Savvy architects and other professionals are using the Internet and social media as a way to drive brand awareness, connect with people with similar passions and to do what all business owners seek – attract leads and clients.

At a recent Kansas City AIA Chapter meeting, I gave a presentation on social media with Cindy Frewen, an architect, educator, blogger, Twitter personality and fellow Kansas City dweller.

Cindy is nothing short of fantastic. She’s smart, savvy, has owned her own successful architecture firm for many years and now has a Ph.D., travels, consults, teaches, blogs about urbanism and sustainability and is a whirlwind of a talented person doing great things.

Cindy is also the personification of an architect who uses social channels to grow and develop her own brand, make new connections, and gain a reputation as a thought leader.

And that’s exactly why the Kansas City AIA Chapter asked us to speak about social media.

The Basics: Why Social Media, Stats on Usage + ROI

I started off the conversation and took the group through the basics. That included discussing how today’s business website should be the hub of all your business operations and that you should regularly “feed” that hub with fresh content from places like your corporate blog, YouTube, Flickr, social channels, etc.

I took them through some stats designed to show the naysayers that social media isn’t just for kids, and also showed them how inbound marketing can be exponentially more profitable than the traditional outbound marketing tactics that many of us have grown up utilizing. I concluded by showing them how a corporate blog – whether your business is large or small – can have a large impact on your new business development efforts and that, along with a well-designed website and use of social media channels, is the epitome of an integrated marketing strategy

Next Steps: Tactics, Growth, Research, Best Practices for Content

That positioned the audience for Phase II of the presentation, which was presented by Cindy. She took the audience from the basis and the strategic elements covered in the overview, straight to the tactics. She talked with them about how she initially got involved in social media and illustrated the growth process that it has resulted in for her, her practice and career. Ever the educator, Cindy shared tips about with how she uses social channels to gather research and to understand her diverse audiences.

She shared concrete ideas about what makes a blog interesting and how to think about what kind of content you want to create and that your audience might be interested in. Cindy provided examples of some great, industry specific yet very diverse blogs, so that the audience could get a sense as to the wide range of options that exist when it comes to corporate blogging.

Cindy is very involved on Twitter and shared examples of a variety of Twitter accounts of different architects, bloggers and architecture firms, so that the audience could see the many different ways that architects are represented in this milieu – and how they all use Twitter differently. She also shared ideas on best practices for sharing content, at which she’s a master.

Cindy wrapped up her presentation with some hints of what’s to come (after all, she’s a futurist), and our presentation concluded.

The Presentation

The SlideShare presentation is embedded below, and if you have any questions or if you would like more information about anything covered here, feel free to ping Cindy @urbanverse or me @ShellyKramer on Twitter and/or leave a comment here on the blog.

And, if you’re an architect thinking that you need to get change with the times and get on board with an updated website, a blog and a social media presence, you’re absolutely right!

Image Credit: Kansas City AIA

How Architects Can Use Social Media is a post from: V3 Kansas City Integrated Marketing and Social Media Agency

Some bloggers may be a little intimidated by SEO thanks to the ever-changing nature of search giants like Google, which are frequently in the news because of new algorithms that change how content is found, and subsequently listed on results pages.

Gabriella Sannino of Level 343 wrote a fascinating piece on social search and how that impacts SEO, and closed with the line “It’s not Google’s game; it’s your business.” We couldn’t agree more – and as corporate blogging continues to be an integral part of marketing strategies, educating yourself not only on the importance of SEO, but on how social impacts SEO is just good business.

Don’t let the thought of SEO make your head spin.

If you keep a few SEO basics in mind, you’ll know enough to maximize the visibility of your content and help make your blog a success. One of my all-time favorite bloggers, Lisa Barone at Outspoken Media has compiled a fantastic SEO checklist for bloggers, and we thought we’d share a few of her tips that you should add to your must-do list before you hit “Publish.”

Target, Target, Target.

No, we’re not talking about the department store (although who can resist the allure of those red circles?) When you write a post, you want to make sure it’s targeted, especially if you’re blogging for business. Who’s reading it? Why are you publishing it? How does the post fit into your company blog, your site and the business itself?

Tempting Titles.

It’s no surprise that the title is one of the most important components of your post. You want to create a title that’s concise, appealing and that contains key words in order to be more easily found by search engines. Keep in mind that when you’re blogging, you have two opportunities to write titles: your post title and your page title, which will appear in your title tag. Most of the time, these titles will be the same. You may, however, find an instance when your page title is slightly modified to include more keywords or additional information that will help your post’s visibility.

Tailor Your URL.

If you’re blogging in WordPress, take a few minutes to go to “Settings–>Permalinks” and edit your URL display preferences. As Lisa writes, Outspoken Media opts for the “custom structure” option. This allows for the customization of post slugs, and allows you to work keywords into your URL. A tip? The shorter the URL, the better. This is not the place in which to cram a bunch of keywords at the risk of being perceived as overly complex–or worse yet, spammy.

Detail Your Description.

Don’t overlook the “page description” field before you publish your post. This short yet valuable space is where you sell the post. It’s a great place for keywords, but you also want to make the description enticing enough so that someone will click through.

A Picture is Worth 1,000 Results.

Really. It is. Forgive our modified analogy. And don’t overlook optimizing your images for SEO!

Helpful Headers.

Like these. Not only do header tags help break up your post for easier reading; they also boost SEO, too, since web readers skim through posts. Plus, as Barone writes, using heading tags will help search engines better understand the main points of your page, which will boost your search results and visibility.

Incorporate Old Posts.

You’ve probably noticed that we do this in every post at V3 and we teach our clients to do it, too. And why not? You’re putting your older content to work in a new context and helping archived posts maintain better visibility in search results. You’re most likely already incorporating external links into your posts (and if not, you need to), so why not not do the same with your own content?

We’d love to hear how you use these SEO tips to optimize your blog content. And if you have any additional SEO recommendations, we’d love to see your additions to our list.

Maximizing Your Blog’s Visibility With An SEO Checklist is a post from: V3 Kansas City Integrated Marketing and Social Media Agency

When you write a blog post, you probably include an image (and if you’re not, here’s a tip: start now!) Newsflash? You can optimize those images for search, too, which will serve to boost your content’s appearance in search results. Not only will this help increase your visibility, but can also boost your click-throughs, ad views and AdSense impressions, according to a post on Michael Gray’s Graywolf’s SEO Blog.

So how do you go about optimizing images for search? With the help of MarketingProfs, I’ve got a few handy tips that can easily be incorporated in your next blog post.

• When naming the file, include keywords. If you’re stumped, you might want to look at the keywords/tags in your blog post and use those to help generate ideas. Just don’t try to cram too many keywords into one file name. For example, if you’re writing a blog on energy-efficient lighting and you have an image of a compact fluorescent lightbulb, you could name the file CFL_energysavings; CFL_benefits; or CFL_greenproducts, to name a few.

• Help optimize your post’s important images by including bolded keywords or a heading tag in text that immediately precedes the image.

• When you write captions, include the search term at the front (as long as it makes sense to be there.)

• In image optimization, size does matter! Don’t go smaller than 100 x 100 or larger than 1,200 x 1,200.

If you’re already familiar with SEO, these tips are simple enough to incorporate and will quickly become habit as you format images for your blog posts. The result? You’ll likely end up with higher search visibility, which not only ensures your content is seen by a wider audience—you may find that it helps you grow your business, too. And what’s not to love about that?

I’d love to know if you’re currently optimizing your images for search. If so, how’s it working?

How To Optimize Your Blog Post Images For Search is a post from: V3 Kansas City Integrated Marketing and Social Media Agency

For those of us who are old hands at that, it seems like no big deal. But for a vast number of people, even ones who are somewhat familiar with the Internet, social mediums are very much an unknown and social media marketing can seem overwhelming and very unattractive.

One thing that we strive to do is make our clients’ forays into the world of social mediums fun. “Fun?” you say – “how’s that possible?”

It’s really not as difficult as you might think – and it’s almost always about the little things.

The Corporate Blog. Take corporate blogging for instance. We often work with clients and get them started on a corporate blog. In addition to developing the blog itself, we also help develop a content marketing strategy and an editorial calendar. We work with our clients and teach them how to write content that is not only informative, but also interesting, entertaining and a nice representation of their brand.

Finding Fun. In the process, kind of in stealth mode, and while they might not realize it, we’re showing people how fun it can be to not only have a corporate blog, but to participate — and contribute to it. In that respect, we’re all a lot like children, and our blog posts are our babies. Before long, we see people proudly sending their first posts, or their most popular posts to their moms (don’t laugh – I do!) – or significant others – or posting on Facebook walls and sharing with friends. See what I mean – it’s all about the little things.

The Fun Theory. And you know what, that’s the fun part. Changing behavior when it comes to social media often means making time in our day-to-day work activities for something new. Much like the Volkswagen Fun Theory and the amazing Piano stairs, before long, new is the new norm.

Every time I watch any of the videos of The Fun Theory campaign, they make me smile. And I marvel at the genius behind them. Fun. So simple. Are you smiling? If not, I’ll bet it’s because you’ve not yet watched that video.

Numbers Can Be Fun Too. Because I’m a geek, what’s even more fun for me is showing clients how to watch their web analytics and see the fruits of their corporate blogging labors blossom.

I remember when I first started blogging, I was delighted to have ten people read one of my blog posts. I’m no less delighted today, when I have hundreds read my posts. Having analytics on your blog and, even more importantly, looking at them regularly, can help you plot the road map to success.

Success. That can be a myriad of things. But, when it relates to social media and the corporate blog, if done correctly, it can mean more traffic to your website, more brand awareness, more prospective customers, more leads, more opportunities, more sales. And oh yes, those things are a whole lotta fun, too. I’ll leave you with some stats on corporate blogging that you might find interesting:

Still kicking around the idea of starting a corporate blog, or trying to get inspired to contribute regularly to the one you already have? Hopefully this post will help you get going. If not, call me, I have a degree in Professional Nagging.

*Source, State of Inbound Marketing Report, Hubspot

Image Credit: BalooCartoons.com

Want to Change Attitudes about Social Media? Make It Fun is a post from: V3 Kansas City Integrated Marketing and Social Media Agency

Shelly wrote a post about Social Bookmarking, What It Is And Why You Need It, and this piece is intended as a follow-up, and to give you kind of a step-by-step tutorial on using social bookmarking sites.

As mentioned in the earlier post, social bookmarking is really all about saving, discovering or sharing content online. It’s like a giant filing cabinet, filled with goodies.

From a business standpoint, social bookmarking can be an important part of your content marketing strategy.

Think of it like this: just because you write a blog post doesn’t necessarily mean someone will read it. So, once you write it, you’ve got to think about how you can share it in the online space so that others might find and see the content you produce – whether for yourselves or for your clients. It’s called “content marketing” for a reason.

That’s where social bookmarking comes in – and why it makes sense to make the time to develop profiles on various social bookmarking sites and not only use them to share your own content, but to discover other users on that platform, get to know them, share their content, find cool stuff to read, share, learn from, etc.

But in order for people to find the content you produce, you have to tag it appropriately, so that they will.

What the Heck Is a Tag And Why Do I Need To Use Them?

Tagging is like putting something in a file folder, but before you do that, you usually want to name the file folder. Online, tagging allows you to search by a particular tag and find all content associated with that particular tag. It’s a shortcut, if you will.

As mentioned, if you want to start using social bookmarking, you’ll need to learn to tag the things you bookmark. Each time you bookmark a post, you can typically chose tags or a category for the post. Use as many applicable tags as permitted to help increase exposure with different terms. This is true on all social bookmarking sites, and also true on sites like YouTube – but of course, only if you want your videos (or other content) to be found.

What is a tag? If we were going to explain tags to our “non computer literate” grandmother, we would probably explain it somewhat like this: “A tag is a one word, or possibly two word, description of what the post is about.” Bottom line – a tag tells the search engines what your post is about. It’s as simple as that.

Here is an example for you – if you were going to bookmark this particular blog post, you could use any (or all) of the following tags:

• “how to”
• “business marketing”
• “content marketing”
• “business”
• “social bookmarking”
• “social marketing”

Use any tag that makes sense to you (and your followers, if you are using social bookmarking as a “social” way to find and share content – much like the #hashtags used on Twitter). Some sites, such as Delicious, will show you suggested tags based on what their algorithms believe the content is about – feel free to use these, in addition to any other tags that you think are relevant to the content.

Some Basic Tips on Tagging

• Tag proper nouns
• Don’t abbreviate unless it’s an industry term (like “SEO”)
• Short and simple is always best
• Use nouns
• Develop a system and be consistent

Some sites, for example Digg, don’t use tags but instead use categories such as Business, Technology, Lifestyle, etc., In those instances, select the category that is most fitting to the content you are bookmarking (Note: Digg only allows one category).

Optimizing Your Social Bookmarking Profiles

Just about all of the various social bookmarking sites will allow you to complete a profile for yourself – and this is important. In fact, optimizing your social media profiles is as important as optimizing your blog or website. Take the few minutes that it will require and do that and include the keywords that describe your business.

We recommend using the same profile name on each site (which makes it easier for others to find you) and, most importantly, whether you like it or not, that’s a piece of what comprises your own online “brand” or “digital footprint” and it’s always good to be consistent.

A number of the sites will allow you to include your own website URL as part of the profile. Take advantage of any opportunity to personalize your profile information and fill in as much detail about you and your business as you want to share with potential “followers” and/or people who find and like the content you bookmark. Again, it’s called “optimizing” for a reason – and the more information you can provide about yourself and your business, the better results and/or traffic you’ll see.

Bonus Tip: If you are joining a social bookmarking site and have the ability to add multiple links within your profile, consider adding your other social networking links – e.g. add your LinkedIn profile URL to your StumbleUpon profile or your StumbleUpon profile URL to your Digg profile, etc. All of this helps create a cohesive footprint and will be beneficial in the long run.

What Are These Social Bookmarking Sites Called?

While there are many, many different social bookmarking sites out there here are some of the “more popular” ones:

• Digg
• StumbleUpon
• Delicious
• Diigo
• Twitter
• Reddit
• Mixx*

Digg and Mixx are two examples of sites that are vote-based. What this means is that the more votes or thumbs-up a URL receives, the more popular it is and, thus, the more likely it is to become featured and on the home page of the site. This can result in massive exposure for your content (and lots of web traffic for you or your clients). Note: Mixx was recently purchased and is on hiatus right now – hopefully, we’ll see it back, as it was a platform I shared and interacted on a lot and enjoyed.

What Does Social Bookmarking Do For Me?

While most posts will probably never make it to the home page of social bookmarking sites, there are still several reasons why a business owner may want to use social bookmarking sites:

• Content Curation for a niche/target market, Diigo and Delicious will allow you to pull an RSS feed for a specific tag. You could use these feeds in several ways – internal use for blog ideas, news mentions of your company that you want to feature on your website, or to easily share related content from various sources that creates a stream of fresh content for your website.
• Increased readership and distribution/sharing of the content you produce, whether for yourself or for your clients.
• Increased exposure for your business services or products to what are some very large online audiences.
• Potential for backlinks (though low, the potential is there).
• Meeting others with similar interests (networking).

Best Practices For Social Bookmarking

And, although it’s only common sense, as with anything social, you’ll want to keep the following in mind:

• Don’t promote just your own content. Surely you discover great content all over the web on a daily basis. When you do, share that on your social bookmarking sites. You’ll be amazed at how that can improve your credibility within those communities. When it comes to social bookmarking, what goes around most definitely comes around. And when you regularly share others’ content, they are more likely to regularly share yours, thus expanding your audience and bringing you fresh readers and/or friends and followers.
• Adding comments and reviews (where allowed) on the social bookmarking sites that you use can help potential visitors to those posts understand what you enjoy or found helpful. This also helps increase your credibility within those communities.
• Time. It always takes time. You’ll need to invest at least a little bit of time with your networks in order to truly grow and get exposure on the various things you submit. If you just use social bookmarking to blast your own content, the benefit you receive will probably not be as great as you might otherwise reap.

What social bookmarking sites do you use – and why? And if you have any questions about social bookmarking that aren’t explained here, please feel ask in the comments section – we’d love to help you get started effectively using social bookmarking to help in your online marketing efforts.

Social Bookmarking: How To Do It Correctly is a post from: V3 Kansas City Integrated Marketing and Social Media Agency

Social bookmarking may sound fancy, but it’s really quite simple. Know how you find something you like in a magazine and rip out the page for future reference? Social bookmarking is about the same thing – only online. And better.

Social Bookmarking – Why It’s Better Than Ripping Out Magazine Pages

1. Instead of bookmarking sites of interest to your web browser, when you use use social bookmarking sites, your links (or gems of information that you like and want to save or share with others) are saved on web-based sites that can be accessed from anywhere.
2. Your bookmarked content can be found by others who are looking for similar type content (based on tags and/or categories).
3. Social bookmarking can help you find other websites and blog posts that interest you and/or your clients (again, based on tags and/or categories).
4. Social bookmarking can help others find your content more easily – and deposit them right on your front step (a/k/a your blog or website).
5. Ergo, Grasshopper, social bookmarking can lead to interest, which can lead to traffic, which can lead to leads, which can lead to sales. Oh my!

In summary, social bookmarking is really all about just three things: Saving, Discovering, Sharing.

While I’m not sure which social bookmarking site was the first on the scene (as certainly there will be varying opinions on what is considered a social bookmarking site) it’s actually been around for some time – even if you’ve never heard of it. Social bookmarking sites include sites like Twitter, Digg, Reddit, StumbleUpon, Delicious, Tweetmeme, Mixx and many others.

When we explain social bookmarking to someone, we tell them to think of it as a big, giant online filing cabinet – but one that’s organized by way of tags that identify what the content is about. And, one of the things that makes that online filing cabinet uber cool is that it’s public (if you want it to be) and accessible by anyone.

This video, while dated a bit, explains Social Bookmarking in Plain English. It was produced in 2006, which seems like light years ago (and in Internet years, that is light years!), the concept is still right on and briefly explains all the points articulated above.

Social Bookmarking Is Breadcrumbs On the Web

We write (and talk) a lot about online marketing – or content marketing – and how important it is to leave breadcrumbs of content all over the Web, all of which ultimately enhances your credibility, your brand image, the value you provide – and hopefully, it drives traffic back to your website.

Social bookmarking is yet another tactic you can use to leave those delicious breadcrumbs on the Internet. And, for the record, I agree wholeheartedly with the inimitable Geoff Livingston that the best kind of content marketing is for businesses to learn how to become better storytellers – and deliver facts, value and insights for your customers and prospects. That kind of content adds value to your relationship with those folks instead of just pushing whatever it is you’ve got to sell on them.

When your content (blog posts, press releases, articles, etc.) are submitted to social bookmarking sites, they have the potential to be found by others interested in those topics and not only increase your own brand awareness and credibility as an expert on that topic, but they can also drive traffic back to your website. Think of it as an element on online networking – or even new business prospecting. And also think of it as adding value to people who are interested in the topics you’re writing about.

If you enjoy finding smaller, lesser known websites and bloggers (or are doing research for yourself or on behalf of your clients), performing keyword and tag searches will often deliver up sites you might otherwise not have found. We use a variety of social bookmarking sites on a daily basis as a place to gather competitive information, research topics we’re writing about for our clients, as well as to share our own content and our clients’ content as far and widely as we possibly can. That’s part of our job when it comes to content marketing deliverables for our clients.

Want to know more about social bookmarking? Stay tuned (and if you’ve not yet subscribed to the V3 blog, now’s your chance) — because we’ve got another post coming this week that will give you a “how to” look at getting started using social bookmarking.

Let us know in the comments here if you have any specific questions we can answer and/or cover in that post – but otherwise, we’ll see you in a few days!

P.S. Feel free to stalk me on StumbleUpon, Digg, Delicious or Twitter. You know you wanna.

Image Credit: Michael Gaigg

Social Bookmarking: What It Is And Why It Matters is a post from: V3 Kansas City Integrated Marketing and Social Media Agency

Admittedly, we’re blogging geeks. And love discovering tools that make it easier to juggle the million things we do on a daily basis, including making the process of writing blog posts more efficient. The latest tool to capture our attention and win our hearts is Awesome Screenshot, a Chrome extension for capturing and annotating screenshots.

With this handy dandy tool, you can find cool stuff, capture it in a screenshot, annotate it with circles, arrows or anything else that suits your fancy and then either save to a document or get a URL so that you can share easily.

Awesome Screenshot lets you capture any web page or capture a screenshot, easily blur out sensitive information and crop and annotate as desired. There are tons of applications for a tool like this, including web design, blogging, tech support and sharing … and probably a myriad of others.

We could write more, but there’s no need – this says it all. Go check out Awesome Screenshot – watching the video below makes it super easy – and you’ll soon see why it makes the top of our Really Killer Tools list.

Bloggers’ Delight: Capture, Share and Annotate Data is a post from: V3 Kansas City Integrated Marketing and Social Media Agency

I don’t know what came over me – I just saw this picture of the Hot Ninja Babe and wanted to BE her for a minute (but only a minute), so I thought she belonged here. This post, while NOT written by or about a Hot Ninja Babe, was written by my friend, Matt Bernier, who is not only very fun to hang out with, he’s really smart when it comes to WordPress. So, here he is, sharing his brain cells with you! Enjoy.

When I read and then re-read Shelly’s post about 5 Things to Make Your Business Blog Totally Kick A** I immediately thought that there might be quite a few WordPress site owners who might WANT to do these killer things, but who don’t know what to do to make these changes to their site. Lucky for you, there’s me! (Shelly is clearly rubbing off on me).

With WordPress, the first thing I do is try to find a plugin that will do what I want. Plugins are often free, which is cool. Free is good. And sometimes, you have to pay a little something for a really awesome plugin, but you usually get so much FREE functionality that it makes it worthwhile. Plus, you don’t have to pay a geek like me to build the feature for you! Here are some specifics mentioned in Shelly’s post … and quick and easy solutions. w00t w00t!! (that’s geek speak for “totally cool beans”).

1. Do you have a Contact Form?

You can get a quick and easy contact form that will allow people to get in touch with you easily and quickly by using the Contact Form 7 plugin. All you have to do is install it and add a simple tag to your contact page, the form shows up like magic and you are protected from spam comments by a CAPTCHA!

2. Do you feature “Connect With Us” buttons that are easy to spot?

There are a couple great plugins for this, but the one we really like is called Find Me On. You can customize it with the top social networks and locations where you are found and can create the community around your online presence.

3. Do you utilize social sharing buttons, prominently displayed on your blog?

Shelly is a big fan of AddThis and Apture. We love Apture too and have it on three different sites right now because it is so awesome. Another great plugin that I love is ShareThis which is almost exactly the same as addthis but it will add the icons to the bottom of every post.

4. Comments!

Comments are one of the very most important features of a site, but they have a tendency to attract those wonderful spam bots. One of the quickest and easiest ways to fight spam is with a plugin that comes with WordPress called Akismet. It is built and managed by the WordPress guys to fight spam and much like your email spam detector, it learns!

5. Do you invite your readers to subscribe to your blog by BOTH an RSS feed and by Email?

Most popular themes have links to RSS feeds, either in the theme, or your browser will let you see the RSS links in the address bar. But, since many people still don’t know what RSS is or how to use it and many don’t want to use an RSS reader because it is just one more thing to check, email is super important. An email notification plugin that we love is Post Notification. It gives you a widget for your sidebar and lets people sign up quickly and easily, enabling your brilliant posts to be quickly delivered to their inboxes.

There are literally thousands of WordPress plugins out there, all you have to do is look. Or you can read my blog and discover them there! The ones mentioned above are usually standard fare when we put together a WordPress site because they are so simple and add such great functionality for website visitors.

Matt Bernier is co-owner of Spotted Koi LLC in Denver, CO. He has been working with web software and technology for over 7 years. Recently, he has been helping people set up and maintain their WordPress websites through how-tos, tips and tricks on WP-Relief.com He’s good people and if you’re not yet following and engaging with him on Twitter, I suggest you do so, immediately. #thatisall

P.S. And if you’ve not yet subscribed to this blog’s bitchin’ RSS feed (for convenient delivery either in your reader OR in your emailbox) why the heck not???

WordPress Ninja! 5 Plugins To Make Your Blog Kick A** is a post from: V3 Kansas City Integrated Marketing and Social Media Agency

I discover new blogs all the time, written by smart small business owners and marketers who understand that the world is changing and that their marketing tactics need to change with it.

I also see lots of mistakes, or things left unfinished. Here are a few tips to think about as you start down the path of blogging for your small business:

1. Do you have a Contact Form integrated into your blog or company website? This is the best way to capture leads and allow people who are interested in more information about you and the products and/or services you offer to contact you. Plus, it allows you to not only build a lead database but also to track your conversions.

2. Do you feature “Connect With Us” buttons that are easy to spot? If your business has a presence on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn or elsewhere, by allowing your blog readers and/or website visitors to easily see and click those buttons, you encourage them to be a part of the communities you are building on those social media networks. Doesn’t that just make sense?

3. Do you utilize social sharing buttons, prominently displayed on your blog? I’m a fan of having sharing buttons at the top of each blog post and also at the bottom. If you don’t make it easy for your readers to share your content, guess what – they won’t! And isn’t that the whole point of the content you are creating — the fact that you’d love for it to be shared? And by the way, I’m also a big fan of the Apture toolbar, which is located at the top of a page – check it out on this blog – their stats are amazing and their customer service out of this world.

4. Comments! Comments are one of the most important elements of a blog and I find many blogs don’t allow them. A reader who cares enough about what you’ve written to leave a comment is a reader that you WANT. Don’t leave off this important element of your blog – and don’t forget to respond to all comments that your readers leave, even if they are comments that disagree with you.

5. Do you invite your readers to subscribe to your blog by BOTH an RSS feed and by Email? Email is still the most popular platform there is, so when you assume that people will prefer an RSS feed over an email subscription, you are sometimes making a fatal error. Do you have any idea how many of your readers and potential readers have no idea what an RSS feed is? Trust me, there are many. Adding an email subscription option is critical. And, guess what, it’s MY personal preference, too!

These are just five tips – and things I see often that new small business bloggers forget and/or overlook. There are many more great ideas and tips – and if you have some, we would all love to hear them. So go ahead, leave a comment. And, while you’re at it, subscribe to this blog – you know you wanna.

5 Things to Make Your Business Blog Totally Kick A** is a post from: V3 Kansas City Integrated Marketing and Social Media Agency

I also love speaking. Big groups, small groups, one-on-one one, you name it, and I love it. I was a Coms major in college and reveled in every bit of that experience. Give me a room full of people over a math problem any day. Might explain why it took me five tries to finally pass College Algebra, huh? My point – we’re all good at something and sometimes it makes sense to move outside our respective comfort levels and learn something new. Plus, I truly believe that video blogging is — and should be — an integral part of smart social media strategies, so if I’m going to talk the talk and tell my clients how important it is to vlog, I’ve got to walk the walk. I’m just that kind of gal.

For me, video blogging is a whole different milieu. Don’t get me wrong – I’m so not afraid of a camera. I’ve been on TV a hundred times. Had my picture taken a million more. You don’t do what I do and not have considerable media exposure. But, when it comes to sitting down alone in front of my FlipCam and doing a video post – goodness, but I’m my own harshest critic. Anyone relate to that concept? I’ll bet so.

Here’s the thing. Whether it’s your first blog post, your first presentation in front of a group of people, your first sales pitch or your first video blog post, it’s probably not going to be perfect. But, the only way to get started is to take the first step–get over your insecurities, take a leap, and get the darn thing out there. Or, as I learned at Liz Strauss and Terry Starbucker’s SOBCon event, the veritable think tank of the social web, launch the damn thing, then tweak it.

And so, without further ado, I’m launching it. My first video blog post. Sure, I cut off the top of my head – but I wanted you to see the necklace I was vlogging about. Sure, I could’ve used some lipstick but, guess what, that’s what I look like. Not always perfect. Sure, I need to learn a few tricks, and I especially need to learn how to edit, but what the heck, I’m putting it out there, warts and all, so that you can see that we all start somewhere. I’ll work on perfection next time. But, until then, I’m not afraid to show you my first effort.

And, in case you missed it because you were (1) blinded by my beauty, (2) entranced by my words or (3) counting my many wrinkles, my cool necklace is from the folks at Survival of the Hippest, and you can stalk them on Twitter at @TheHippest.

So there, I’ve done it. Gotten over the hump. Launched the damn thing. I’ll get better. But there’s gotta be a starting point. Now it’s your turn. What are you procrastinating about? What are you dragging your feet on? I double dog dare you to launch the damn thing. And then tell me about it so that I can give you a virtual pat on the back. And maybe even buy you a beer.

My Debut: Video Blogging. I Really AM a Dork. is a post from: V3 Kansas City Integrated Marketing and Social Media Agency