Marketing and Social Networking

Marketing and Social Networking seem to be one and the same with regards to building clientele, advertising and modern day marketing are new concepts for me. Ok, maybe not the building clientele, but the marketing might as well be ancient Greek for all I know about it. I know that to get clients I need some form of marketing, in this economy it needs to be really good at 1) getting attention, 2) having a good message or use to potential customers and 3) have the possibility of getting those potential clients IN the door where I can show them what they've been missing with not having Massage. 

There in lies the issue. Talking about massage and the benefits, I've been told, makes me light up like a Christmas tree. I am passionate about the subject and have a love of the work. However, I get really queasy about the thought of standing up in front of large groups of people for seminars - someone suggested that as a marketing tool previously. So mainly I've been relying on word of mouth and referrals - which works great to some extent, but hasn't been HUGE on new clients in recent years.

In early September I attended a workshop hosted by the Salt Lake SCORE group for new businesses. In the seminar, marketing was a main focus for me. It was stated that social networking - FaceBook, Twitter, etc are the NEW ways of getting your message to your potential clients. That having people become "fans" of blogs, FaceBook business pages and the like are known to help your website and search engine rankings. More people now days will google a business, check reviews and rankings before ever calling a business like mine to set up an appointment. The days of Yellowpages and print media are on their way out...