Damon Paine is Internationally qualified and experienced Executive Protection operative and security Risk Manager. Follow him on Twitter @safarprotection and check out the website www.safarprotection.com
Social Media Marketing:
In my line of work it’s a bit hard to actively market yourself without coming across as a shameless self promoter. There is also the problem of privacy with most our clients requiring mutual confidentiality agreements or just not wishing their lives or actions publicised. So as to ensure future professional relationships we take privacy seriously however, now and then we are given permission to use client’s images or information to help promote our services. My only foray prior into social media was a personal myspace and facebook account I used to keep in touch with colleagues, and occasionally check out how much weight classmate’s had gained since graduation. Having developed a website over twelve months earlier, I was still struggling with the concept of SEO and promotion our services without spending excessive amounts of capital. Although I could see the potential returns my business partner had a convincing argument stating “We had not yet received any income from our site”. Thus I could understand his reluctance to invest any more resources to the company’s website.
I came across Kyle Lacy’s Twitter Marketing for Dummies whilst on an assignment protecting clients throughout India. I had until then dismissed twitter as anything more than another fad that people with too much time on their hands would take notice of. However as I was contemplating purchasing the book my clients were sitting in the Airport lounge letting their thousands of followers know how their trip was progressing. Kyle’s writing style was relaxed and on the money with his book supplying me with the tools to start marketing my website and services myself. I linked my twitter account to a facebook page and began to start writing blogs.
It’s been a little over two weeks, four posts, fifty one tweets and over two hundred unique visitors to my site. All this for the cost of the book and 20 minutes a night either writing, tweeting or re reading highlighted sections of my now marketing bible. Not only is it free and starting to show measurable results in website traffic, I now am able to easily follow industry leaders in my field. In parting I would like to highlight that by using social media to market my services like twitter and facebook I am now exposed to experts in the field of social media. Their tweets, blog and words of advice provide me with new ideas to continue on this path of non traditional marketing to a worldwide audience.
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