Most businesses have weekly staff meetings. But how many include “Increasing Our Online Presence” on their weekly agenda? I suspect very few. That’s a shame. Weekly meetings are a wonderful way to ensure that your online presence is always fresh and expanding.

Below is a list of things you should ask your staffers to report on at each meeting:

1. How many posts did you place on our Facebook Page?
Ideas include what’s new at the store, pictures of happy customers, helpful tips, links to articles, birth announcements, etc.

2. How many posts did you place on Twitter?
Ideas include helpful tips, quotes from customers, links to articles, etc.

3. When you read a trade article or blog online, did you submit a comment and leave our website address?
This is very important to help build links to your website. You are reading articles online anyway. How hard is it to think of something useful to say and include a link to your website? This may also attract a customer if your comment sounds knowledgeable.

4. How many email addresses did you collect?
When a customer is in the store, ask if he or she is on your email mailing list? When they say no, hand him or her a clipboard and say, “Here you go. We have awesome specials we’ll let you know about.” If you really want to impress, give a gift card for a free cup of coffee after getting the address.

5.How many positive comments did you receive, write down, and get permission to use as testimonials?
You don’t have to wait for a formal written testimonial. If someone says, “You guys are fantastic!” simply write it down along with the name of the person who said it. And ask him or her if you can use it as a testimonial. Whip out your cell phone and get a picture of the person, too.

6. Did you write a blog article for our blog?
It’s probably best to assign a staffer, who likes to write, to do this task. Don’t worry if the blog is brief.

7. Did you write a guest blog article for an established industry blog?
If there’s an industry blog that your staff regularly reads, see if they accept guest blogs. National blogs are often content hungry and appreciate getting fresh material from the hinterlands. This is worth outsourcing if you don’t have the talent to produce it in-house.

8. Did you write an article for an online trade publication?
These publishers also appreciate fresh content and send you valuable links. This task can be outsourced if necessary, but you still need to assign a staffer to manage that.

9. What did we do this week to improve our website?
The single most important thing you can do is to always be adding pages to your website that are optimized with more keywords. But, for the sake of the weekly meeting, anything that improves or updates your website counts.

10. What can we do next week to improve our website?
Then assign or outsource someone to do the task.

If you have just five people on staff, who each post one thing a day, 50 weeks a year, anywhere online, you will have increased your online presence 1,250 times! Think your competitors are doing that?

When you make building your online presence a part of your weekly staff meeting agenda items, you cultivate a habit that eventually will become pleasant and not a chore.