As you add more and more content to your website and blog, you will slowly begin to attract more interested readers. If you really want to rapidly increase your readership you need to use social networks.

However, there is nothing more discouraging than to spend a lot of time writing and perfecting your blog post, only to watch and wait for the Facebook Likes, Google +1's and Twitter Tweets that never come.

Why aren't people tripping over themselves to share your content? It might be your fault, but these five tips can help you quickly.

I have always told my clients that every blog post needs to have at least one image, and I stick to that rule myself. I even go so far as to set up a separate field for the "primary post image" in my Drupal website installations so that an image must be uploaded. (That also has the benefit of giving the website a specific image associated with that blog post for slideshows and other displays.) I usually mention that images help generate interest in your content, but don't go into a lot of detail unless asked regarding all the reasons for including an image. So, here are ten benefits that I see to making sure that every time you write a blog post, you include at least one great image.

Every year, throughout the year, we celebrate a number of holidays in the U.S. that some businesses are able to use to effectively market and promote their business. I don't know why, but I still associate President's Day with mattress sales! Cheesy marketing aside, each holiday may bring unique opportunities and benefits to your business. Some, like Thanksgiving, may be an obvious opportunity to dramatically increase retail sales on Black Friday, Small Business Saturday and Cyber Monday. Others, like Memorial Day, may not have an intrinsic sales value, but may still offer an opportunity for you to tell your business story in a way that relates to the holiday, or simply take a moment to honor the day and wish your readers and customers well.

Social media has grown from a curiosity to an integral piece of corporate strategy in the space of only a few years. Nearly overnight, companies have brought on whole teams of specialists to craft effective social media strategies and manage multiplying numbers of social media accounts. Companies are hungry for better social media tools to engage their constituents. Below is a list of five features key to delivering on a social media strategy.

1) Scheduling

Social media doesn't sleep, but that doesn't mean you don't have to! Ensure your social media management tool of choice allows you to schedule messages in advance. So even if you're in New York, you can schedule messages out to your customers in Tokyo during their workday.

Many of the clients we work with are just getting started on Social Media. If they have used Facebook or other Social Media platforms at all, it has been only for limited personal use. In order to help small business owners get started, we are launching a series of posts, each of which will outline how to quickly get up and running on a specific social network. Businesses can go through these posts one at a time or pick and choose which networks they want to start with. With each post we will review how to set up your account and cover some of the basics for posting and participating on that network.

“I want to stand as close to the edge as I can without going over. Out on the edge you see all the kinds of things you can't see from the center.” ~ Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.

One topic that we have discussed a lot is Search Engine Optimization and Google's algorithm for determine a website's ranking, called PageRank. As it turns out, business owners need to begin to understand another kind of algorithm and SEO: social SEO and Facebook's EdgeRank.