Posted on Wednesday, October 15th, 2014 by Uri Jacobson
The internet has revolutionized many aspects of life, personal and professional. For businesses it accomplishes many feats, from opening up new markets to innovations in working and communications. However, one area that has been perhaps most positively affected by the internet in general is advertising.
All of the following offer premium versions of your products, or they may ask you to install software on top of their web services. Don’t be afraid to upgrade, but remember, you can get a lot of mileage out of their free advertising tools.
LinkedInThe “professional” social media site, LinkedIn, is one key opportunity that companies shouldn’t miss out on. Beyond offering support for expanding customer bases, it helps firms seek out top talent in their industry across the globe and other businesses, fostering partnerships and mutually beneficial support. This free resource for advertisers allows firms to reach clients quickly and open up a conversation with them that is unparalleled by pre-internet solutions.
And just recently, LinkedIn added a fantastic content marketing section to their offerings, totally for free. This means that you can reach your followers and thousands more by publishing high quality content on their platform. LinkedIn is moving towards Content Management Systems like Tumblr and WordPress. This development works in the favor of frugal marketers looking to reach wide audiences.
They make it simple to self-publish your content directly on their platform. LinkedIn is a safe choice for publishing your writing, particularly if you don’t have a strong connection to editors and blogs. Although you won’t get much SEO credit for your LinkedIn efforts (the articles are not directly tied to the LinkedIn domain), if you provide a lot of value in the article you can drive some serious traffic to your site.
Business owners and marketers should not miss out on email advertising. There is no better way to get in touch with an audience that has already shown interest in your brand than with email. MailChimp provides an excellent platform to reach out to your audience in a fun and engaging way.
MailChimp offers a comprehensive set of customization tools that allow you to brand your message exactly how you want. Of course, they have pre-made templates on hand that will cost you a few bucks, but with a little practice you can create emails that grab your user’s attention and doesn’t let go. They also promise “forever free” analytics that give you a real sense of how your messages and call-to-actions are performing.
Video content is one of the strongest and widely-diversified solutions for marketing any business can embrace; YouTube has provided a convenient new way to reach billions of viewers at once. Viral videos prove that people love to watch content on a regular basis.
And the mobile revolution isn’t hurting either. A recent study found that 41 percent of adults have watched at least one video on a mobile device, 63 percent of tablet users watch videos for 10 minutes or longer at a given time and the mobile video ad market is rapidly growing, reaching $520 million in spending in the U.S. alone in 2013, according to Business Insider.
To get the most out of your YouTube channel, you need to keep your viewers on your videos as long as possible. An easy way of accomplishing this goal is to create playlists on your brand’s YouTube channel (you do have a channel, don’t you?) When a user views one of your video masterpieces, they will automatically enter the playlist cycle, leading them directly into your next piece of content.
TwitterPeople love Twitter, and while the 140-character limit may seem daunting at first many firms have mastered the art of selling a product in the short format. Utilizing twitter can help firms reach millions of consumers instantly, start trending topics using #hashtags and generate buzz faster than on Facebook or other social networks. Twitter’s built in video solution, Vine, also allows for many of the benefits company’s achieve through YouTube, but in a shorter time frame as well.
Being successful on Twitter entails much more than just posting tweets. A strong Twitter advertising campaign demands that you create a thriving community of your followers. Consumers these days want their brands to be accessible and reachable; Twitter allows you to do just that. The real strength of the platform is the direct link it creates between you and your customers. Even the giant B2C brands can use Twitter to reduce their monolithic images with an active, engaged Twitter account.
Creating dynamic engagement takes a lot of work, but fortunately all these capabilities are completely free on the platform. If you’re not sweating for your brand, you aren’t optimizing your social channels.
In conjunction with Twitter, a strong advertising strategy should incorporate TweetDeck. This free dashboard allows you to manage several Twitter accounts at once. Your homepage actively updates with Tweets from your regular homepage so you are always in the loop. And with their scheduling tool, you can create an entire month-long campaign in just one afternoon.
Building Your Core BrandMany companies throw money down the drain when it comes to online advertising. But in the end, there is no substitute for engaging content and active outreach.
There so many free tools at your disposal, play with them to see which fit your brand message the best. Along with these sites, there is plenty of free software you actually install to use. The internet offers so many opportunities for advertisers that it’s almost impossible not to implement at least one, and taking advantage of them in an informed and efficient way will enhance the success of these efforts.
The installCore installation platform, and its parent company ironSource have a great deal of experience working with strong advertisers and publishers. After examining their download and installation analytics, it’s clear that the best brands make the most out of the free advertising tools at their disposal.
You may notice that all the majority of tools mentioned on our list center around social networks. YouTube, Twitter, and many others should form the core of any coherent advertising effort, particularly those that don’t have a lot of funds to spare. There is no shortage of high quality websites and software that you can integrate into your campaigns–you will be amazed at how a simple tool can affect your bottom line.
