Putting a small business online used to be a relatively simple matter: buy the domain names that matched your company’s identity, set up a Web server and send out a press release and a few e-mail messages. No more.
These days, a Web site may not even be the best place to start promoting your products or services. Instead, you can consider setting up a blog, participating in social-networking communities like Facebook and creating a storefront in virtual worlds like Second Life to get the buzz going.

You can read more about this strategy in today’s New York Times here.