Abstract:

The paper is an attempt to describe marketing communication conducted by small businesses on the Internet through websites and on-line advertising. It shows how small and medium-sized enterprises seek to build their image on the Web using complex multimodal messages (verbal, non-verbal, visual and acoustic elements), based on both passive forms (advertising, positioning, sponsorship) and active ones (e-mailing, viral marketing, communication through blogs, mailing lists, forums, and social networks).