Share information and generate leads!
The changing face of online means that there are any number of ways that you can grow your business, as discussed in some of my blog posts. However today I would like to talk about another way you can grow your business and its something I suspect many SMEs don’t know about and potentially might not see the immediate benefit in.
What am I talking about?
Well it revolves around sharing your industry/skill specific knowledge with the very people that want to use your services or buy your products. It’s about generating useful “How To” articles for the public and posting these online. Obviously you can do this through writing blogs on your own site (something I’ll cover in another post) but many SMEs still don’t have a site (something Soup Digital is trying to change).
It’s also a great opportunity (and time saver) to take advantage of these content aggregation sites that love posting your content. Generally speaking they will have greater traffic potential, viral elements, search engine optimization and even advertising budget then you might have access to via your own site.
So what is an article and what do I have to do?
An article is an informative piece of writing that is specific to your expertise such as building, cooking, marketing etc which you then submit to a site such as www.howto.yellow.co.nz (you can check out Soup’s submission here). This site has been set up to provide useful and straight forward advice/information to the public which revolves around Yellow’s main business channel, SMEs. The best thing about this though is that they allow you to contribute! This idea is something that has taken off in the US with the advice content king eHow, where they have a plethora of helpful articles; from making your car more fuel efficient, to finding the best travel deal.
When writing your article don’t go for the hard sell by mentioning your business every second line. Make it informative with a mention of your business, its hook line and a link to your site (if you don’t have a site then try linking to your google maps page, yellow listing page, finda listing page etc) at the end of the article.
If you have the ability to create a Video that can go with the article then you should most definitely submit this as well. If the site you’re trying to submit to only allows for Your Tube or Vimeo embedding rather than uploading directly with them. Then the easiest and best thing to do is set up your own channel on You Tube, upload the video and then use their embedded HTML code as shown below to embed it in your article. Creating a You Tube channel with your How To’s is also a great way of syndicating your content/advice virally. So remember to always use the video editing software to include your business contact details.
Copy and Paste the YouTube HTML code
Won’t I be cannabalizing my own income by providing advice?
You have to give a little to get a lot back! Whilst you may save a person from having to call your business to fix a basic plumbing issue this time. You will be front of mind for more detailed plumbing issues in the future. So don’t be afraid to share your wealth of knowledge that you have amassed over the years from running your own business. I’m not saying contribute and give away all your trade secrets or unique selling points. Be strategic in what you write and almost think of it as a “teaser” to people wanting to use your service or by your products. It’s also a great way of building trust with potential customers.
If you are not comfortable with contributing a full article then at least try commenting on some of the articles already submitted. This will allow you to at least start contributing to the community and on some sites will even let you link back to your site, as Soup Digital has done on this article.
