Many people that call themselves bloggers, aren’t really bloggers. Real bloggers don’t have additional jobs, they just get paid for writing about their opinions. The 21st century Journalist.

Many people are just small business owners that happen to blog a few times a week. But since most business-owners have only one source of income (their business), blogging takes a back seat to business needs. Most small businesses can’t afford to hire a full-time blogger or ghost writer so they have to make time for blogging in addition to their many business-owner duties. And because those duties are so heavy on the business owner, blogging generally falls by the wayside as more pressing matters are attended to.

Many small business owners are out there thinking, “Blogging? That’s just one more thing to add to my already slammed work schedule. No thanks.” The feeling is understandable.

There is no doubt that sitting down to write a good blog post takes time. Add in artificial deadlines and blog posting schedules, that’s why most small businesses simply don’t do it.

But blogging is an important aspect of growing your business. The key to good blogging is understanding how to work it in, prioritize it properly, and not to feel obligated to anybody but your family and customers. Like all other SEO strategies, timing is everything.

Establish your blogging priority

Many small business that blog find themselves torn between business obligations and feeling like blogging is one of the most important things we can do to grow their business. It is important, but it needs to be prioritized properly.

Looking at the big picture, blogging isn’t just about communicating with our audience. Blogging, when done effectively, helps us improve our reputation, build a brand, get customers, increase SEO Marketing and rankings and, ultimately, grow the business. Yet, missing a day of blogging here or a week of blogging there certainly isn’t going to cause collapse your business or stop customers from calling.

As with everything else, you have to keep your blogging time in perspective and prioritize it properly. You don’t have to blog every day. You can set time aside on a weekend, or on your typically slow days and write several posts at once and publish them later. If your designated “blogging time” gets interrupted by more important issues, take care of what’s important. It’s not the end of the world if you don’t get your post(s) completed on schedule.

Know when to stop writing

All of our time is limited so when writing a blog post, sometimes we find it taking a lot more of our time than we anticipated. And BLAST!!! you still have two more posts to write today! Ok, stop for a second. Think about this. Can your wordy blog post be broken down into several short posts? Snip here, cut there and you just met your blog quota for the week!

You can also break your blog writing time into several shorter periods. Write one post a week, spending 15-20 minutes a day until it’s done.

Change your blogging patterns

It is often not so much a matter of how much you blog but a matter of the content you provide. Not every blog post has to be 1200 words. Some can be a few hundred, so long as the information you provide is valuable.

If you didn’t get time to sit down and write your typical blog posts, just think of something that you can share in a couple of quick paragraphs. Write it, post it, move on. You can always go back later and revisit on and expand the topic it later.

Short posts can often be just as good, if not better than, long posts. Quick bits of information can be fantastic to readers who don’t always have time to invest in reading long pieces.

Create a blogging schedule

How and when you blog is up to you, but I recommend that you work blogging into your schedule. Have certain times of the day or days of the week or month that is designated as blogging time.

It’s also a good idea to stay a few weeks ahead of yourself. I like to keep 4-6 weeks worth of blogs posts ready to go. This gives me a chance to 1) write a post and go back to it later for proofing, and 2) have blog posts ready to go should something interfere with my normal blogging schedule. Then you never have to worry about not having a blog post ready.

Blogging can be very important to the success of your business. There is a lot of value and potential growth you can get from it, you just need to make sure you set time aside to make it happen.

It seems like a lot of small and midsized businesses are starting to introduce social media into their search engine marketing arsenal. Perhaps it is because of budget restrictions or they just want some of the profound buzz surrounding the social media craze.

But what happens once the Facebook fan page is up, but has few fans, Twitter account is up and running, but only a handful of followers and a relatively inactive blog with no comments or feedback? Where to now?

In order for Social Media to have compound effect it requires engagement, otherwise you have missed the best effects of both Search Engine Marketing and Social Media Marketing.

Engagement says a lot about your brand… and YOU too...

Seth Godin in his blog post defined Brand differently than we have thought about in the past:

A brand is the set of expectations, memories, stories and relationships that, taken together, account for a consumer’s decision to choose one product or service over another. If the consumer (whether it’s a business, a buyer, a voter or a donor) doesn’t pay a premium, make a selection or spread the word, then no brand value exists for that consumer.

A brand used to be something else. It used to be a logo or a design or a wrapper. Today, that’s a shadow of the brand, something that might mark the brand’s existence. But just as it takes more than a hat to be a cowboy, it takes more than a designer prattling on about texture to make a brand. If you’ve never heard of it, if you wouldn’t choose it, if you don’t recommend it, then there is no brand, at least not for you.

What Does This Have to Do With Engagement

So basically what he is saying is that if your customers aren’t talking about you, they aren’t talking about your brand either – both because they are not worth talking about. Simple as that.. Similarly, if you aren’t doing anything special, engagement becomes a challenge that even the best of PR can’t overcome.

The following tips are great for creating many fans on your Facebook fan page:

1. Authenticity. Be yourself.

2. Great Stuff. Have something great, and even if others don’t think it is great – sell them on it. You can’t motivate fans for an average product. For a great product, you don’t need to. They’ll come to you.

So what is the secret formula required for engagement? Be remarkable, do something worth talking about, build a product or service offering that stands out and away from the pack.