Pushing post content via social media (Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest) brings potential clients and customers to you at a place where they may not only get a sense of who you are, but it also gives them an opportunity to engage with you in a more meaningful, longer format than 140 characters.

Nearly 40% of US companies use blogs for marketing purposes. Companies that blog have 55% more website visitors.Post compelling content and they will come. Engage and they will contract or buy.

Check out and digest what’s in these five (5) blogging resources and you will have all the requisite knowledge you need to blog effectively. Follow a few basic principles consistently and you are sure to see increased traffic and ROI.

Spice Up Your Blog: The Best Tips, Gadgets, Design And SEO For Bloggers.

From ProBlogger: How to Write Great Blog Content

Top 10 Tips for Beginner Bloggers The Tips You Need to Successfully Start a Blog

10 Habits of a Highly Effective Blogger

6 Tips for Effective Blog Posts

And, perhaps best of all is this Blogging Kit from Hubspot

While is may seem overwhelming at first, once you get the hang of it and get in the habit of blogging consistently you will well be on your way to broadening your network and increasing your revenue.

If it still seems like more than you want to take on, there are people and services that can help you.

mmmMedia is a great service resource that can do blogging for you, as well as manage your entire social media marketing effort. It’s an efficient and economical way to broadcast your brand far and wide.

This video is a nice presentation on the ROI of Social Media.

Brock Designs “Urban Chic”, Serving Up Style 2011

The upcoming Serving Up Style; Designers Fighting Lupus interior design event in Portland, Oregon (#StylePDX) is a perfect fit for social media. The interior design industry was instrumental in the launching of Pinterest and has adopted it like no other industry. The number of interior designers on Facebook and Twitter has exploded in the past few years because social media is the perfect opportunity to showcase design work. Now, as interior designers mobilize their ranks for charitable causes, they can flex their social media muscle to get the word out.

Abode – Rejuvenation Room, Serving Up Style 2011 Portland

Coming off the success of the 2012 Street of Dreams (@StreetDreamsPDX) charitable efforts for the Amy Roloff Charity Foundation (@amyroloffCF) we and the shelter industry have another wonderful opportunity to #GiveBack with Serving Up Style; Designers Fighting Lupus. Each year, prominent design teams are invited to create fantastic, stunning, and whimsical dining environments for a four-day showcase during the Portland Fall Home & Garden Show. Serving Up Style culminates with a fundraiser gala, auction, and awards ceremony.

The ‘Soiree of the Pharaohs’ Tabletop, Art Institute of Portland 2011

Besides attending and participating in the event, designers, their clients and friends can help get the word out via their social media streams. Below find a complete @ Twitter handle list of the design teams, sponsors, and promoters who are on Twitter (60% of participants).

The Design Teams (click the Twitter handle to follow)

IKEA @ikea_portland
The Art Institute of Portland @aipd
CoCo Designs @cocodesignspdx
Diane Keaton Interiors @dianekeaton
Digs Inside & Out @nicedigs
Garrison Hullinger Interior Design @ghullinger
Jason Ball Interiors LLC @jbiportland
LOOPTWORKS @looptworks
Pangaea Interior Design @pangaea_designs
Rejuvenation @rejuvenationInc
Stephanie Dyer Interior + Product Design @dyer_stephanie
Terrance Mason Interiors @tminteriors
Wendy O’Brien Interior Planning & Design @wendyobrien

Sponsors & Partners (click the Twitter handle to follow)

@ServingUpStyle (event)
@mollysfund (the beneficiary of the proceeds)
@hgtv (sponsor)
@hbaportland (sponsor)
@sherwinpaint (sponsor)
@alphabroadcast (sponsor)
@houzz_inc (sponsor)
@otshows (sponsor)
@pdxhomeshow (event host)
@oregonian (press partner)
@oregonhomemag (press partner)
@em_henderson (HGTV Design Star from Portland – guest judge)

Local Interior Designer Organizations (click the Twitter handle to follow)

@nwsid (Northwest Society of Interior Designers)
@ASIDOregon (American Society of Interior Designers)
@idsportland (Portland Interior Design Society)
@IIDA_Oregon (International Interior Design Association)
@idcoregon Interior Design Collaborative

Portland’s Own HGTV Design Star, Emily Henderson

Things you can do to help spread the word ….

• Follow these great designers, sponsors and promoters
• Follow and use the hashtags #StylePDX and #GiveBack
• RT their tweets on a regular basis up until and through the event which starts Oct 4th, 2012
• Promote the work of your colleagues and friends as a way to further build the strong Portland interior design community
• Share these Twitter handles with your followers on Follow Friday (#FF)
• Generate buzz and interest via your other channels such as Facebook, Pinterst and Tumblr
• Volunteer for the event
• Purchase tickets

Working together, as a committed community of professionals and associated colleagues, we can make a real difference in the fight against Lupus. If you have any comments or suggestions that will further the cause, we’d be thrilled to hear about them and will be sure to pass them on to the community.

We at mmmMedia (@mmmMediaNET) have worked in the shelter industry for several years, providing busy designers the opportunity and resources to reach their target markets with our services. Most recently, mmmMedia Principal Beth McShane (@BethMcShane) and industry liaison Mark Hannan (@nwrugs) presented social media strategies for interior designers at an NWSID (@NWSID) membership meeting and the Home Builders Association’s (@HBAPro @HBAPortland) Ecovative Conference 2012 for builders. Their combined knowledge and efforts make them leading social media managers in the interior design and related industries.

Social media “provides tremendous opportunity for business,” the study said. And these CEOs will need to step into the limelight of social media if they want to see their companies successfully grow.

In the next few years CEOs that communicate with customers through social media will jump to 57 percent, from 16 percent today, said a study by IBM, according to CEO.com

Currently LinkedIn favors many CEOs at 25.9 percent, and Facebook falls in second place at a 7.6 percent presence from CEOs. See the infographic below for details:

Using a take on Shakespeare’s Hamlet, about a gravedigger coming across a court jester’s long since dead skull. Methinks it fitting to use Shakespeare’s Yorik as an example, because Hamlet is about power, history, hubris, and greed.

Like Hamlet, Google+ has surrounded and insulated itself with flatterers, blocking out the real world, and not caring if the mainstream embraces it as much as Facebook (enter Claudius) …..

I could go on and on relating Social Media to Shakespeare and comedies of errors….but the point has already been well made by Richard Darell in his Bit Rebels piece last week, and supported by Jim Dougherty of Leaders West in his blog.

And here is the infographic that explains it all in plain infographicspeak:

Below is his opinion on how to write the perfect blog post. We think it’s good, and worth sharing.

Like this? Get more marketing tips from Social Triggers.

Trust is the new measure of social success. As the world gets smaller, trust is a key driving force to earning and keeping business online and off.

Twitter was second behind only Pinterest (81 percent) as the most trusted social network for women, and 31 percent said that they had gone on to buy an item recommended to them through the micro-blogging channel.

Overall, however, blogs outperformed all the social networks when it came to influencing purchases – 61 percent of respondents said they had bought an item after a recommendation from a blog, and 41 percent actively use blogs to find information about new products. Why? Blogs command a high level of trust, with four out of five women rating them accordingly.

This infographic from Jumpthru takes a closer look at women, blogs and social media.

Pinterest has been the space to play in for visual brands for over a year now. The question is: is it right for YOUR brand? Believe it or not, there are some clients that we steer clear from Pinterest. For example:

*If you don’t want anyone to ever see your product…stay off Pinterest.

*If what you do is in not  asthetically pleasing….stay off Pinterest.

*If you want to live under a rock for the rest of your life…stay off Pinterest.

Now, your sanitation engineers, your medical catheter companies, your baby chicken sexers…. you can stay off Pinterest.

What about the rest of you? Here is a great video from our collegues at MDG Advertising put togtether that sums it up nicely:

And while we believe that Pinterest is not the be-all, end-all of the social media scene, we do believe it is the sandbox du jour…. so why not play?