Experts (Nielsen, 2007) say that "word-of-mouth" is still the best selling tool for a business. For many people who are contemplating about starting their own businesses, this is a good way to build a brand for a product. Moreover, by putting up your very own websites, you will be able to “educate” potential clients and give them information about your products and services.

People love to hear about the products and services through reviews and comments made by other consumers in a website. In buying a cellphone, for example, I’d check out reviews about the phone first to really get to know details about the product before I actually buy it. These reviews most likely will influence my decision. Whether or not I buy the phone says something—that I was enticed to buy or not because of the reviews in a store’s website.

Social media networking sites are not only avenues for personal creativity. They are also a means for connecting with people and in a business’ case, a way of communicating with its customers. The best part is it’s free. Anybody can do it. And having a professional to design your website for you can “optimize” it to get it to rank on pages of search engine results.

There are many smart people who, for whatever reason, are not suited to work in a corporate setting and find themselves looking through social media networking sites such as this (and many others too). And there are others, too, who simply cannot afford to have a website designed for a new business. Why not put bumming around into good use and try to sell something through these sites, just to see if it really works? All you need to do is to sign up in a social media networking site, take pictures of the products that you want to sell and upload them in your account. You may opt to put some descriptions about the products along with the prices and a page for the terms and agreements on how to order and pay for the goodies that they ordered. Of course, you might want to invite as many people as you can to your ‘friends’ list just to start your very own “network” of prospects.

Just to encourage you further, this is a big thing in Asia. Small businesses are getting by through social media networking. They enjoy free advertising and establish very, very loyal customers who tell other people about their products. In the end they get optimal return for a very little investment. If others can do it, you can too!