With the an estimated 150K new websites and 7M new pages added to the Internet every day, the biggest challenge for every entrepreneur is to get found, and get some credibility for a new startup. I can attest from experience that publishing a regular blog to properly showcase your offering, even before you have it, is a most cost effective approach in time and money.

The biggest roadblock is that startup founders already have too much to do building a product, mapping strategy, courting investors, etc. So finding time is hard, and good writing is simply not what most people do. But here are some key reasons why you need to give it some priority:

1. You can validate the need and your solution before spending money. Too many entrepreneurs spend big money on development, only to find out that the solution isn’t quite right. Feedback from your blog will tell you quickly whether anyone agrees with your assessment, and whether you have a customer base waiting.
2. Find potential partners. Most of the people you would want as co-founders are now cruising the relevant blogs for ideas and partners. It’s a great way to find like-minded people, and get a dialog going. From a networking standpoint, it’s a lot more efficient than going to seminars and other industry events.
3. Populate your team. Smart potential employees are also reading blogs to stay up-to-date in their field, and find the new leaders. More and more, employees work for people they respect, rather than companies. Take the initiative to put yourself out there. Of course, ultimately you want employees who can blog for you and your company as well.
4. Cultivate early customers. It’s never too early to start a dialog with customers, as long as you don’t mislead them about where you are in the cycle. Build your brand and get leads today. There’s also the opportunity to do some consulting with interested customers to provide needed revenue while the product is still under development.
5. Build your credibility with investors. A blog is an excellent vehicle to meet investors, before you are ready to ask them for money. You will also learn about competitors, who can’t resist responding to a well-written blog. Once you gain real traction as an expert in your space through the blog, investors will put you at the top of their funding list.
6. Hone your communication skills. Writing a blog is all about communication, and that’s your number one job as founder of a new startup. Trying to write something down for someone else to understand quickly, will tell you if you really understand it yourself. Even if you use a ghost writer for your blog, the briefing process will enhance your skills.
7. Your Google ranking will go up dramatically. Whereas Google and other search engines may take two or three weeks to list your new website in search results, new blog sites and new blog entries are indexed every day. From comments, you will accumulate external links both into and out of your site, and get additional ranking from Google.

Since a startup by definition is not a recognized brand, you are the brand, based on the social media culture of today. People assume your startup is real, if they see real people, and they will attribute credibility to your startup, based on your own credentials and the quality of information you offer through your blog. No person and no blog puts your startup at the bottom of a long list.

The best part is that all this is not a revenue drain. The major blog platforms, including WordPress, Blogger, and TypePad are free, and can be linked directly into an existing domain name to consolidate your overall SEO impact. In fact, many people are now using WordPress as their base website, as well as their blog. This eliminates even the standard site hosting fees.

Business blogging, or value-blogging, is all about helping others and helping yourself at the same time. I wonder if the 70% of startups that fail in the first five years are the same 70% that don’t have a blog? What’s holding you back?

Social networking is indeed the new business networking. But you need to understand the different cultures to make it work. For example, my personal interest is entrepreneurs, and MySpace is for tweens. Me going to MySpace is sort of like your parents crashing your high school prom – everyone is uncomfortable and neither side has any fun.

Since I’ve been lurking around the various social networks for the last year or so, I’ve learned a few things, so I thought it would be helpful to clue you in on current networking cultures, and how they map into the business networking scene.

Every social network, including MySpace, claims to be a mecca for business people to network and sell products. That’s a necessary part of their hype to build followings and compete in the numbers game. But the reality is that each has a different style and some unwritten rules.

Here is my characterization of the social networking scene, as it relates to business networking for entrepreneurs and startups:

• Twitter. Believe it or not, this is my favorite for entrepreneurs. It is the melting pot of 75 million young and old members, business, personal, and celebrities. It’s the Internet version of the old daily newspaper, with serious news links, celebrity gossip threads, and business people of all sorts looking for information and leads. Entrepreneurs can find like-minded people here.

• Facebook. Here is the big gorilla of social networks, now exceeding 500 million members worldwide. It was built by Gen-Y, but it has now grown far beyond that. Facebook has groups like “Facebook for Business,” and millions of Fan/Business Pages, so be there or be square. Just don’t expect anything too technical.

• LinkedIn. This is the “old guard” of 60 million professionals, mostly populated by experienced executives and serious marketers. There are groups like “Applied Entrepreneurship”, where discussions get animated about the value of patents, and the legality of MLMs. Gen-Y will not feel comfortable here, but it’s an important business information source for entrepreneurs.

• MySpace. As I mentioned earlier, this network is dominated by musicians and tweens. Yet they have groups for “Entrepreneurs” and “Business Networking”. I tried business discussions here, with no response. This does seem to be the forum for “get rich quick working from home,” but it’s not the place for most real entrepreneurs.

• All the rest. (Ryze, Plaxo, Orkut, Ecademy, Bebo, Friendster, etc.) There are dozens of other social/business networking sites out there, some regionalized, and some are special interest boutiques. For example, Orkut is most popular in India and Asia, while Ryze is popular in Europe.

Before you decide to build your own perfect match, combining the best of all of these, consider these sobering statistics. The four major sites above all worked for several years before they saw any revenue, and have required investments of $50 million or more to build their brand. Viral marketing costs real money, to pass that magic million member mark, before your advertising revenue will even pay the rent.

My advice is to join one or two to check for value, rather than trying to do them all. It’s just like joining only one or two business groups in a new town, rather than trying to be active in all of them. You will be surprised at the number of valuable people connections, and the real leads you will get for your business. You have to give as well as take, listen as well as talk. Observe the social graces, and have fun!