6 DIY Marketing Online Strategies the Easy Way

GOOGLE PLUS
One of my favorite DIY Marketing tools is Google Plus because it's still under the radar, yet very potent. This is such an easy SEO tool that many have latched onto, but far more have not. Hence, you can rise far above your competition! I value Google Plus for two reasons:

• You can bookmark your articles in it. When you hit that little g+ button on an article you've written, Google is instantly notified of this new article, and it begins filtering your g+ tag in its rankings. Now your article can be found by those searching on Google, and the Google Plus bookmark/recommendation you just created. This is an SEO perk that helps any pages you've published or articles you've written rank higher in search engines.
• You can add your face to Google Search results. I know most of you haven't done this, because I don't see your cute faces in my search results when I'm Googling something! The huge benefit here is that amid a sea of recommended articles Google presents you with, you may be more inclined to click on an article that has a friendly face next to it. Plus, if you publish articles at other websites (like members can here at Tin Shingle in various sections of our website) that ladder back to yours, and if you tell your Google Plus account about these websites, your face will show up for those pages too. I've covered exactly how to add your face or headshot to Google search results here.

INSTAGRAM
My favorite marketing activity right now in Instagram is to engage with others. And this goes beyond tagging other people who are in a photo, or who may like a photo. And by the way, I caution you against tagging a bunch of people in a photo you are using for marketing purposes just because you want to be sure that person sees your photo.

I'm talking about conversing with individuals in the Comments section of a photo - and letting them know you are conversing with them. Instagram can be an accidentally one-sided dialogue place. Here's what I mean: Even though Instagram is owned by Facebook, it doesn't behave like Facebook (yet). You know how when you are on Facebook and you comment about something in someone's status update, you get notified of when most other people also comment or "like" it? Well you don't in Instagram. In order to let someone know that you are responding to them is to include their @ name in your comment.
(Thanks Crissy Heron and Peggy Li for confirming this!)

For example: You posted a photo. Someone commented on it. Great! You get notified via your notification center in Instagram. You go to write them back in the Comments section. Trouble is, they don't get notified that you commented back. They will get notified, however, if you include their @ name in your comment.

It's an easy strategy to implement to keep conversations going and build new relationships in this social platform!

INSTAGRAM
Yeah, another favorite! Keep your own Instagram Hashtag Cheat Sheet at the ready on your phone in a notepad document or something. Your photos get more exposure if you use hashtags on them, and if you're Instagramming something, and you're moving fast, you might not be able to remember the hot hashtags you want to use to help your photo circulate in the right circles. We maintain a big Instagram Cheat Sheet here at Tin Shingle for our members, so click here to learn more about it.

SOLDSIE
Soldsie is a platform that lets you sell your product or service directly on Facebook via comments on your Facebook business page. A person is browsing your Facebook business page, sees a product they want to buy, or even a service offering that you did a status update about, and they type in "sold!". Soldsie emails them an invoice, they pay it, and you've made a sale! They need to create a Soldsie account, and you need to dive into Soldsie to learn more sales strategies on it, but once you get going, it could be very lucrative in an easy way!

SHOPIFY
Here's a pretty sweet DIY Marketing tool for those who love and want easy SEO - websites on the Shopify platform have access to list their products in Google's Merchant Center. This means that your product can show up in little picture thumbnails at the top of Google search results. Those pictures you see running across the top of search results are only there because Google is pulling them from businesses who have submitted them to the Google Merchant Center. It's another part of Google Ad Words. You do pay Google to have your product images up there, so experiment with the sales and if the cost per clicks are worth it. Shopify has an app that makes it easy to connect your products to Google's Merchant Center.

FACEBOOK - CAUTION
If I were an analyst on Wall Street, I'd be issuing a note of caution on marketing on Facebook. And it's not because of lack of people using it or connecting there. It's because of Facebook's ever changing rules and not very easy to use advertising interface. I would not put all of your DIY Marketing eggs in the Facebook basket, and here's why:

• People "like" your page, but don't see your updates. Facebook put the squeeze on so that you have to pay them an advertising fee to have your updates shown to those who voluntarily like you.
• Advertising is not so clear cut. It's hard to figure out how to use all of their ad features, but worse, they won't advertise certain images. Like an image with text. The restrictions in this platform add the time spent marketing here.
• Willy Nilly Rule Changes. I always budget low in these platforms. For instance, for Google Ads or Twitter Promoted Ads, I recommend bidding low on your price per click or engagement. Same with Facebook. However, one day, the interface to name your budget disappeared, and the only option was to advertise for $30/update, instead of the usual $5. You can always add to your budget if you're having a successful run (ie getting lots of likes, comments and/or shares). But yesterday this was replaced with a new feature that gave no budget room. By the following day, the budget was back, so once again us low-bidders could do $5/post again.