The extra-ordinary growth of internet and mobile technology usage in the home and in business is leading many more businesses to consider how they can use new tools from Facebook to Twitter to win new customers. Another attraction is that, as much of the technology has been developed for self-use by consumers, it is comparatively low cost, making under-pressure marketing budgets go much further.

The term social media refers to a basket of different tools, but in a business context, these essentially perform three functions. If this is still a new-ish area to you and you would like to get a feel for how each of these tools can build sales, check out our previous post on using on-line tools for business development.

The key to success lies in understanding which mix of these tools is right for your business, as using them in combination is much more powerful than relying on one approach.

For example, how can you use these tools to get you onto page one of a Google search for your product or service?

Of course you can pay for pay-per-click adverts (on the right hand side of Google for example) and sponsor key terms (the top few lines in the search results are often sponsored). Other than that it is all about the content of your site and how relevant search engines perceive it in answering the search criteria.

Without going into the mechanics of how a search engine works, it is new, fresh content that search algorithms crave. Content is king. The trouble is, how often can you update a website without just changing content for the sake of it? You can add new material and product information, client recommendations and so on, but in anything but the largest business this usually has to come from a small, internal pool of people who have got other things to do. Alternatively you may deal with an external supplier to get changes effected, or have to get senior approval, and in the end it either doesn’t get done at all, or only in a flurry of activity every few months!

On top of this challenge, unless you are paying a really good SEO company to push you up the rankings (as well as maintain great, fresh and relevant content), then yours is only one website out of many millions that are being indexed.

A few years back the web was reinvented when Web 2.0 came along; bringing with it a new wave of tools, sites and applications that made it far easier for anyone to publish material on the web, and the most significant of these is currently blogging. The activity on blogs is always fresh, even on those blogs that are updated monthly the content is still largely more up to date than an organisation’s main website.

Blogs aren’t the answer for everyone. Not everyone is a writer! However, most people can comment, most people have a point of view and a reply to a blog only needs to be a few lines. By scouring the web for blogs and news sites where your field of expertise / products are discussed, you have a chance to read about views from writers that could comprise competitors, customers, prospects and people from related sectors.

But does this deliver more than just research and profile? Yes – because while web pages are only re-indexed by search engines infrequently, blog entries are considered new data, so affect the search results much more quickly, often within a few hours.

Cynical? Well, carry out this simple test:

- Search in Google for your company name, your name or a key product you sell and see if it appears on the first few pages of the search results.

- Scroll to the bottom of the blog and add a comment on the post (on some blogs you will need to register, but not here). Ensure that the comment includes a mention of your name, your company name or one of your products or services, i.e. that it includes the words that you used to search initially.

- Wait for a few hours and carry out the same Google search that you did at the beginning. Almost always you will see that you have moved up the rankings already.

This is just one example of a simple strategy to drive sales though the smart use of online tools. Post on other peoples’ blogs about your expertise, your point of view, even if it is to agree with them, or emphasise a point. You then start to raise your digital profile, putting you in front of more potential customers.

There are many other similar low-cost opportunities that may be right, or even more appropriate, for your business. From instant alerts of special offers to reaching that big company buyer you can never get in to see. Even if you are not yet active, issues concerning your markets and possibly even your own firm are being discussed online now. So as a starting point, are you at least understanding how you can take advantage of this?