I always knew that I’d gain new experiences at Sisarina, I’d just never thought it would affect my toes.

Let me explain.

Today, Sisarina celebrated the end of the first quarter of 2010 with pedicures. Melanie, Teresa, Amanda and I ventured downstairs to the nail salon that resides below our office, wiggling our toes with excitement.

I will admit that my toes were wiggling with anticipation, as this would prove to be their first pedicure. It’s not that my toes don’t get any attention, mind you – it’s just that they’re usually busy running marathons or walking the dog. When a footbath is in order, it usually involves Epsom salt.

As I sat in my big massage chair, my pedicurist prepped my toes and I marveled at what a grown up I’ve become. Until my toes began to twitch. I tried my best to ignore the tickling sensation. Fortunately, Melanie was kind enough to abandon the book she’d brought and engage in conversation about last night’s networking event (which was super fabulous – more to come later).

Soon, I was bestowed with pretty red toes. I joined my colleagues outside and our toes danced beside one another’s in the bright sun. Shortly thereafter, we sprung up to our offices and got back to work. Underneath our desks, our toes celebrated a successful first quarter, while above, our fingers tapped away at keyboards planning for the next one.

- Marisa, The Woman

Think of all the times you’ve searched Google. Are you searching for information or for knowledge? If you’re not sure of the difference, we’re here to help.

What We Know v. What We Don’t Know

Sometimes we search for information we know we’re looking for and for that we employ machine-generated knowledge systems, like Google. But sometimes we search to discover information we didn’t know about at all, like we do on Wikipedia, a human-generated knowledge system, that is, a system populated with user-generated content, like blogs and other social media.

Discovering knowledge is much more complex because it relies on the creation of conceptual relationships which helps to improve the accuracy of a search by understanding searcher intent. With semantic search, if you search for two or more terms, you will find occurrences of a conceptual relationship, not just the terms scattered within the same document, like traditional machine-generated search engines provide.

Searching and discovering are equally valuable, but understanding what you seek to gain from each can help you know where to go to get the information that you need. To help guide you, here’s a list of a few semantic search engines that we think are worthy of discovery.

Worio

Worio is focused on finding the topics that are interesting, not just popular. Using what it calls a Zeitgeist Algorithm, Worio claims to pinpoint the “spirit of the times” by pulling out the key indicators that highlight the moment where interest was piqued.

Worio searches trending topics to find relevance. Everything from the words chosen to tag something, how it’s shared, tweeted and how they can be related, can shed light on what people are talking about.

Yebol

Yebol utilizes a combination of patented algorithms paired with human knowledge to build a Web directory for each query and each user. Instead of the common “listing” of Web search queries, Yebol automatically clusters and categorizes search terms, Web sites, pages and contents.

By providing users with a rich search experience, Yebol can help them quickly scan the results to find targeted information. 

Zite

Currently in private beta (sign up to be a tester), Zite combines news aggregation with social media. Zite generates recommendations based on the content, hashtags and links shared via Twitter and Delicious.

Generated from social media sites, blogs and a combination of methods, the recommended sites are presented to the user in a format that shows them the latest news as well as older items of relevance.

Enhancing the Search Experience

None of these sites claim to be the next Google, nor are they meant to be. Semantic search is a supplemental service. It enhances the search experience by providing users with different paths and resources that may not have been discovered through traditional search engines.

So the next time you go in search of information, ask yourself if it’s the knowledge that you’re after or just information.

Undergoing a website design or redesign is an exciting process. It can also be daunting for many businesses and individuals who want to get every detail of the site “just right” before launching.

At Sisarina, we take pride in our website designs and work with every client to ensure that their new site appropriately represents their brand and marketing strategies.

Change is Possible

However, we often advise our clients to let their websites evolve. We remind them that the beauty of the web is that change is possible. Thanks to our intuitive and easy-to-use content management system, PICO, users can update their site whenever they want, making it easy to upload photos and content.

Unlike print design, a website can be edited and updated over time. If you’re not sure about a certain photo or heading, there’s no need to wait until it’s perfect. See how your audience responds to it. If you are able to refine a sentence or locate the perfect picture, you can update it later.

But Not Too Much Change...

Of course, we also advise our clients not to change everything. Users need to see consistency. They need to trust that a site isn’t just catering to the latest whims and desires of a few people. A website is an extension of the company or individual that it represents. Refreshing content or uploading new photos of your work is one thing. Changing what you stand for and what you offer, is another.

Strive for Growth, Not Perfection

No website is perfect. There are elements that are always evolving and changing, based on customer feedback or the expanding nature of business. If you wait until it’s “just right” you will have lost valuable time in the marketplace. The web thrives on experimentation and innovation, and so does your business.

The design process is not meant to overwhelm, but rather to inspire and invigorate. If you find yourself bewildered by the process and driven to perfect every last detail, take a step back and ask yourself what would happen if everything wasn’t exactly right.

A business that refuses to grow will not succeed, so it’s unreasonable to think that a website is any different. As a business owner and dedicated professional, commitment to perfection has helped make you successful, just don’t let it hold you back.

Don’t women entrepreneurs deserve a “sisterhood”?

There’s the Ya-Ya Sisterhood. There’s the one about the traveling pants and the seven sisters. Yet, when it comes to women and small business owners, rarely do we refer to it as a sisterhood.

Maybe it’s a deep-seated need to be one of the boys, or a general insecurity to show our vulnerabilities, but some women have been shy to embrace their gender as an asset, not a detriment, when it comes to business.

This isn’t a call for femininity.

Rather, a call to join forces and share in our strength as leaders, decision makers and philanthropists in our communities.

Recognizing and connecting with other businesswomen can help create a support system, as well as a venue in which to seek advice and partnerships.

But building a sisterhood can be as simple as reaching out to organizations and charities that support causes that matter to women.

As sisters, daughters, wives and girlfriends, businesswomen share a unique quality for cultivating relationships with other women. Yet we realize that finding other women business owners may not always be easy.

There are many tools—online and off, that can be used to create a sisterhood of business owners:

1. Make it a Company Value

With four strong women at the helm (well, five if you count Sisarina, our imaginary name-sake), our business is based on the merits of sisterhood—that is, working to promote the shared conditions, experiences, or concerns of women. This, of course, doesn’t mean that we exclude men, or de-value their contributions.

Rather, it means that we are always looking for ways to support, promote and collaborate with other women.

Here’s a great read from Success Magazine on “good business,” i.e. business that makes a difference.

2. Create Networking Opportunities

Don’t underestimate your own community. If you’re seeking mentorship, invite a local businesswoman to lunch. There may even be a group that already meets – if not, start one!

Social events like Tweetups & Meetups are a great way to engage women entrepreneurs and other professionals in your area.

Using free online registration platforms, like Eventbrite or Tungle, can make organizing events much more manageable.

In addition, these events can help to raise money and awareness for organizations dedicated to improving the lives of women around the world.

Tip: To find the appropriate location for your event, meet with local restaurants and bars. Most likely, they’ll be open to offering specials exclusive to your event—after all it’s good business for them too and it helps to build good community relations.

3. Socialize Your Marketing Campaign

With many successful businesswomen using Twitter, build a few lists to follow (here are 9 reasons why you should be in love with Twitter lists), from women in your area to women you admire. Follow them, read their blog posts, ask them questions and share your links.

There are over 500 pages and groups for women business owners on Facebook. Join and engage with them online. It’ll be a good resource for making contacts and learning about events.

Just like their tagline, Relationships Matter on LinkedIn. You may learn that you share common connections with other women business owners. Having something or someone in common makes approaching others easier.

Join groups, share resources, ask questions and cultivate relationships.

4. Find a Cause

Passionate about breast cancer research or want to help women in Afghanistan? Whether it’s in your community or halfway around the world, there are many ways your business can support and promote social causes.

Offer to donate proceeds from your social networking events to charities – not only does community service feel good it can also help to promote connections with others.

5. Don’t Exclude Men

Owning a small business comes with its own challenges—many of which are the same if you’re a man or women.

Don’t exclude men from the conversation—their stories and experiences can provide valuable insight. Providing your own perspective can enlighten others as well as facilitate informative exchanges and business strategies.

The Bottom Line

Building a network of supporters is never a bad thing. Whether you find strength online or IRL (in real life), just knowing that there are others who you can turn to with questions or support can take some of the pressure off of being a business owner. As for many things in life, you will rarely find yourself alone.

So reach out and network, engage and cultivate relationships with others. You’ll find your sisterhood does make a difference.

Want more?

• Revisit Patricia Frame’s Women Grow Business series on capacity building
• Who knew? 10 things women can learn from men in business is a great read at Shine from Yahoo!
• How to give others the opportunity to help you, and contributor Thursday Bram ponders follow-up, the secret of networking, over at Grow Smart Business

This blog post was originally featured as a Women in Business guest post on Women Grow Business, Women in Business Community Blog Hosted By Network Solutions.

When small businesses think about marketing, it’s not unusual for them to get consumed by analytics, whether it is the number of followers and fans or the number of unique visitors on a web site. Yet, rarely does psychology factor into the equation.

At Sisarina, we pride ourselves on being both small and resourceful. Our small staff ensures that every customer interaction is personable and dynamic. When we meet with clients, we ask questions about them, their company, and try to understand who they are. We also listen. We pay attention to their enthusiasm, the adjectives they use, and their body language. We also try to understand their needs as a user: how do they use the web and social media? How do they make decisions about where to shop and what to buy?

The information we gather from a simple client meeting can lead to an intricate understanding of how to appropriately design a website, write copy and strategize a marketing campaign.

Basic web analytics help, of course, but they don’t tell as much of a story as asking questions, listening and observing do. Sisarina also strives to empower our clients so that they can improve the way they talk about their company and their brand, as well as the way they interact with consumers.

Small business owners and entrepreneurs spend a lot of time focused on the bottom line. At Sisarina, we ask them to think about how their business makes them feel and how they want their customers to feel when engaging with their brand. As you can imagine, this can be an inspiring moment for many.

We believe that analytics and spreadsheets can only go so far. Because clients can be involved with many decisions during the design and marketing process, psychology matters. From color to keywords, being able to articulate its emotional impact can help guide the process in the right direction. It is our goal to ask the right questions so that we can help you market your business and brand so that it resonates positively with consumers.

Chances are if you’re a small business you’re engaged with social media. According to the University of Maryland’s Smith School of Business, technology adoption rates among small businesses in the U.S. have doubled in the past year from 12% to 24%.

Nearly one in five small business owners are integrating social media into their business processes — Facebook and LinkedIn being among the most popular. In fact, 45% of surveyed respondents believe that their social media initiatives will pay off financially in 12 months or less. Yet, only just 16% are using Twitter as a customer service channel.

Research also indicates that small business owners are turning to social media to help them generate new customer leads, a primary motivating factor for engaging in these new customer service channels.

As more small businesses become more familiar and confident with social media, time will tell if they start to adopt new behaviors. Social media not only has a broad reach, it has the potential to create discussions and tell stories around a brand that can bring it into the forefront of the consumer mind.

However, how companies go about engaging in those discussions will prove interesting. Those willing to shed their skin and embrace the medium’s transparency will be in a better position to open up and tell their story.

Are you a small business engaged with social media? Tell us how you’re creating discussions about your brand online.

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.