At Sisarina we work to help you define your true identity. But even more than that, we aim to empower our clients, followers, and friends with the know-how for creating, marketing and managing your brand.

In the next few months, Sisarina will be out presenting at area conferences about social media, collaboration and communication strategies. Look for us!

What: EdSocialMedia Summit 2010
Where: Boston, MA
When: February 16
Topic: Strategic Marketing for Schools: Blending Web and Social Media
Who: Marisa Peacock, Sisarina & Angelo Otterbein, Silverpoint

What: Internet@Schools East 2010
Where: Arlington, VA
When: April 12-14
Topic: Collaboration – That 13-Letter Dirty Word
Who: Rebecca Brooks, Archivist & Head Librarian, Kelly Brown, E-Communications Manager, The Madeira School, Marisa Peacock, Sr. Project Manager and Media Specialist, Sisarina, Inc

What: A Day in the Life: Baltimore Design Conference
Where: Baltimore, MD
When: April 24
Topic: 140 Characters or Less
Who: Marisa Peacock, Sr. Marketing Manager, Sisarina, Inc

In addition, Sisarina will be working this year to host in-house seminars or online webinars. We want these workshops to be informative and as well as empowering, giving attendees the confidence to tackle keywords and social media activity and off page search engine optimization, to name a few.

We want to hear from you. What topics are you interested in? What skills do you want to develop? Let Sisarina guide you through the basics and if you need additional guidance, we invite you to inquire within about our services.

Tell us what you think.

As many of your know, Sisarina recently celebrated our Grand Opening of our Bethesda office. Thanks to everyone who stopped by, got the tour and helped us in so many amazing ways.

But now it’s the day after.

As we clean up the place and get back to business, we’re left to reflect upon the true meaning of our grand opening. Wikipedia says that “A “Grand Opening” is a term used when a business, public office, or private association wishes to announce their official opening of their new location.”

Yes, we opened a new, beautiful office but we’ve been in business for quite some time. Perhaps then, our grand opening is Sisarina’s renewal. With a full staff and a central location from which to work, Sisarina is beginning 2010 with a renewed sense of purpose.

We’re only partially through the month and yet we’ve already met with a slew of prospective clients, launched some websites and are in the midst of some exciting new endeavors, including developing tools to help our clients work better and more efficiently.

As a part of our renaissance, Sisarina wants you to know that we’re about more than just great web designs. This year, we’re expanding our outlook to include customer and product development, creative community building and lots of strategic marketing campaigns.

We invite you to stop by our new office and ask that you keep Sisarina in mind when embarking on your next web-based adventure.

Everyone loves and hates a to-do list. It just sits there and stares back at you as a reminder of the things left to do. But if you view the to-do list as more than just a nag, and rather, as a tool that empowers people and facilitates communication, the to-do list can become a necessary, and sometimes lifesaving tool.

A new book, The Checklist Manifesto, addresses the way to-do lists influence our lives and how they make us feel. At its core, the book’s author, Atul Gawande, reveals that it takes more than just one person to do a job well. He profiles his personal experiences as a surgeon and a variety of other professions to show that a team is only as strong as its checklist. While it’s certainly not life or death, managing a website’s content is an area that can greatly benefit from a checklist.

While Sisarina empowers our clients to manage and update their newly designed sites with our easy-to-use content management system, we know that it takes due diligence to keep a website continually refreshed and up-to-date. Many organizations and small businesses don’t have just one person maintaining the site. Often it’s a big part of everyone’s responsibilities and as a result, things can fall through the cracks.

Here is a checklist of sorts that can be used to help streamline tasks for updating and managing websites.

• Headlines and Introductions
  The headline and very first sentences should get the readers attention and make them want to keep exploring.

• Clear and Concise Content
  Explain the what, why, where, when and how of what you’re describing or offering.

• Consistent Voice
  Speak in a clear consistent voice throughout the site. Be consistent with pronouns (e.g., our, we, us).

• Enhance Keyword Usage (SEO)
  Know and use important keywords throughout your body copy. Circulate a list of appropriate and significant key words to use in your content.

• Spell & Grammar Check
  No typos, spelling or grammar errors: Eliminate all errors throughout your text.

• Link Internally & Externally
  Look for opportunities to link to other pages and content within the body copy. When appropriate link to authoritative outside sources.

• Include Date Published on Articles/News
  Timely articles should contain a date in which they were published and/or updated.

• Make Documents Accessible
  Convert MS Office documents into PDF documents or HTML for easier accessibility.

• Resize and Upload Photos
  Save bandwidth on your server and help photos load faster, resize photos to web-appropriate sizes, usually 600-800 pixels.

• Label Photos & Documents Internally
  Be strategic when naming photos and documents. Make it so that you can identify them without knowing the context.

• Add Photo/Image Captions
  Photo captions should give context. Photos and other images tell a story, independently of the article. Be precise and concise.