Blogging is a fantastic way to build awareness for your business and area of expertise. Blogging allows your constituents to see the real voice behind your business and demonstrates your knowledge in your areas of expertise. It is also part of your permission marketing channel that can lead to new connections and opportunities.

However, blogging is hard.

Most people I talk to have a difficult time blogging because they are not sure what to write about, how to write, or how to keep up. Here are a few business blogging tips that will hopefully make blogging easier for you.

1. Keep a list of ideas and capture them in real time. If you try to come up with great ideas every time you sit down to blog, it can be difficult to maintain inspiration. However, if you capture your ideas into a list whenever they come to you, it will be much easier to blog when you have the time because you already have a list of ideas ready to go. I use Jott to capture ideas on the go.

2. Blog in a conversational style. Don’t try to use marketing speak or a stuffy corporate tone. Blog as if you are explaining your thoughts to a friend and write in simple, plain language. Content on the web should be easy to read to accommodate the shorter attention spans in this medium.

3. Don’t promote… educate, instead. No one wants to read a blog that blathers on and on about your company and how great your service is. People do want to read things that help them and provide value. If you want loyal readers and content that gets shared, keep it constituent-focused.

4. Don’t worry about word-count. Say what you need to say and stop there. A blog can be 500 words or a single paragraph. Seth Godin sometimes blogs in one sentence.

5. Blog about things that matter to your customers. If you provide marketing services, teach your customers how to market. If you provide health care services, teach your patients how to maintain proper health. If you sell products, teach your customers how to get the most from that product. The possibilities are endless.

Blogging can and should be fun. If you are passionate about what you do and you know what you are talking about, then relax and let the words flow. Don’t over-analyze it. Your constituents will appreciate an honest tone and valuable content. Future customers will take notice, as well.

Whether you are in a business or a non-profit, taking payments online can dramatically increase efficiency, sales, and security. When it comes to registering for events, most people prefer to register online. Taking payments online makes a lot of sense.

However, I sometimes get questions from organizations that are apprehensive about online payments because it's unfamiliar territory. Like most things, however, e-commerce is not as scary when you understand how it all works so I'd like to help dispel some of the mystery about e-commerce so that it's more easily understood.

Taking payments online requires a few things:

• Secure website and payment system
• Payment gateway
• Merchant account

Your website need to have a payment system in order to accept payments online. If you are selling products, this could be a shopping cart. If you are taking event registrations, it could be an online registration form. A payment gateway is an a service provider that authorizes payments for an organization (the "seller"). A payment gateway is the online equivalent of the card swipe machines that you see in stores when you are checking out. A merchant account is a type of bank account that allows businesses to accept payments by debit or credit cards.

When someone makes a payment online (such as registering for an event or buying a product), the process from start to finish looks like this:

1. The customer enters credit card information and clicks the "Submit" button
2. The website encrypts the information and sends the credit card information to the payment gateway
3. The payment gateways checks to see if the credit card number is valid, does some fraud screening, and checks to see if the charge is approved (this takes a few seconds)
4. If the charge is approved, the payment gateway sends an approval notice back to the website so that a confirmation message can be displayed to the user
5. The website completes the purchase however it is designed to do so
6. The payment gateway captures the fund and makes a deposit into the seller's bank account (it takes a few days for the money to appear)
7. The seller ships the product, allows the customer into the event, or does whatever needs to be done to fulfill the purchase

All of this happens behind the scenes while the customer is waiting for the confirmation.

At SpinWeb, we provide the secure website and payment system for online product sales, registrations, and donations. However, the payment gateway is handled by a third-party provider. We prefer to use Authorize.Net, since this gateway is a proven provider with a good track record. We connect our clients with Derek Bogard from Immediate Payment Solutions, who does a great job of walking our clients through the paperwork. If a merchant account is needed, that can also be set up at this time.

The monthly fees from the gateway and merchant account are usually somewhere between $10 and $30 per month with a percentage fee of about 1% - 2.5% per transaction.

Once the paperwork is filled out, the Authorize.Net is activated and we plug it into the organization's website. At this point, the seller is now ready to accept payments online and the process should be automated from start to finish.

Whether it's selling products, taking donations, or allowing online event registration, online payments make your organization easier to do business with. This means happier customers and more revenue. What's the cost of not taking payments online?

Kyle Lacy is founder and CEO of Brandswag, a social media training and strategy company. He recently authored two books, Twitter Marketing for Dummies (Nov 2009) and Branding Yourself (Dec 2010) and is a highly sought after speaker. He writes regularly at his blog on KyleLacy.com and you can find him chatting daily on Facebook / Twitter.

Twitter is the talk of the town from marketing firms to small business owners. The site recently hit 100 million users and is fast approaching being the top search engine in the world. ... The question for everyone is how do we use this tool to increase leads and drive growth? This seems to be the question most people are asking across the business landscape. If you are skeptical and a little confused... believe me... you are not alone. I am immersed in social media on a daily basis and I am still testing strategies when using Twitter. We are all trying to figure out this new world of online communication.. so where do you start when diving into Twitter? It is just another tool in your (business) arsenal to drive brand awareness across a specific group of people. So what do you do when first starting out? Limit your use. It is extremely important to build out a usage plan for Twitter when first starting out on the tool. An example: Phase 1

• Use Twitter for 30 minutes a day
• Add 10 strategic relationships to follow every two days (between 30-45 followers a week)
• Tweet (send a message) three times a day
• Write down all strategic relationships or new business leads formed when using Twitter

Phase 2

• Move up to an hour of usage a day. Example: designate 30 minutes in the morning and 30 minutes after the work day. You could also break the usage out over the day
• Sign up for a HootSuite account to help with Tweeting and follower management throughout the day.
• Move up to 10 tweets a day. If need be... use HootSuite for random posting through-out the day.

This is just small example of how you can build out a Twitter usage plan for yourself or your employees. There are a couple of important things to remember:

• Use the tool on a daily basis. It is important to build up a habit of using the tool.
• Measure. Measure. Measure. Measure. If you do not see some type of success after 3-5 months.. re-evaluate your usage.
• Remember that Twitter is just another medium to reach potential consumers... don't give up your other marketing strategies... integrate your approach

I recently sent out a survey asking for preferred methods of event registration. I like to back up our recommendations with actual data so I plan to do surveys like this on a regular basis and this seemed like a good place to start. Many of our clients, especially associations, hold events throughout the year and are always looking for ways to increase attendance and make it easier to get people to register. Many of them are either accepting registrations with an online registration system or are considering it.

The survey was sent to a variety of people via email, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and word of mouth. We got over 100 responses and here are the results:

Obviously, the results speak for themselves. Over 90% of people who responded prefer online registration. This is important to note for organizations that have events and are not yet taking registrations online. With such a landslide preference toward registration online, one might wonder how many prospective attendees are lost due to lack of easy way to register. Would those on the fence register if they could easily do it online?

What is also interesting to note is that the largest age group that responded was 46-55 with almost 1/5 of the responders over 55, yet the results were heavily weighted in favor of online registration. The notion that older people prefer traditional methods is apparently a misconception!

If you are currently not taking event registrations online, you might want to look at the data. Giving prospective attendees an easy way to register may just increase attendance.

Need help with online registration? Click here to let us know.

I speak to lots of business owners who would like to create a simple, effective online marketing strategy but are not sure where to start or how to manage it. Like most things in business, an online marketing plan should follow a system. So where do you start?

I would suggest that you first decide which online marketing tools you will use. Here are the tools we use at SpinWeb:

Tools: Website, Blog, Email newsletter, E-book download, HootSuite, TweetDeck.

Networks: Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn.

Next, you will want to set up a schedule and a process for utilizing these tools. Try something like this:

1. Update general content on your website once a month. Your website should remain up-to-date and should show activity. At least once a month, publish a new press release, post a new case study, or post a new event. Show activity and demonstrate that it's an active organization.

2. Post one new blog entry per week. Your blog should be educational and should teach your readers something useful. Blog to share advice, tips, trade "secrets", or anything else that will benefit your constituents. Self-promotional blogs get ignored. Useful blogs develop a following. See the tutorial "Blogging for Business" for more tips. When you post a new blog, it should automatically post out to your company Twitter account, your company Facebook fan page, and your LinkedIn profile. The service we use for this is called Ping.fm. Your website should automatically integrate with Ping.fm. Once you post it, use HootSuite to schedule three Twitter posts for this same blog over the next few days: one in the morning, one in the afternoon, and one in the evening. This helps cover the different times of day that people check Twitter. View this tutorial on using HootSuite to learn how.

3. Send out your most recent/best blog entry every other Wednesday morning as your email newsletter. Don't re-invent the wheel. Re-use your content by turning your best blogs into your email newsletters. This ensures that your newsletters are useful and educational, as well, which will encourage people to stay subscribed.

4. Write an e-book or a white paper that teaches your constituents something about your industry. Make it a high-value "how to" document. Make it available for download but only after the visitor fills out a form with an email address. Clearly state that by downloading the e-book (or white paper), that the recipient will be added to your email list. Make sure your database imports into your email newsletter list so that anyone who downloads the e-book will start receiving your newsletter. Consider requesting a phone number when someone downloads and then call them up in a few days to see if they want to learn more about what you do. Here's our e-book.

5. Run a pay-per-click Facebook ad campaign that targets your target market and leads to the landing page for your e-book (or whitepaper). Your can learn how to do this in our Learning Center with this tutorial (sign up for a free account if you don't have one). Start with $10/day and tweak from there.

6. Write one recommendation for someone else on LinkedIn every week. The more recommendations you write, the more you will receive and it's good karma to show appreciation and endorsement for others who have helped you or influenced you.

7. Open up Facebook and TweetDeck every day and play around. Yes, I said "play around". Don't over-think it... just have fun. Talk to people socially. Follow new people who interest you. Comment on things your friends are posting. Share articles. Just have fun. This is sometimes the most important part of your system. It builds rapport and strengthens your connections. It also keeps you from being boring. To improve your experience on Twitter, check out this TweetDeck tutorial.

This is certainly not the only system you could use, but it is one example of how you might approach your online marketing. If you follow these steps systematically and consistently, I can almost guarantee you will start to see more leads over time. It may take a few months but it will happen once you start to build a network of subscribers and constituents.

Have some other tips? Please feel free to comment below and share them!