Sisarina considers meaningful partnerships to be a foundation for success. Strategic partnerships can enable many small businesses to make continuous improvements. As such, our partners help complete our solutions offerings and help us provide a higher standard of service and are regarded as Value Added Partners to Sisarina Inc.

Sisarina is excited to announce a strategic partnership with Simply Leap, which offers life and career coaching for entrepreneurs, individuals and groups. The partnership between the two woman-owned businesses focuses on helping owners create a vision for their businesses, communicate effectively, and identify and remove obstacles that stand in their way.

So please give a warm welcome to Lauree Ostrofsky, Founder of Simply Leap as she joins Sisarina in this exciting new partnership.

With so many social media platforms from which to choose and trends to track of, it's no wonder many of us are scratching our heads. From Twitter to Facebook to LinkedIn and beyond, how do you know which is the right fit for your marketing and branding strategies?

Above all, it's about engaging users. Knowing what questions to ask yourself before picking a platform and implementing a strategy will help you decide how to best engage your users. Sisarina answers three of the most common questions we get asked.

If you had to pick one social networking platform to focus your marketing strategy on, which would you choose and why?

First question, why are you limiting yourself to just one? If it’s a question of time and effort, there are a number of ways to manage most of them more effectively and successfully. However, you need to figure out your priorities and the needs of your users/audience.

If you were to pick just one social media platform, you first need to define what you want to communicate and why it’s important.  Then you should determine the behaviors of who you want to attract and who you currently attract with your brand.

At Sisarina we have a blog, Twitter feeds, a LinkedIn group and a Facebook Fan page, among others. We use each of them differently, tracking their impact and evolving our strategies as needed. Each of them tells us more about our users and how they interact with our brand and services.

How do I get more Twitter followers?

By engaging with others.

Chances are good that if you begin following others, they will start following you in return.  However, Twitter is not about quantity, it’s about cultivating user engagement. Sure, if you have a million followers, your message may theoretically reach more people, but you can’t possibly engage with every single one.

Start conversations by asking questions, posting thoughtful comments and informative links. And use hash tags (#) to keyword your posts.

By taking the time to engage with a few users, you’ll not only be able to make meaningful connections, you’ll start to develop your brand in a more appropriate way.

How do I know if my social media efforts are working?

Social media is not an exact science. We have yet to determine how many followers equal a sale, and I doubt we ever will.

Before you start tweeting or updating your Facebook Fan page, you need to ask yourself what you will consider to be a successful return on investment.

As you start out, that investment will be your time and effort spent engaging with users. What is that time worth to you? Sisarina can’t answer that for you. Is it a certain number of new visitors a month? Or a number of new Twitter followers or fans? Maybe it’s the number of individuals that Retweet a message or comment on your blog?

Social media is about being social. And being social is about interacting with others. If others are not interacting with your site, you need to revisit your strategy. Maybe you need to spend more time, or refine the content that you are sharing. If you set meaningful benchmarks from the beginning, you’ll be able to gauge your progress and evolve your strategies as necessary

Have a question for Sisarina? Submit a comment below.

The Sisarina bookshelf holds a wide variety of books. While we all work towards engaging our users and positioning their brands successfully in the marketplace, it doesn’t mean that we approach design and marketing from the same direction.

Earlier we discussed the different ways we find inspiration. The books we read cover a wide array of topics and interests, but essentially they all have the power to awaken us professionally, steer us in new directions and provide alternate perspectives.

Here are just a few of the current reads that have reveled the Sisarina staff.

Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us
Daniel H. Pink

Pink cites a dizzying number of studies revealing that carrot and stick can actually significantly reduce the ability of workers to produce creative solutions to problems. What motivates us once our basic survival needs are met is the ability to grow and develop, to realize our fullest potential.

World Orders Old and New
Noam Chomsky

Marshaling meticulous scholarship, this leading critic of American foreign policy  argues that Washington's support - open and covert - for repressive regimes in Colombia, Guatemala, Indonesia, Angola and elsewhere has undermined attempts to create meaningful democracy, thus exacerbating poverty and misery.

Crisis Counseling: A Guide for Pastors and Professionals
Scott Floyd

Provides a much-needed resource for the professional, pastoral, and even lay counselor.  Providing a spiritually based framework for responding to a crisis event and the following times of trauma, loss, and grief.

How We Decide
Jonah Lehrer

The author arms us with the tools we need, drawing on cutting-edge research as well as the real-world experiences of a wide range of deciders and shows how people are taking advantage of the new science to make better television shows, win more football games, and improve military intelligence.

Breaking Into the Boys' Club: 8 Ways for Women to Get Ahead in Business
Molly D. Shepard, Jane K. Stimmler, Jane K. Stimmler

Why do women still have so much trouble making their way into the upper echelons of corporate America? According to the authors, it's not quality of work that holds them back but something more insidious. While women try to get ahead by logging long hours and working to become experts in their fields, their male counterparts are easily included in corporate culture (golf, drinks, lunches, etc.) and get inside information and more face time with superiors.

Woman of Influence: Ten Traits of Those Who Want to Make a Difference
Pam Ferrell

The author helps women see the call to mentor other women as part of the spiritual maturity process. By developing ten character traits, all starting with "I": impassioned, individual, intimate, idealistic, interdependent, initiative, integrity, intense, inquiring, and infectious, she tells stories from great women of the past, and those living today.

Share Your Bookshelf

What books are currently by your bedside? On your iPod or Kindle? Please share with us.