Do you still cater to the mass market? i.e. the hundreds if not thousands of people out there who are all constantly bombarded by mass media on their TVs, their daily drive, and even their phones?

It’s time to stop worrying about them and spending your precious marketing dollars in a way that broadcasts to such a wide audience. I love this idea by Seth Godin, my favourite marketing guru. He says “The mass market is no longer important – the edges are what’s most important.” What does this mean?

In last month’s column, I gave you a gentle nudge toward trying your hand at Twitter if you haven’t done so yet. On the flip side, there are companies out there who have got very comfortable with the medium and add a nice dose of humour to our day.

For those of you knowing that you should have jumped on the social media bandwagon long ago, but felt too intimidated to do so, I suspect one of the main reasons for your trepidation was that strangely ubiquitous symbol “#”. What’s it for, anyway? Why use it at all? To a novice, the symbol may seem unnecessary.

In social media circles, the hashtag, or “#” symbol first appeared in Twitter as a way for people to categorize the kind of content they were contributing. Typically you would tweet your thought/comment/status, and attach hashtags at the end that would be related to your topic. Over time, with enough hashtags present, it became a simple way for someone to find all tweets related to a location, theme, or event. With its utility proven on the Twitter, other social media platforms quickly adopted the same convention.

Money is the source of everything in a business, and ultimately determines many of the decisions we make, from pricing to expenses to marketing decisions. And since this issue is focussing on investing and RRSPs, I thought I would look at finances from an online perspective.

The internet has revolutionized what it means to finance an endeavour. In the past you would have to either 1) sell your idea to a relatively small group of close friends and family or 2) approach large institutions for business loans and/or 3) get backing and support by an industry partner in return for, ultimately, being “owned” by them (as in the case of record labels or publishing companies).

As a creative professional who also self-markets, I need to keep up on the latest and greatest in a variety of sectors in order to stay on top of the game. Continual learning and development is important to keep my skills honed as the market is ever-changing.

One of the way I do this is by following some pretty interesting people on social media. They’ve made it huge in this new economy, by breaking down traditional barriers through unusual means to achieve near celebrity status in their respective worlds. It’s like Justin Bieber getting discovered on YouTube, but for business!

In the past, if you wanted to engage in some marketing, you’d take out a full page ad in the paper, or perhaps produce a television commercial, or maybe get a radio spot. Maybe you’d even do all 3, spending thousands of dollars along the way.

The great thing about that media, in that time, was that everyone consumed content in the exact same way. There were only so many radio, televisions stations or newspapers to choose from, so it was reasonable to assume a fairly large number of people would view your ad, regardless of whether it applied to them or not. Then they could decide at that point whether or not your marketing was speaking to them. So your large advertising budget, applied across a broad audience, a small fraction of which would become new business for you, perhaps even enough to justify the advertising budget.

Following on the heels of my first article in this column, I want to go straight into some practical tips that you can use in your business, like starting today.

Most people unfamiliar with Twitter shudder when I mention it. It’s a scary thing; the little tweet button that, once clicked, will send your thoughts to a….void? Judgemental audience? Viral post? How do you even know what to say that’s worthy of some stranger’s attention?

Running your own business means learning as you go. To that end, I’ve read many books, on varied topics, from self-marketing to design inspiration to colour theory. Some of the most memorable books I’ve read have been written by women. I’ve selected three favourites below and I hope this might spur you on to further reading.

You may have looked around you and thought: how has so-and-so managed to get their business up and running so quickly? Why do they have customers lining up outside their doors? They don’t have a radio spot, they don’t have a two-page spread in the yellow pages, and I have yet to see a billboard with their logo on it!!

The answer is both simple and yet subtly complex, and it’s been called “The Connection Economy”.

Back in 2005 in Ottawa when I launched my graphic design career, I started the usual way: building a portfolio piece by piece by getting work from friends or close colleagues. This makes perfect sense for a novice starting out: you don’t yet have a strong portfolio or network, and therefore you need to build some credibility. This was also before the age of social media, and so my reach was very much local. As I completed more and more projects successfully, word got around and my “word-of-mouth” referrals grew.

I get to choose my hours! I don’t have to listen to anyone barking orders at me! I can do what I love, every single day! I can finally be appreciated for my talents and hard work! When you daydream about owning your business, I’ll bet these thoughts swim through your head as you picture yourself swiveling in your office chair, your name on the sign outside, proud owner of your very own establishment.

…Of course, that is *mostly* true. I started my own graphic design firm because I wanted flexible hours in order to be the dominant care-giver while my children were young. I ultimately make every decision about what direction my business will take, day to day. And I do do what I love, at least most of the day.