotes. It’s an easy way to join the conversation and get your way into a story. Before you post one more update about the coffee shop you just left or a party you’re going to, consider whether you’ll attract a reporter’s interest.

LinkedIn: marketing magic
LinkedIn isn’t used as much as it should and could be used.  I’m guilty of favoring Twitter and Facebook over LinkedIn but after reading the post “6 Powerful LinkedIn Marketing Tips for Small Businesses” I’m going to give LinkedIn more attention.   A few of the marketing tips include:

• Boosting your search engine optimization. The author, Naomi Trower, shares a quick tip for adding key words to your profile. It takes only a few seconds to do.

• Promoting your blog feed so they show up as updates. Tower provides two ways to link your blog posts to your updates. It’s a good way to stay active on LinkedIn and other social media sites with little effort. You’re going to do a blog post anyway so why not share it outside of your blog audience?

• Getting recommendations so you can get more clients. That’s the next task on my to-do list. I’m going to start giving recommendations. Maybe that will give me more motivation (and courage) to ask for recommendations from others.

Marketers are finding new uses for text messages.

Did you know that according to CTIA, the wireless industry trade group, around 3.5 billion text messages are sent and received every day? And while you may think that teens are contributing to those high numbers—I know my sons and their friends are—it turns out the biggest increases are in people over 30 years old.

An article in The New York Times describes some creative ways companies are marketing to cell phone users of all ages through text messages. They’ve found we’re more likely to read a text message than an e-mail. Considering most of us get more e-mails than text messages, it makes sense.