Not Popular Yet? Do the Affectation!

You are just a startup business owner and you don’t know where to begin your promotion. You already have a website but since you launched it on the Web, no one from your prospect market has visited it yet. You have hundreds of Twitter followers but no one bothered to click your “marketing tips”, and your Facebook has transformed to a semi-personal site since your friends are more concerned with your profile photo than with your “business updates”.

The answer to your problem is affectation.

Doll up your business website

Since you are a startup, the only way to speed up your promotion is through SEO and a well-executed online presence. Now that you have a business website, the first thing you should do is give it a makeover. If your site is still not yet SEO-friendly and ready (has not gone through proper keyword optimization research yet, has too much Flash contents), or if it still has a very awkward unprofessional design, then approach a Web developer and give your site a decent redesign. In addition, write a keyword-rich About Page. This page must contain your achievements, goals and visions as a business owner, a list of your skills and knowledge (and where you learned them), and a brief history of your business (and why you chose it from among other businesses). Keep in mind that you still have to be professional when you write your About Page; do not be “too braggy” about it, because most people hate “over the top” descriptions.

Publicize yourself as a business owner on your social networking accounts

If you are really serious about your business, you have to forget being overly narcissistic on your social networking account. You should learn how to separate your personal life from your business life. Get a separate business account and use it for promotion and marketing purposes only. In addition, when tweeting or creating Facebook updates, remember to use the proper language to brand yourself as a serious, knowledgeable businessperson. Do not over tweet and over promote your services and products. Focus more on answering their queries just as professionals do.

Your goal is to “make it”

This affectation should come with learning. If you will just pretend for the rest of your business life, then you will just end up faking and fooling both your customers and yourself. As you perform your affectation in your personal business website and social media accounts, read more books about your niche and business, study your target market, and formulate possible products and services from the results of your studies. Lastly, always remember that your main goal is to transform your affectation into reality, so that in the future, you do not have to display a “not-so-real-you” just to get your market’s approval.