When people hear the words advertising or marketing, they usually think about spending money on Google Ads, Facebook Ads or another paid campaign. Paid advertising absolutely has its place, but some of the most valuable platforms you can use to promote your business don’t cost a cent.
We have left out needing a website designed as that mostly would incurr a cost, and we focus only on the free beneficial platforms that we highly recommend.
A while back, I wrote about free advertising platforms that businesses should be using. Since then, the online landscape has changed considerably. Businesses are no longer discovered only through a traditional Google search. Your next customer could find you through Google Maps, Apple Maps, Bing, ChatGPT, Copilot, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, Reddit or Pinterest.
This is why I believe every business needs to build a wider digital footprint. You don’t necessarily need to create completely different content for every platform, and you certainly don’t need to pay for every platform. In many cases, you simply need to claim your profile, complete it properly and keep sharing the content you’re already creating.
The platforms below aren’t included because they’re fashionable. They’re included because we use them, manage them for clients, or have seen how they can contribute to visibility, trust, website traffic and discovery. Some are easy. Some require a little technical help. A few require patience. All of them are worth understanding.
Free, Paid or Both? A Quick Comparison
| Platform | Free? | Paid Option? | Difficulty | My View |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Google Business Profile | Yes | Limited / Indirect | Easy | Essential |
| Apple Business | Yes | No listing fee | Medium | Often forgotten |
| Bing Places | Yes | No listing fee | Easy | Worth doing |
| Bing Webmaster Tools | Yes | No | Medium | Very useful for SEO |
| Yes | Yes | Easy | Essential | |
| Yes | Yes | Easy | Essential for many | |
| YouTube | Yes | Yes | Medium | Excellent long-term value |
| TikTok | Yes | Yes | Medium | Strong in South Africa |
| X | Yes | Yes / Premium | Easy | Useful selectively |
| Yes | Yes | Difficult | Powerful if earned | |
| Yes | Yes | Medium | Underused | |
| Yes | Yes | Easy | Essential for B2B |
1. Google Business Profile
Google Business Profile is linked to your presence on Google Search and Google Maps, and it’s probably the first free platform I would set up for any eligible local business. This forms a very important part of SEO as well.
Other than showing your address or service area on Google Maps, you can list your business categories, services and even products, together with useful descriptions.
Customers can read and leave reviews, view your images, call you, visit your website, check your operating hours and get directions to your business. Depending on the features available for your business and region, they may also be able to use additional booking and contact options.
Our own Digital Marketing Agency also use Google Business Profile regularly to share social media content, company updates, offers and articles. Google allows businesses to create posts that can appear on Search and Maps, so if you’ve already taken the time to create a useful article or piece of content, it makes sense to give it another place to be discovered.
The key is not simply to claim the profile and forget about it. Make sure your business name, phone number, website, hours, categories and services remain correct. Add real photographs, ask genuine customers for reviews and respond to those reviews.
For a local business, this profile can become one of the most visible representations of your company online.
My practical tip: Complete every relevant field and keep it updated. A half-finished profile with old operating hours or no recent photographs can create the wrong impression.
2. Apple Business and Apple Maps
This is by far one of the biggest platforms I see businesses forgetting about, even though a huge number of people use iPhones and Apple Maps.
You can claim and customise your business information through Apple Business. Just like Google, your place card can include important company and location information, photographs, your logo and other useful details.
This gives people using Apple devices a more accurate and branded experience when they search for your business or ask for directions.
If you’re a little more SEO or technically savvy, Apple also offers brand features that go beyond your map listing.
One of the most interesting is Branded Mail, which can display your verified brand name and logo in the Mail app on Apple devices and in iCloud Mail. This can help your emails look more recognisable and trustworthy when they arrive in someone’s inbox.
The additional verification steps can get more technical. You may need to prove ownership of your domain and add DNS or TXT records. Email authentication, including DMARC, may also need attention depending on the feature you’re setting up.
This is where you may need help from a developer, IT provider or someone who understands domain and email hosting records.
Don’t let the technical side stop you from claiming the basic Apple Maps listing though. Start with the free location profile, make sure your details are correct, and then build on it.
My practical tip: Apple Maps isn’t just something to check after Google. Treat it as a separate and important customer journey, particularly if a large part of your audience uses iPhones.
3. Bing Places for Business
Bing Places is Microsoft’s equivalent of a local business listing.
Many businesses ignore it because they assume nobody uses Bing. I understand why people think that, but I still believe it’s a mistake to leave the listing unclaimed.
The good news is that Bing makes the process considerably easier if your business information is already set up elsewhere. You can use the available import and synchronisation options to reduce the amount of information you need to enter again.
If you’ve already done all the hard work setting up your Google Business Profile, there’s no reason to start completely from scratch.
You should still check the imported information carefully. No automated import should replace a proper review of your business name, address, categories, hours, images and contact details.
Bing is also part of Microsoft’s wider search and AI ecosystem. Even when Bing isn’t your biggest source of traffic, a consistent listing gives Microsoft another reliable place to understand who your business is, what you offer and where you operate.
My practical tip: Importing saves time, but always inspect the final listing. Don’t assume every photograph, category or piece of information will arrive exactly as you want it.
4. Bing Webmaster Tools
If you’re doing SEO, I would also set up Bing Webmaster Tools.
Bing Webmaster Tools is different from Bing Places. Bing Places is about your business listing and map presence. Bing Webmaster Tools is about your website and its visibility in Bing search.
At first glance it may seem less important than Google Search Console, but I’ve found it to be a very useful source of information about a website.
If you’ve already verified your website in Google Search Console, Bing allows you to import the property, its sitemaps and relevant verification information. This saves a lot of time.
For anyone doing SEO, Bing Webmaster Tools can help you identify indexing problems, search performance opportunities and technical issues.
What has become particularly interesting to me is the addition of reporting connected to AI performance and citations. This is becoming increasingly important because businesses now want to know not only where they rank in traditional search, but whether their content and brand are being referenced in AI-generated answers.
With platforms such as Microsoft Copilot and other AI search experiences changing how people find information, I think ignoring Bing completely is a mistake.
I wouldn’t replace Google Search Console with Bing Webmaster Tools. I’d use both. They give you different perspectives, and when the platform is free, the only real cost is the time it takes to connect it and review the information.
My practical tip: Import your verified Google Search Console property, submit your sitemap and actually check Bing’s reports regularly rather than treating the setup as a once-off task.
5. Facebook Business Page
Facebook never really goes out of style. Especially if your demographic is 30+, many people use Facebook groups, Marketplace and business pages for checking credibility and reviews.
The way people use it changes, and organic reach isn’t what it once was, but I still believe a legitimate business should have a complete and active Facebook Page.
If you’re creating content for one platform, you may as well consider how that content can be shared across the others.
Facebook gives you a place to share much more than just what you sell. It lets you show people who you are, who works in the business, what you believe in, what happens behind the scenes and how you interact with customers.
In the greater scheme of things, I believe there are three things you need before people are comfortable buying into you:
- They must know you.
- They must trust you.
- They must like you.
Facebook and social media can help you achieve all three.
Even when a customer discovers you somewhere else, they may check your Facebook Page afterwards to see whether the business looks real and active.
Facebook is free to use and, yes, you can run paid advertising when it makes sense. But there are free opportunities too.
You can share relevant content in appropriate community groups, provided you respect the group rules and contribute rather than spam. If you sell suitable products, Facebook Marketplace can also provide another free route to reach people if you are selling products and it is an excellent way to place your “store” on a “busy street”. Make sure you check buyers and sellers ratings
My practical tip: Don’t make every post a sales advert. Use Facebook to prove there are real people, real work and a real personality behind the business.
6. Instagram
Instagram is similar to Facebook in that it can be used for free and supported by paid advertising when required.
I see Instagram as a portfolio for your business and your brand. It’s one of the first places people go when they want to get a feeling for the quality, style and personality of a company.
It works especially well for beauty, skincare, luxury, travel, hospitality, food, fashion, property, design and influencer-led content, but almost any business can use it well with the right approach.
Reels can help with discovery, Stories keep the brand present from day to day, and Highlights allow you to organise useful information that people may want to check before contacting you.
Use location tags when they’re relevant, write useful captions and make sure your biography clearly explains what you do and where people should go next.
Your Instagram feed doesn’t need to be perfect, but it should create confidence. A potential customer should be able to visit your account and quickly understand your business, your work and whether you’re still active.
My practical tip: Treat Instagram as proof of work rather than a digital poster board. Show what you do, how you do it and what the result looked like.
7. YouTube
YouTube is one I think more businesses should take seriously, even if video isn’t currently a major part of their marketing strategy.
Creating a YouTube channel is free, and you don’t need to become a full-time YouTuber for it to have value.
If you’re already producing videos, demonstrations, interviews, reels, educational content, how-to videos or customer information, YouTube gives that content another home and potentially a much longer lifespan.
This is one of the biggest differences between YouTube and some social platforms. A social post may get most of its attention within a few days. A useful YouTube video can continue being discovered through search months or even years later.
YouTube also belongs to Google, and videos can appear directly in Google search results. That makes it useful not only as a social or video platform, but as part of your wider search strategy.
For businesses, I particularly like YouTube for answering real questions.
If customers repeatedly ask the same thing, make a video answering it. If you sell a product that needs explaining, demonstrate it. If you offer a complicated service, explain how it works.
You’re creating something genuinely useful while also building a library of content around the topics your business understands.
My practical tip: Start with the questions customers ask you repeatedly. A clear two-minute answer to a real question can be more useful than an overproduced video with no purpose.
8. TikTok
TikTok is free and still gives businesses the opportunity to reach a huge number of people organically.
Personally, I’ve found TikTok particularly useful for reach, and for South African businesses I’ve often found the organic reach stronger than Instagram.
That doesn’t mean every business will have the same experience, but it’s exactly why I think businesses should test it rather than dismissing it as a platform for teenagers or influencers.
The content doesn’t always need to be highly produced either. In many cases the more natural and direct the video feels, the better it suits the platform.
Make good use of relevant hashtags to help your content find the right audience, but don’t rely on hashtags alone. The content itself still needs to give people a reason to stop scrolling.
If you’re already creating short-form videos for Instagram Reels, there’s very little reason not to consider how those ideas could also be used on TikTok.
My practical tip: Don’t simply upload an Instagram video with no thought. Give the TikTok version a direct opening, keep it human and get to the point quickly.
9. X
I still think it’s worth having an account on X and sharing content there, although I wouldn’t necessarily make it the first platform every business spends hours on.
Keep your posts short and sweet, share useful links and URLs, and spend some time on the platform so you understand how other people in your industry actually use it.
X does have limitations on free accounts and there are additional features available through its paid Premium options, but you don’t need to pay simply to establish a presence and start sharing useful content.
For some industries, particularly news, technology, media and businesses where commentary and current information matter, it can be much more valuable.
My practical tip: Claim your brand name, complete the profile and use the free account first. Only pay for Premium when a specific feature supports a real business objective. X has also become harder to add to your schedulers with some requiring API keys that you need a little bit of developer knowledge to accomplish.
10. Reddit
Reddit is a tricky one.
It’s highly trusted by users and is increasingly important in the wider world of search and AI, but it’s also one of the most difficult platforms to use organically if your only intention is to advertise your business.
You need to build trust.
You need to take part in conversations.
You need to understand individual communities and their rules.
And you need to build good karma.
Reddit users are generally very good at spotting someone who has arrived purely to promote a product or drop links everywhere. If that’s your strategy, it’s probably not going to go well.
The better approach is to become genuinely useful.
Answer questions where you have real expertise. Join conversations. Share knowledge. Help people without trying to turn every interaction into a sale.
If your business becomes known because you’re consistently providing good information, the commercial benefit can follow naturally.
I also think Reddit has become particularly interesting because AI systems and search engines frequently surface Reddit conversations when they’re looking for real-world opinions, experiences and discussions. In fact, when it comes to ChatGPT and other AI platforms, when you ask a question, you will notice very often that it scans Reddit for answers and sites Reddit as its source. I would say Reddit has become essential.
If you can master Reddit and use it to grow your business or reputation genuinely, you’ll be a head above the rest.
My practical tip: Read before you post. Learn the rules of each subreddit, build a real history of useful participation and never pretend to be an independent customer of your own business.
11. Pinterest
I’ll be the first to admit that we don’t spend as much time on Pinterest as we probably should, but it absolutely still has its place.
It’s particularly useful for businesses involved in fashion, parties and events, weddings, design, interior design, décor, travel, food and anything where people are actively looking for inspiration.
I think the important thing to understand is that Pinterest isn’t just another social network. People actively search Pinterest because they’re planning something or looking for ideas.
So be their inspiration.
If someone is planning a wedding, renovating a room, organising a party, choosing an outfit or designing something, your business has the opportunity to appear while they’re still forming the idea.
We also link our Instagram content into our Pinterest workflow so our existing content can work harder rather than everything having to be created from scratch.
If you aren’t particularly tech savvy, you may need help from your developer when it comes to claiming or verifying your website and getting the account set up properly.
My practical tip: Claim your website and organise your Pins into clear, useful boards. Think about what your customer is planning or dreaming about, not only what you want to sell today.
12. LinkedIn
LinkedIn absolutely belongs on this list, particularly for B2B businesses, agencies, consultants, professional services, recruitment and businesses where individual expertise matters.
A company page is free and gives your business another legitimate online presence, but I think the real opportunity on LinkedIn often comes from the people behind the company. People want to hear from people. Use your individual profile to promote the content you share to your business page.
Share useful knowledge. Talk about projects. Explain what you’ve learned. Comment on developments in your industry. Show some of the thinking that goes into the work you do.
You don’t have to turn every LinkedIn post into a motivational speech or sales pitch. Sometimes simply explaining something you understand well is enough to demonstrate why someone should trust you.
My practical tip: Let the company page establish legitimacy, but let real people from the company explain the expertise, ideas and values behind the work.
The Biggest Mistake Businesses Make
One of the biggest mistakes I see businesses making is setting up one platform and forgetting about the rest.
They have a Facebook Page but no Google Business Profile.
Or they’re on Google but haven’t claimed Apple Maps.
Or they’re posting consistently on Instagram but completely ignoring TikTok, YouTube, Pinterest and LinkedIn.
Every platform is another doorway to your business.
You don’t need to be equally active everywhere, but you should at least make sure your business exists in the important places and that the information people find is correct.
What Does This Have to Do With SEO and AI Search?
Quite a lot.
A few years ago, businesses mainly worried about whether Google understood their website.
Today, your business can be discovered through traditional search engines, maps, social media, video platforms and AI tools.
Your website is still incredibly important, but it now exists as part of a much larger digital footprint.
Search engines and AI systems can encounter information about your business from your website, map listings, social profiles, videos, articles, reviews and online conversations.
No single profile guarantees that ChatGPT, Copilot, Google or another AI platform will recommend your business. But having accurate, useful and consistent information across trusted platforms gives both people and machines more opportunities to understand who you are and what you do.
That means your business name, website, contact details, services and general description should remain consistent wherever possible.
Where Should a Business Start?
You don’t need to complete every platform in one afternoon. I would prioritise them roughly like this:
- Claim the foundations: Google Business Profile, Apple Business, Bing Places, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn and YouTube.
- Connect your website tools: Google Search Console if it isn’t already connected, followed by Bing Webmaster Tools. Submit and check your sitemap.
- Strengthen your visual and video footprint: Use Instagram, YouTube, TikTok and Pinterest according to the content you can realistically create.
- Build community and authority: Use Facebook groups, LinkedIn conversations, X and Reddit carefully and genuinely.
- Keep everything current: Review your profiles, contact details, operating hours, photographs, services and links regularly.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the best free advertising platform for a small business?
For most eligible local businesses, I would start with Google Business Profile because it gives you visibility across Google Search and Maps. I would then claim Apple Business and Bing Places, followed by the social platforms that best match your audience.
Do I need to be active on every platform?
No. You should claim the important profiles, keep the business information accurate and then focus your regular activity on the platforms where your customers spend time. A complete but lightly maintained profile is still better than leaving your brand name unclaimed or your information incorrect. You can also use a scheduler such as Metricool which offers most platforms on the free version. There is also Meta Business planner which can schedule to Facebook and Instagram
Is Google Business Profile really free?
Yes. Creating and managing an eligible Google Business Profile is free. Businesses can also pay for separate Google advertising products, but payment isn’t required to claim and maintain the profile. Tip: Make sure you fill out every possible section on Google Business profile.
What is the difference between Google Business Profile and Apple Business?
Google Business Profile controls how an eligible business appears across Google Search and Maps. Apple Business allows businesses to manage customer-facing information and brand experiences across Apple services, including Apple Maps place cards and additional brand features.
Does Bing still matter for businesses?
Yes. Bing may not provide the same traffic volume as Google for every website, but it remains part of Microsoft’s search and AI ecosystem. Bing Places and Bing Webmaster Tools are free, and the setup effort is relatively small compared with the possible value.
Can free advertising platforms improve my SEO?
They can support SEO by improving local visibility, creating accurate business references, earning engagement and reviews, and giving search engines more consistent information about your business. They don’t replace a strong website and proper SEO strategy.
Can these platforms help my business appear in AI search?
Potentially. AI systems can use information from websites, search indexes, business listings, videos, social content and online discussions. No individual profile can guarantee an AI citation, but accurate, useful and consistent information across trusted platforms gives your business a stronger digital footprint.
Is TikTok useful for South African businesses?
In my experience, it can be extremely useful for organic reach in South Africa, and in many cases I’ve found it stronger than Instagram for reaching new people. The outcome depends on your audience and the quality of the content, so test it rather than dismissing it.
Is Reddit a free advertising platform?
Reddit is free to join and participate in, but it shouldn’t be treated like a free noticeboard. The organic opportunity comes from building credibility and contributing useful answers. Businesses that spam links or hide their commercial interest are unlikely to build trust.
How often should I update these profiles?
Update essential information immediately whenever it changes. Beyond that, review your main profiles regularly and publish content according to a realistic schedule. Consistency is better than a burst of activity followed by six months of silence.
Final Thoughts
My advice is simple: don’t put all your eggs in one basket.
You don’t know whether your next customer will find you on Google Maps, Apple Maps, Bing, Facebook, TikTok, YouTube, Pinterest or through a Reddit discussion. You also don’t know which sources the next generation of AI search tools will use when they try to understand your business.
The businesses that consistently show up across multiple trusted platforms are generally easier to discover, easier to verify and easier to trust.
Most of the platforms in this guide cost nothing more than some setup time and a commitment to keep your information accurate.
If you’re already creating good content, make it work harder. Share it in the right places, adapt it for each audience and give your business more opportunities to be found.
Future you will thank you.