If you own a small business, you know that finding the money for things like marketing can be difficult. With online marketing, not only can you find ways to save money, but marketing your business online can be more beneficial than more traditional offline methods. If you’re trying to market on a small budget, here are three tips you need to take into account.

Use Social Media Without Wasting Your Time

Nowadays, it’s absolutely necessary for a business to be using social media for marketing – and the best thing about social networking is it’s free! Sites like Twitter and Facebook are basic requirements for any business. Small business owners have a lot to do, and social media can seem like an overwhelming undertaking, so don’t take on too much; you don’t need to use every social media site out there. Instead, try different sites and see which ones work well for your marketing purposes. Once you decide what you want to use, you should create a schedule for when updates are needed for each site. This will guarantee you stay consistent with updates.

Email Marketing: It’s Not Outdated!

Social networking sites have taken over online marketing campaigns in the past couple years, but that’s no reason not to continue using platforms that are tried and tested. Email marketing is one of the best ways to market a business online, and if you’re on a small budget it’s perfect. Email is a great way to reach a huge audience, and if you know what you’re doing you can personalize messages so that it seems less like a mass mail-out and more like a personal greeting. Email marketing requires little time and little money. Once the content has been created, the message can be sent out to your email list quickly and easily.

Online Marketing is a Great Way to Build Relationships

If you’re new to the online marketing game then it’s important to know that online lends itself much better to building relationships than it does to traditional advertisements. People can leave a website with one click, so if you’re bombarding them with ads that simply sell your product, then they probably won’t stick around for long. No matter what platforms you’re using, try using online marketing to build relationships. Create engaging content that people want to pay attention to, and you’ll see an increase in customers in no time. There you have three tips for using online marketing on a small budget.

Introduction

Like anything that rockets into mainstream popularity, researchers have been eager to see how social networking, such as Facebook, affects the health of users. Researchers have found positive and negative health affects between users and Facebook. Researchers have found that not only can Facebook provide support to users suffering from disease; it can also help fund research, raise awareness and help prevent outbreaks. Doctors, however, have also had to respond to negative health conditions that are related directly to Facebook.

Facebook Can Positively Impact Your Health 

Researchers have found that Facebook has the ability to positively impact your health. Doctors and researchers will unanimously agree that they key to staying healthy is disease prevention. Facebook allows users to be connected with exercise plans and diets that their friends are using as well as main stream diet products. As a healthy weight and balanced diet is key to good health, getting connected with health networks can help users prevent falling ill in the future. Additionally, researchers in a Harvard study found that infection can be predicted based on friend circles. When a Harvard student contracted the flu earlier this year, researchers were able to track and predict which one of his Facebook friends would become sick. This was done by discovering who he interacted with most on Facebook, and then which one of his friends posted about being sick. Researchers hope that this method of tracking could be used if a more dangerous outbreak should occur in the future. Potentially, researchers would be able to predict who would come in contact with the infected person, notify them, and prevent the disease from spreading.

Support

Facebook has also become a haven for people dealing with rare diseases and disorders. Since genetic diseases are often rare, many people suffering from these diseases and their families and caretakers often felt alone. With over 1 billion users, people from all walks of life are logging on. Support groups and pages have been created for specific diseases allowing people who previously felt alone to connect. Disease victims and their families are able to offer each other support, as well as talk about treatment plans and doctors that worked best for them.

Facebook Addiction and Depression 

Psychiatrists and family doctors are facing problems with their patients that they have never had to face before thanks to Facebook; most noteably Facebook addiction and depression. Users who are on Facebook more than three hours a day risk becoming addicted, doctors say. These users become so accustomed to constantly knowing what is happening with their friends and keeping themselves connect that they neglect everyday responsibilities. They may log on at work and face expulsion from their job or while driving and risk getting into a serious car accident. When these addicted users are forced to be off Facebook, for whatever reason, they often become angry or depressed. Depression related to Facebook can range from mild to severe and can come with a wide range of negative effects.