7/24/2012- Votacall Hosted VoIP & Cloud Based UC Solutions- Boston, Massachusetts–In today's world economy, free marketing and publicity remain a key for all styles of business. All companies have a marketing budget, usually the smaller ones tend to have tighter restrictions on what they can spend. Therefore, companies need to maximize their advertising budget by utilizing free social media marketing services. In a highly fragmented industry such as Cloud Computing, companies must amplify their marketing efforts and spread the brand. When establishing new product/service ideas such as Hosted VoIP or Video Conferencing, a company needs to draw as much public attention and awareness as possible. A new product/service could be the best in the industry, but if nobody hears of its functions then its useless and will not have high sales numbers. Larger Unified Communications companies such as Avaya, Broadsoft, Polycom and ShoreTel all have brand names that are usually known throughout the Telecom world. They have an immediate advantage over competition with marketing because their name brand spreads via word of mouth. However, if you are a smaller, up-coming and growing company such as Votacall, you must escalate your marketing plan through any means necessary. Social media is one way you can do this through the many different sites-Facebook, Blogging Google+ and Twitter.
Twitter is a site that allows you to follow parteners and customers with the intent that you can update them with daily news and product/service opportunities. It is socially acceptable to have numerous posts (or tweets) per day in order to get information to the public. Ontop of engaging your followers, you can tag key words throughout your tweets in order to have Twitter users search those terms. The hopes are they have similar interests with the topics you Tweet about. If they find your posts via a search, they may be so inclined to follow you; increasing your marketing imprint throughout the globe.
Facebook is another huge tool used by marketing teams in order to expand their marketing reach. You can design a Facebook page for your company and import your logo right ontop of the page. 95% of the Fortune 500 companies use this media source because as the Coca-Cola CEO states, "You must go where the consumers are." and being that Facebook has billions of users, that would be a good place to start. Facebook has the ability to upload photo albums with the intent of "friends" to view them and become interested/engaged in the company. With all other competitors for most industries (Including VoIP) on Facebook, it is not only a luxury marketing tool, but a necessary one.
Blogging is a huge idea throughout marketing; especially within the Telecom and technology segments. Throughout the Hosted VoIP Service community, many bloggers will discuss topics ranging from simple services to the development of new products. You can instantly search Google with a couple key terms such as massachusetts hosted voip or IP-PBX and blog sites will come up. Recently I wrote a blog (topic about VoIP calling cards), and found it a day later on a calling cards review site. Situations such as this provide a wide array of marketing and give the company extremely positive exposure.
In the current economy, expenses need to be managed and marketing budgets continue to stay restricted. Therefore, all companies must utilize the social media scene in order to grow publicity. The social media sites of the Internet have billions of users who are the main consumers in our world. With these services being free, a company is foolish not to use them. They can beef up a marketing strategy and allow for marketing funds to be allocated somewhere else. Social media is necessary and also a luxury for marketing teams; all companies (no matter the industry) should use the sites to its advantage.
