AddThis.com to Your Social Media Marketing Arsenal

AddThis.com Lets Others Spread Your Words

Every business sells expertise. If you sell bicycles, you are also selling your knowledge of different gear systems, materials comprising the frame, and how to find the right fit for the customer’s body and needs. If you sell carpet, your knowledge of carpet grades, a pet’s impact on carpet, and carpet installation is part of what you sell. If you are professional like a lawyer, an accountant, or even a nutritionist, a personal coach, or a Realtor, most of what you have to offer is expertise.

Business owners have information that is valuable to customers—and potential customers. How can you use this expertise to market yourself?

Social media has always been recognized as holding great promise for creating marketing buzz. But, especially for small businesses, it hasn’t been easy to use. Big brands with big budgets create viral social media campaigns and use their “fan base” to spread the campaign to others.

Most of my clients didn’t see how that kind of approach could work for them. And, for the most part, they were right. But, a new free web application changes that.

AddThis.com offers an easy-to-use “share button” that can be added to your website, email, your blog, or your other social media page. When someone clicks on the button, it opens an intermediate page with more than 200 social media sites. Your reader clicks on his/her favorite, which automatically takes them to that site and fills in the title and URL of the bookmark. Your reader can add comments to the bookmark, and perhaps a few tags. Your reader is done, and you have a new link to your website. And a new audience with which to share your expertise!

Some of the social networking sites listed through AddThis.com are well-known, like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Blogger, Digg, Delicious, and MySpace. But, there are some you might not have even considered a social media. Like a link that simply allows your information to be shared via email. Or one that adds the information to the reader’s Amazon wish list.

There are also quite a few that are interest or community-oriented. Like WindyCitizen, for residents of Chicago. AmenMe, a social network for Christians. And TellMyPolitician, an easy way to contact your representatives at the state and federal level. Many international and foreign sites also are among those represented.

In order to use the AddThis.com button, your site needs to accommodate javascript. If you register on the site, you also can get reports showing the number of times your information is shared.

Remember, though, besides adding the “share button” to your website or blog, the most important thing is to “ask for the share.” Just like asking for the sale is crucial in good salesmanship, people are more likely to share your ideas if you ask them directly.