Launchsite

Social Media is THE number 1 tool for marketing. 

We must first understand what is meant by social media. That is to say any medium through or by which social interaction is possible or facilitated. Why is Social Media "THE" best resource for marketing? 

1. It's free. 

Social Media is free.99. You as a business do not have to pay for a Yelp account, Facebook account or business page, twitter, or even Hootsuite which consolidates all your social media and schedules posts for you is FREE*. (This excludes premium business accounts and services but for people on a constrained budget or looking to cut costs, those accounts are not entirely necessary. Especially if you don't know what you're doing or just learning as you go, start slow, easy and free).

2. Audience is for all intents and purposes, infinite. 

Along with the fact that these accounts are free, it is free to like other pages, add people as friends, share photos, retweet and/or follow people, and essentially advertise all over the web to multiple user databases.

This section should really be titled "Audience potential is near infinite" but essentially you have access to all these consumers looking for things to consumer. This is where you have to do research on your target market and advertise directly to them. Tailor tweets, blogs, photo shares, and liked pages to your niche market. Furthermore this extends the potential for cross promotional marketing. Liking and endorsing another business' page via an implicit or explicit agreement to promote each other.  E.g. Loveboat Sushi: We loved the #webdesign @Launchsite got built for us!  Launchsite: Thanks @Loveboatsushi your instagram feed made our concept easy to build!  And it's easy as that. I'll expand on the benefits of usertags and hashtags in a later post. Every channel is an opportunity to blow up. Maybe someone famous tags your page, shares a photo or retweets your post. That's instantly sent to potentially hundreds of thousands of followers' (ideally) news feeds. You just got free advertising and endorsement. Furthermore if a professional endorses you unsolicited that's your product speaking for itself, and will therefore gain additional traction. 

Social media helps provide word of mouth testimonials on a significantly larger scale. Keep that in mind when you post and interact with users online. Ever heard of ABC Bakery in Arizona? If you have, you've probably only heard bad if not flaming things about them. That's what happens when you engage in social warfare as a business blasting attacks toward users and reviewers. In the social media world, its everyone else against you.

Elite reviewers, and people with large followings hold a tremendous amount of clout. Be wary with how you talk to people. 

3. Establishes brand and puts a face behind a company

With your free business pages, post logos as profile pictures, and images related to your business or venture as banner photos. Facebook and twitter are essentially creating splash pages for your company for free. All you have to do is make sure the pictures are clear in both quality and content. If you're a restaurant, don't just use the rainy day window wallpaper you got off of tumblr just because it was high res. Post things that are relevant.  Try to include a picture of yourself, and a blurb about your life beyond your business. It adds the human element to a business. Furthermore it feels better to comment on a picture and get a response from the owner's profile actually engaging in a conversation, as opposed to a simple thank you or upselling something else. Use social media for PR (public relations) as opposed to a platform solely for selling your product/services. 

Make sure to respond to personal messages from people, there is nothing that hurts a business more than a lost sale. 

4. IT'S FREE.

I really need to say this again. Social media tools are FREE. Hootsuite is free. Facebook insights, the analytics tool for your business on Facebooks platform is free. Google analytics and a number of traffic analytic services are FREE. These are the tools you need to help your entrepreneurial ventures grow on little to no cost. It would be foolish not to pursue these channels.

Day 1

As we embark on our journey with Launchsite.com and our attempt to shake up the crowdsource design scene, I thought it appropriate to start a blog. This blog is meant to document our journey, all the trials and tribulations, as well as the success and jubilation that are ultimately going to define the life of the Launchsite project. 

So what is Launchsite?

Launchsite is a platform that connects amazing web designers with small businesses and startups who need a website. Designers are paid to submit website concepts to the client, and the client chooses their favorite designer to build their website.

Straight forward yeah?  What sets us apart is our method of crowdsourcing. Hence the name of this blog, The Madness. 

That's all for the pleasantries for now, more on our madness in the future.