WebSite101 and I blog on small business entrepreneurs, startups and I’m participating in BeMyGuest Blogging month, which encourages bloggers to guest blog for other blogs, while inviting others to create guest posts on their own blogs. I heard about the monthlong event on FIR (For Immediate Release) PR & Social Media podcast with Shel Holtz and Neville Hobson.

I’ve been actively seeking guest bloggers for WebSite101 and have so far found two entrepreneurs to join in as regular contributors. Today I heard Shel & Neville discuss the BeMyGuest program, running through the month of March.

So this is an open call for guest bloggers on social media, SEO, marketing, incorporation and business plans interested in BeMyGuest month.

There are a number of important factors that go into the production of a first-class blog. Quality of content, the layout of the page, how best to integrate video, formal versus informal tone, each of these is a decision that must be made during the creation of the project. That all comes before more esoteric concerns, which include the integration of meta tags, link building, traffic generation, and keyword/SEO implementation.

Yet underlying these important issues is one that many people wrestle with: How often should the thing be updated? Innocuous as it sounds, post frequency is actually vital to the success of any content project, and especially to blogs. Equally, it is a surprisingly complex decision that can involve numerous factors. Time, place, and availability of content all have parts to play in determining just how often you need to update your blog.

Blogging is an extension of the principles of marketing. You want to get your content the exposure you feel it deserves, so you market it as best you can to cultivate an audience. This involves doing the legwork and research necessary to act on good information, and testing your ideas while allowing room for adjustment as you work and grow. Chances are you will not hit the right rate of posting immediately, and that is all right as long as you’re prepared to adjust when it’s required.

No single article can cover every eventuality of course, but we can break down a few core principles to get you thinking in the right direction. The key is to consider these ideas and extrapolate from them, using the other lessons you’ve learned, to build a solid, whole-picture approach.

1. Make content king.

More than almost any other community, web users are keenly attuned to fluff pieces that don’t really say much. This isn’t true for 100% of the community of course, but those who can pick out an airy, pointless piece will almost invariably be sure to point it out, leading to some word of mouth you probably didn’t want. Don’t pick an update schedule that can’t live up to the content you have available. Stick to a schedule that you know you can provide a quality post for, every single time you sign on.

This has a twofold effect. One, it keeps the ‘pressure to post’ at a minimum. Content drives the posting, and you aren’t struggling every third day to come up with more information, or worse to rehash the information you’ve already posted. Secondly, it shows you have respect for the community, and keeps them interested and coming back.

2. Set the time and day.

Even though the web never sleeps, a great part of the world still functions on a Monday to Friday, 9-5 schedule of sorts. Taking these rhythms into account can help you build the ideal web traffic for your project. For example, a blog focusing on home and family concerns and selling books related to it might not find as much of an audience during traditional business hours as during the time when people are at-home with their families. Granted this is only a rule of thumb, as many people surf the web for their favorite blogs during lunch breaks.

Another part of this element is the Monday-Wednesday-Friday cycle. Many business blogs and publications settle on a three-a-week update schedule, and the MWF routine works out very well for this. They’re all business days, and the schedule covers the start, middle, and end stretches of a workweek.

Of course since this ends up being something of the default, it means that Tuesdays and Thursdays end up with comparatively little content for people to peruse. Sundays suffer a lack of content as well, for the obvious related reasons. If you find yourself preferring less frequent, longer posts, consider a T-Th routine to take advantage of the ‘gap’ between other updates.

3. Have a conversation.

One of the most interesting contributions to modern marketing is the blog comments section. Every blogging software out there has some feature for allowing or disallowing comments. As we’ve discussed before, consumer input can have an incredible effect on any brand, and blogs are no exception.

Taking advantage of this resource requires a certain amount of patience. Conversations develop in the comments section as people discuss, dispute, and debate the merits of what you’ve posted. In short, you need to not just let this happen, but cultivate the effect. Allow reasonable discussions to grow, and comment yourself on the more relevant points. Let the consumer know their input is being seen, and that you care enough to respond to it. Posting new blog posts too frequently overruns this tendency, and could rob you of vital feedback.

4. Be nimble.

As we’ve mentioned, you are not likely to get it right just out of the gate. You may bite off too much to chew, or update too infrequently for people to care. Evaluate the data, ask your consumers questions, and be prepared to change as needed. Flexibility is the ultimate survival tool on the web, and your blog will benefit if you approach the affair with an open mind and a willingness to try several approaches. Pick an update schedule, observe it, and then experiment with others until you have the one that best fits your needs.

— Enzo F. Cesario is an online branding specialist and co-founder of Brandsplat, a digital content agency. Brandsplat creates blogs, articles, videos and social media in the “voice” of our client’s brand. It makes sites more findable and brands more recognizable. For the free Brandcasting Report go to http://www.BrandSplat.com/ or visit our blog at http://www.iBrandCasting.com/

Just took notice of the post below at the incredible “SocialNomics” blog by Erik Qualman, author of the engaging book of the same name. Clearly when social media experts like @Equalman don’t see social media on the US Census site – it’s mostly because the web designer decided that the navigation tab pointing to the Social Media page should be called something incredibly silly like “Take Part” instead of the rather obvious “Social Media”

I’m also stunned that they don’t just show the standard “Follow us” logos to Facebook, Twitter and YouTube in the some way throughout the Census site, rather than just the “Take Part” social media page. To be fair, those services are all available in the “AddThis” button at the top of the several pages.

The AddThis button only encourages visitors to bookmark via FaceBook or tweet at Twitter via the AddThis button, but that doesn’t gain followers for Census Social media accounts and also doesn’t encourage people to “Take Part” which suggests to me that they want you to help distribute the census or asks you to do something requiring volunteer time. Let’s talk user experience here.

Erik Qualman noted:

While offline marketing activity is needed it needs to be used in a coordinated fashion with newer mediums like search, social media, mobile, etc.   Also, I’m not sure that we needed to more that double the marketing budget.  For example, why not use tools like Facebook and Twitter so that users can easily fill out the 10 minute questionnaire? 

… why not prompt users to fill out the census via Facebook, Twitter, Text Messaging? There are over 100 million users on Facebook in the United States. To be fair, Mr. Grovers may already have plans to do this in the $340 million dollar marketing plan. However, the beauty is that if it isn’t currently in the plan it can easily be adjusted to accommodate such; that is one of the true beauties of online, social media and mobile.

There is no question that the U.S. Government is getting more social media savvy. There is a new interactive Google Map for the 2010 census, the (hard to find) Census social media page displaying links to the 2010 Census Blog, Census FaceBook Fan Page, YouTube channel, Twitter Account, Flickr page, a news room and a countdown widget – Shown below

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There is no question that the U.S. Government is getting more social media savvy. If you visit the new interactive Google Map for the 2010 census, there is a top navigation link labeled “Take Part” which leads to a Census social media page displaying links to the 2010 Census Blog, Census FaceBook Fan Page, YouTube channel, Twitter Account, Flickr page, a news room and a countdown widget – Shown below (As of March 1st there were 286 subscribers to the YouTube channel, 2,658 Twitter Followers, 11,838 Facebook Fans)

There’s even an AddThis widget on the top of the page allowing you to save or share the page with social bookmarking or social media sites. With all of this exciting engagement in social media and forward thinking use of online tools, it seems that there would be a possibility that the slightly modernizing U.S. government would figure out how to let us fill out the 2010 Census form online to drive up engagement. But it’s not to be.

There is a sidebar link in the left rail of the social media page that asks the question “Can I fill out my form online?” and while it’s great that they address it boldly and upfront like this, it’s a bit surprising that the line below reads, “No not this time. We are experimenting with internet response for the future.” (Should I say it? That’s not until 2020!) The module link leads to an “Interactive Form” which boldly proclaims from a headline “NOTE: THE FORM CAN NOT BE FILLED OUT ONLINE..”

Can't Fill Out the 2010 U.S. Census Form Online

The fact that the form is viewable, with instructions and other information is a huge step forward. It’s just incredibly annoying and frustrating that everything else related to the census is online – except the form itself. Granted, there are the same hurdles to audit trails, data security, authentication and a solid form of verification of identity that stop us from moving voting online yet.

When all is said and done – it’s encouraging that we’ve come this far and gratifying that the formerly slow-moving government is taking this leap forward to social media engagement and transparency for the 2010 U.S. Census – along with many other web initiatives like this. Kudos to the Obama administration for dragging the federal government online to allow the public to interact with them via the internet.

It sure would be nice to avoid all the printed census forms, the postal delivery and then ink to paper response and return by postal delivery, with all the physical processing of those forms. Only after some portion of that paper is returned to the Census Office does it start on the path toward data entry to convert the information to digital format where it becomes useful data again.

Transcription errors, lost and misdirected mail, wrong addresses, etc., all seem so wasteful. The Census is so time and resource intensive that it boggles the mind how it could still be more reasonable to design, print, mail, transport, transcribe and store the massive amount of paper representing the data on over 300 million people.

The first part of an Inbound Marketing campaign is getting your website found online. Without any website visitors, you can’t even think about generating leads and turning those leads into customers. The process of actually turning your website into a magnet for visitors requires keeping your site updated with fresh and relevant content on an ongoing basis. And the best way to share that content is through a blog. Here are the main reasons to start setting up your business blog today:

1. Amazing Search Engine Benefits

   There is a lot of complicated information online about Search Engine Optimization and what it takes to be successful. The websites that receive huge amounts of traffic barely even think about SEO because they are too busy creating content. And you should be doing the same. Updating your blog is like casting a net into the ocean that is the Internet. A constantly updated blog with useful and relevant information attracts more website visitors than any other SEO trick.

2. Helps You Get To Know Your Market Better

   When you are updating your business blog, you can set up various tools to help you track how people are finding your site. One of the best features of these tools is that they allow you to see which keywords people used to find your site. You can use this information to your advantage to refine your product or service offering to the needs of your potential customers. When these potential customers find your blog and start to comment on your posts, you can also know more about what they think and what their true needs are.

3. Allows You To Stand Out From Your Competitors

   Chances are that you have put off creating a blog for your company because you think that a blog only helps certain industries. You may have even seen that your competitors aren’t doing it so why should you. The truth is that all companies can experience the benefits of blogging. A blog may have to be modified to be interesting enough to your potential clients but doing that will allow you to stand out even more.

Your competitors may have even tried blogging but didn’t give it the time and attention it needs. Keeping your course and sticking to a blogging schedule allows you to corner a part of the market that your competitors haven’t been able to do.

Copyright © By Dan Ronken

: When you build up a sizable amount of blog posts, you can convert your best posts into a whitepaper or free e-book to use as a lead generating tool. And to get started increasing your web visibility, I would like to invite you to claim your FREE Instant Access to our 17 Ways To Get Found Online Whitepaper. Click here to get our easy to implement tips that you can start using today. You will also receive our simple but effective action guide to help you put these tips to use immediately. From PullnotPush Marketing, an Inbound Marketing Services Team.

Curriculum vitae, work experience, references, skills inventory, resume: all describe a source of information where people can condense the vital information about themselves into a single document for interested parties to examine. The idea is giving people an overview they can sort through in order to weigh your merits and strengths against their needs, as well as to get an idea of how you present yourself.

This concept has been adopted for the web in a number of ways, but none more unique than the social media newsroom. A combination bulletin board and press collection, the SMNR is a one-stop location for people to find out critical information about you. Whether you have a new book you’re promoting, a lecture tour you want to draw attention to, or a business plan you wish to propose, the SMNR is the place you gather all the information about your venture together into a clear, concise summary.

As implied in the name, a newsroom is a page where you compile relevant press (your own and others’) about the relevant topic. It lists the basic information, quotations, summaries and news stories in question, but then it also goes a step beyond the basics.

In previous articles we’ve discussed the advantages of integrating your audience into the brand, and taking advantage of the web’s powerful communication abilities to bring their influences into the picture. The SMNR doesn’t just present good press, it includes communication venues for people using Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, Digg and more. It includes a comments section for added communication, and options for instant messaging or blog connectivity. In short it is more than just a static page, and is an active communications hub.

Any organization interested in creating and maintaining a vital web brand will find the SMNR an incredible, vital tool toward this purpose. If you have any good press, such as a positive review or mention from a SM group, consider putting up an SMNR page to centralize further promotion efforts.

The value of the SMNR lies in its convenience for your audience. As we have discussed, the web has allowed people to develop an incredibly short and discerning attention span. If you centralize your relevant information so that people can browse easily, they will be more likely to stay and peruse your content than if they had to hunt down the information themselves. Instead of looking for reviews of your company’s quality, they can find it all right at hand in your SMNR.

Given the sheer variety of social media networking sites, there is no one design of SMNR that will work in every situation. There are of course the broad guidelines already discussed, but these are not specific to any situation and for good reason. Applications such as Twitter or Digg are fairly universal, serving as conduits rather than direct sources of information. However services like Myspace and Facebook have differing user bases, and one may be more appropriate to your organization than the other. You must do the research to see what suits your business needs.

The most important piece of advice is to make your SMNR its own distinct element. We have discussed the importance of giving your online marketing efforts their own focus, rather than simply getting to them as you have time. The SMNR is no different. It will not replace the draw of a good blog or video series, just as an author’s webpage does not replace the act of actually reading his books.

Instead, find the social media networks that tie most organically into your usual web branding efforts, and build from there. If you’re focusing on a smaller audience, include instant messaging service so people can drop into the page chat room for quick input. If you’re going for a wider audience, Twitter is still an excellent way to quickly link your newest article or bit of press.

An integral part of any newsroom is the press release. This is not strictly speaking a traditional news story so much as it is a formalized announcement using the news style. As an illustration of the difference, a news story is when a journalism organization covers an event and relays the information. A press release is when the organization itself gives out information they feel is important, usually through a news channel. A good press release keeps to the basic facts, and is short and punchy.

The press release is therefore an outstanding tool for any SMNR. Brief and concise, it explains why your newest venture or change in policy deserves attention. It can be linked through your preferred social media tools and disseminated quickly, bringing people to your page for the full story. From there they can be directed to other materials, and you have your audience at hand.

Once again, the focus of the SMNR is as much about drawing in user commentary as it is about distributing information. Take the time to analyze the comments and usage figures from your newsroom against your chosen metrics. Listen to what people are saying, and engage them about these comments. Many good ideas have been lost simply for lack of communication, so take advantage of the fact that your audience is literally right there, in the newsroom with you, and ready to have a dialog.

— Enzo F. Cesario is an online brand management specialist and co-founder of Brandsplat, a social media company that uses blogs, articles, videos and social media to drive traffic to your site. For the free Brandcasting Report go to http://www.BrandSplat.com/ or visit our blog at http://www.iBrandCasting.com/

What can you do as a small- or medium-sized business owner to increase your reach with your customers? One smart idea is to look at what the big guys are doing. One company that is maximizing its marketing efforts online and offline is Chick-fil-A, the second largest chicken-based fast-food restaurant in the United States.

They do a great job of entertaining in their television commercials and their billboards. These are one-way communications. They also have two-way conversations with their people online. And here is where they are setting themselves apart from the rest of the pack.

Let’s start by looking at their website – chick-fil-a dot com.

Their website is well designed, pretty robust, and is a great informational tool. It is easy to navigate through the massive amount of information including nutritional information, company history and an entire section devoted to the cows. It’s a fine website. But there are other things these guys are doing to create a conversation with their loyal customers and potential clients.

If you look at their social media aspect, their Twitter account specifically, they are broadcasting statements from their customers. If someone is ordering something online, they’ll say, “Hey someone in Texas has just ordered some great food online.” That’s a fun way to give their customers a platform or voice.

Also their Facebook page is huge. They have a tremendous fan base and the page is a kind of a hub where customers can come in and chat with each other and talk about the brand and actually help build the brand.

Lastly, there’s a new micro-site they just launched just recently. It is EatMoreChikin dot com, hosted by their famous cows, who take matters into their own hooves. But it’s a fun, entertaining site that gets you involved. You can see that there is an interaction and playfulness and a back-and-forth with customers.

So, to wrap up, Chick-fil-A does a really fine job of having multiple digital assets online. What they do is to start a conversation. You can do the same thing with your business online with social media, with a micro-site, maybe even with an email campaign.

You have to remember that you have to give people something. You have to give them a reason to come back. You have to give them a platform to have their voices heard. These are simple things that a brand can do to get people interested in them and they will reward you with their loyalty. It doesn’t have to cost a lot of money and you can reap the benefits until the cows come home.

— Enzo F. Cesario is an online brand management specialist and co-founder of Brandsplat, a social media company that uses blogs, articles, videos and social media that drive traffic to your site. View the Chick-fil-A Social Media Management Video Brandsplat channel Or visit: http://www.BrandSplat.com/

How to Get Real-Time Content for WebSites & Blogs: Sency Real Time Search offers a simple to use widget that gives your blog access to up to the minute buzz on what’s going on across social media (primarily Twitter). Available in a WordPress Plug-in or HTML 5 snippet. The video below shows the process to embed using code generated via their web site – or you can install the wordpress plug-in, then activate the widget via your WP control panel. There is a version of the widget running in the right rail near the bottom.

WebSite101 loves the filtering Sency does! We tried the Twitter keyword widget, but found it lacking due to the need to filter out the dreck of profanity, street slang, and pointless drivel. Some of that does occasionally make it through, but there seems to be far less of it than seen in the Twitter provided widget. I used the twitter tools to filter out some of the junk and profanity, but ran out of options due to 140 character limit on the filter. Hmmm

So I pulled the twitter widget and started using the Sency Widget here. I’ve got some display issues on a Mac using the Safari browser, but after checking it most other OS and browser combinations, it seems to work well everywhere else.

I also love the second tab, which shows the most popular links shared via social conversations in the real time web. I’m sure visitors will find that feature useful too. Providing relevant information from today’s most popular business links people are sharing.

I found it a bit odd that when I clicked through to a result from the scrolling posts, that it took me to Sency, instead of sending me to the source of the tweet or Facebook status update. This seems to be standard practice for aggregators and, to be fair, is a small cost to justify their overhead in producing a free tool like this.

Overall, I’m impressed and plan to continue using the Sency widget to watch the pulse of the Business and exactly what’s going on with entrepreneurs in the real-time stream.

Highly recommended!

How to Start Using Google Buzz From Gmail: How to Start Using Google Buzz From Gmail: Video from Google about the basics of the new Buzz.

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One of the most amazing features about the Web is that it allows many people to take advantage of features they did not originate. Livejournal, Twitter, Digg, Reddit and each of the many other Social Media sites were proposed and implemented with a relatively small cadre of people, yet thousands of businesses are finding ways to use these sites for promotion and improvement every day. These sites allow for communication with the nearly captive audience that is any business’ dream.

Of course as is the case with any innovative process many businesses jump in to Social Media Marketing without understanding the problems at hand, and find themselves ignored or scorned for seeming to be incompetent. In some cases this is a failure of research, while in others it is a case of forgetting that these audiences are indeed people with complex opinions and attitudes. Combine these traits with the mass communication capability of the Internet, and you have equal potential for word of mouth fame or disaster.

Before jumping into SMM, every business needs to consider the core options available to them and see just which ones truly suit the organization and its needs. The leadership must consider the objective of their business and the audience that will facilitate this objective. Then they should consider not just which Social Media sites this audience frequents, but how to reach them in a way that makes them care. To that end, what follows is a short review of some Social Media sites and a comparison of their roles to highlight these issues.

Twitter is Social Media at its barest; short messages are sent out to anyone following the account, usually consisting of no more than a brief comment or a short URL. US President Barack Obama relied heavily on Twitter during his successful White House bid, using it to promote rallies and campaign meetings. The very brevity of Twitter gives it some of its most unexpected strength. After all, what could be more mysterious than a message reading ‘Tyler Park, 9:30 pm, bring chips and sunglasses’? Sunglasses at night? Chips? It immediately gets the mind racing with questions and interest.

Yet in a classic example illustrating that audiences are not simply feedback devices, but actual people, consider the gone-wrong story of the Republican Party in Connecticut. In an effort to satire some of their opponents, the party set up 33 fake Twitter accounts impersonating state Democrats! Twitter shut down the accounts citing terms of service clauses against impersonating other individuals. The move raised a number of ethical questions and is a classic example that users should always ask if ‘can’ necessarily means ’should.’

The title of this section indicates a common perception in the media that these competing services are offering essentially the same product. In a sense this is true, as both offer users a chance to join groups, manage and customize a profile, and use a variety of applications for entertainment or business. They represent the more involved tier of Social Media, combining aspects of blogging and websites for easy access.

However the facts show that perceptions can be misleading. Facebook only allows for plain text customization, whereas Myspace allows users to customize with HTML and CSS. While this may not sound like the greatest of distinctions it does make Facebook more accessible to the ‘casual’ user of Social media, while Myspace by default becomes the realm of those more interested in website design. If your business’ aim is to recruit potential designers, this distinction alone tells you where to focus your efforts.

These sites and others like them are in essence an Internet popularity contest. Users submit content, and other users vote on whether they find it interesting. The theory of use here is that these sites can be used as a benchmark for public opinion, based on a reading of what is popular at any given time. Except it isn’t always that simple. Digg has faced criticism that the site’s owners have a great deal of direct influence on which stories make it to the front page, which does call into question whether it actually represents public opinion.

Above we mentioned the curious case of Republicans attempting a bit of satire and finding themselves called on ethical questions. Another fact to consider is the irony vote. It is not unknown or even uncommon for Internet hobbyists to vote en masse for an irrelevant news story just to see if they can make it popular as a jest. For example, the infamous and popular social site 4chan seemingly organized massive, worldwide boycotts of the Church of Scientology because it could.

Working with a professional social media marketing agency can help ensure that your online efforts are focused on the right sites, with the right message, to the right audience for maximum ROI.

Above all, the lesson that must be learned is that the Internet is not a static collection of people waiting to obey the input of various broadcasters. Each audience is composed of many distinct and individual users, many of whom are intelligent, critical thinkers with opinions and ideas of their own. If your campaign treats them as a switch to be thrown, it will fail, period. If you want your campaign to succeed, treat these audiences with respect and develop a campaign that communicates with rather than at them.

— Enzo F. Cesario is an online brand management specialist and co-founder of Brandsplat, a social media company that uses blogs, articles, videos and social media to drive traffic to your site. For the free Brandcasting Report go to http://www.BrandSplat.com/ or visit our blog at http://www.iBrandCasting.com/