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Pinterest Resources
Pinterest – the popular kid on the block. This new Social Media network is growing in popularity, despite some potential issues with copyright. This network seems to be appealing to women, who are joining in droves and to marketers who want to communicate with their target market.
Pinterest is visual – you post or ‘pin’ pictures on ‘boards.’ If you see someone else’s picture that you like, you can ‘pin’ it to your board (and share with people following your pins) or your can like it.
To make your life easier, we’ve assembled a number of great Pinterest Resources to view.
Pinterest Guides
What is Pinterest Niche Network? By Ande Truman
Everything You Need to Know About Pinterest by Greg Boser
The Pinterest Guide to Selling Art Online by thea bundantartist
Pinterest Guide by Supernova Media
eModeration presents: The Complete Pinterest Guide for Brands by Tamara Littleton
So what is all of this about? What is Pinterest? By Megna Tietz
Pinterest guide: What it is, how to start and who to follow by Katie Collins
Marketers, A Pinterest Guide for Your Video Loving Clients/Readers By Melissa Fach
How To Use Pinterest For Marketing:
5 tools for Pinterest Analytics and Monitoring by Elisa Gabbert
The Ultimate Guide to Mastering Pinterest for Marketing by Pamela Vaughn
10 Creative Ways to Use Pinterest for Marketing by Susan Gunelius
Pinterest: An Introductory Guide for Marketers by Kaila Strong
26 Tips for Using Pinterest for Business by Debbie Hemley
How to use Pinterest for marketing! By OMLogic Consulting
How to Use Pinterest for Marketing by Monika Jansen
Why Using Pinterest For Marketing Is A Must By Richard Darell
Pinterest For Small Business:
Pinterest for Small Business Voice Amplification by Ken Cook
Is Pinterest Right for your Small Business? By Small Business BC
How Pinterest Spammers Hurt This Small Business Owner by Lauren Rae Orsini
Small Business Pinterest Marketing: 4 Secrets You Need to Know Now by Amie Kjellstrom
How Professional Bloggers Can Leverage Pinterest by Jason Miles
Pinterest & Small Business… Does it Stick by Amanda MacArthur
Pinterest for Small Business Owners by Stephanie Ward
The Truth About Pinterest for Your Small Business by Small Business Trends
Should A Small Business Be Pinning On Pinterest? By Deborah Sweeney
How To Use Pinterest For Business:
How To Use Pinterest for Business and Generate Traffic by Mary Poiley
26 Tips for Using Pinterest for Business by Debbie Hemley
10 Ways to Use Pinterest for Your Business by Jon Accarrino
How To Use Pinterest for Business: 7 Handy Tips by Cara Pring
Spelling or Grammatical Errors on Posts
Mistakes happen. We have all made them at one time or another. With Social Media postings the problem is your mistakes are out there being viewed by hundreds, if not thousands of people.
We’ve all caught a Social Media post with a spelling error or grammatical error. Think back to the last one you saw (heck, maybe even in this blog!) What was your reaction?
- Did you doubt the intelligence or veracity of the statement or person?
- Did you shrug and ignore it?
- Did you point out the error?
What was the reasoning behind your reaction? For me, if I even catch it, I don’t think much about it unless it is consistent (several bad posts or sentences) or is significant to the person posting it. For example, if a self-professed ‘Grammar-Queen’ does it, I’m more likely to notice it.
Perhaps, because I’m a first generation American, when I read something that is misspelled or grammatically incorrect, I think, “Maybe this person’s first language is not English”.
Recently, I posted something on a Facebook Fan Page that was wrong. Yes, I confess, I wrote “their” instead of “there”. I didn’t have time to catch the mistake and delete it. Instead one of the likers found it and made a rather scathing remark about it.
Which got me thinking, is it a big deal? I read a blog and the author mistyped the word shirt by leaving out the ‘r’. I obviously caught this error and I began reading all 23 comments left for the blog. Not a single person made any remark about it.
Grammar and spelling are important. Which words we use to communicate and how we use punctuation is significant. I have a difficult time getting worked up when I spot an error and certainly never think to point it out. Why embarrass someone when we have all made a mistake before? What are your feelings about it?
What to Post on Social Networks
The most common client complaint I hear is: “I have no idea what I should post on my Facebook Fanpage or what to post on social networks.” To which I generally respond, “Tell people about what is going on in your business.”
The last time I said that, my client informed me that no one would be interested in what was going on with him and the business, that people only wanted to hear about products or services, coupons and discounts, nothing more.
Here is the thing, if your business has you as the ‘Face’, that when people think of your brand, service or product and immediately think of you, you have people who are interested in your life. This is especially true if you are local business. Chances are people know who you are.
Likers like your page not only for what you provide to the market place, they also identify with you. Tell them about the pipe that broke and how you will be closed for a few days, or the cat that wandered in – heck take pictures of it. Some of the most popular posts some of my clients have are those that have nothing to do with their product or services. It is the one with them smiling in front of a new display, or their cat or dog, or them talking about a proud moment with an employee or a customer testimonial.
People are interested in your journey. Fall down, dust yourself off, tell them what happen and they can relate to you. If you don’t think people care, check out the news. A kid or pregnant woman goes missing and people fly out to help with the search or to protest. People care. If you bring them in to your world, they will like and trust you, and that means they will refer customers to you and buy from you.
Really.
Who is Teaching You About Social Media
The other day I noticed a Facebook post from a local business center that announced that their Social Media class was about to begin. Intrigued, I asked, 
“Who is teaching the class?” No response. After the class, a picture was posted of the many attendees and the instructor. Again I asked, “Who is the instructor?”
The response was surprising to me. The instructor turned out to be an account executive for a local cleaning company. Yes, that is correct. People came out to hear someone who is not in the business of Social Media to teach them how to use it to market their business.
I didn’t want to assume that just because this person’s main business was not Social Media that they didn’t know anything about Social Media. So I began to do a little research. No Twitter account, neither personally or for the company. A LinkedIn account that didn’t have a completed profile. Facebook pages – I found two, neither of which had more than 100 fans, interaction, and just the minimum of posts.
What exactly qualified this person to teach a class on Social Media? And the people who spent the time and money to attend, what exactly did they get out 
of it? Did they even know what experience this person had?
I love doing Social Media training, whether in person or at live events. My business is Social Media. While I don’t believe it is humanly possible to be active in all the Social networks (there are literally tens of thousands), I am more than well-versed in all the major ones, some of the emerging ones, and I am constantly reading and taking classes to learn more.
The next time you consider signing up for a Social Media training class, or heck any class, ask about the qualifications of the trainer. Why were they selected and what is their background.
Posting on Fan Page Etiquette
Social Media is all about, well, being social. Sharing information, engaging and interacting with friends, acquaintances, and strangers alike.
Having a Facebook fan page and using it to interact and engage is important to promote your brand and products and services. By allowing other people to
post on their business fan page, they create more interaction then if they just posted statuses and let people comment.
- Post: The initial or first discussion made
- Comment: The responses to the discussion
Depending on what your Facebook business page is about, it may or may not be appropriate to have people posting their own content. Facebook allows administrators to decide if they want to allow posts by non-administrators (the community). Once the decision to allow people to post on a fan page, the questions then becomes, what is allowable content?
I am the administrator to dozens of Facebook pages. Many of them I run for fun; local community pages and pages about certain subjects that interest me. One of the things that I find most lacking when other people post on any of my pages is a sense of etiquette. What your mother told you was important – mind your manners!
Here is how you can decide before you post on a fan page whether or not it is appropriate:
- Examine what the owner of the page posts about – if they post about horses, your post about how race cars are the best and you have the best product for them, you run the risk of being deleted, marked as spam and banned.
- Is your post simple self-promotion or does it add some value to the topic or subject of the fan page? If done correctly, you can give great information and promote yourself.
- What is happening with other posts – if other posts are being ignored or responded to lets you know whether the page owner is happy to have outsiders start discussions.
- When in doubt, simply ask. With Facebook’s new service that allows people to send an email to a page owner’s, there is no reason why you can’t ask the owner if it is okay to post. The worst they can do is ignore your or say no.
Everyone fan page administrator will have a different set of rules for posting on a fan page. Etiquette is just a set of rules to help us interact and engage with people to make Social Media a better place to be
Facebook — Moving Toward Maturity and Humanity?
A big thank you to our guest blogger JudyAnn Lorenz of BarJD Communications.
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In the Facebook beginning, we were all part of a chaotic social gathering — often watching the “fun” come at us too fast to be pleasant. Everything just felt like a combination of ‘anything goes’, ‘don’t tread on me’ and ‘tweetie-twee, you can’t see me’ tied up with ribbons of art, compassion, decent humor and potential for business and political connection.
In the gathering, some people were savagely hurt by the insensitivity that comes with the black and white of text. Some were offended when friends expressed commonly known opinions — we knew, but just didn’t have to look at it in black and white. The instant condition of “post”, “like” and “share” made it so easy for those opinions to be expressed over and over till we weren’t sure of that friend any more. We’re literally tired of their noise.
When my granddaughter wanted to watch an R-rated art film — “Last of the Mohicans”, we had to talk our way through the gross parts — “This is just a movie, but war is ugly, so it’s pretty rough. It makes us sad and angry. Let’s sit here together.” But Facebook (and My Space) didn’t come with a grandma to hold our hands and help us to practice compassion and decent courtesy, maintain a level of tolerance, sort out meanness from humor or irony, know that meanness can’t get the best of us, to council us that no matter how much someone says what goes on the internet stays on the internet, God (or someone on the Facebook code team) made a DELETE button for a reason.
Users have had to move toward maturity while accumulating and enduring emotional and career bruises. Because of the initial immaturity and symbolic anonymity, some users have acquired foot-in-mouth disease which has cost them their jobs and respect of their ‘friends’. Families have endured meltdowns — some have deep wounds testing their familial character.
The future lies with each of us — we are the ones to think about what we’re tempted to post before clicking the button or tapping ‘enter’. We are the ones who can remember the social chain takes our message far, far beyond the person or opinion we’re focused on. When we do post something unworthy of us, we’re the ones to exercise our clicking skills and hit that little “X” or pencil and get rid of the stupidity, ASAP. When the post has been there long enough to bring some others up for air, the damage can be reduced with a healthy dose of DELETE.
We are the ones who can offer tolerance for the opinions of others; comprehend that text doesn’t show their motivation. We can make the decision that we aren’t going to snap back. We are the ones who have the skill to click the ‘hide’ button or even the ‘unfriend’ option if our friends opinions get under our skin rather than slash their skins off.
In the myriad of potential scenarios of offense, uplifting, error and connection, we are the ONES who hold the future of a useful and valuable tool for familial and business connection on the tips of our keyboard crazy fingers. Facebook has connected us with people we never thought we might get together with and I for one value the photos and stories along with the opportunity to support those whom we seldom lay eyes upon. Facebook has given business a ‘face’, and a character, plus an instantaneous way to serve customers and clients. We have connections all over the planet. When we think the relationship is superficial, we only have to encounter a ‘bear of a problem’ to see our friends coming out of the virtual woodwork to support us. Never in a million years would I be even remotely acquainted with expats in Prague, decorative concrete artists in the Czech Republic, South Africa or Hawaii, authors in Canada and the Ozarks. I wouldn’t have had early morning chats with a kid in Hong Kong waiting for dinner in his time zone when I used to play the Farm games, or an impromptu prayer session with a ‘farmer’ mom whose son just left for Afghanistan while I harvested virtual fields.
If you’ve been posting like a boob, it could cost your career — employers are real people and these little poisonous things are difficult to get past. If you’re a headhunter, I ask that you develop some tolerance because the boob is a real flesh and blood person and now you know going in. Is that all bad? Our future isn’t in a crystal ball, it seems to be in a fishbowl where every little personal foible and wart shows our humanity. Facebook doesn’t mean squat to a fruit fly — it only works for humanity.
Manage Your Facebook Ad Budget
What do I mean by competitive? Well, if there are lots of people interested in women from 55 -65 who live in Florida and like line dancing, you will be competing with other marketers who are trying to reach that audience. That is where bid price comes in.
Types of Facebook Ads
Once you’ve made your decision to place a Facebook the next logical questions is what do you want it to do.
You can have your ad direct people to:
- Your website
- Your fanpage (to get more likers)
- To an event
Once that decision is made you have yet another choice, create your own copy or use a sponsored story. What is a sponsored story?
When someone likes a link, page, or event it will show up in their friend’s feed. With a sponsored story, the like will be showed to the friends more 
prominently, both on the right-hand side of Facebook and in news feed itself (mobile and desktop).
For example, Don likes PlayBig Online Marketing’s latest post. Since PlayBig has a sponsored story, Don’s friends will see the PlayBig logo, a thumbs up, and the words “Don likes this”.
The idea is that friends will like a friend’s like.
So how can you use a sponsored story?
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Acquire more fans
Run Page Like Stories to amplify the action of someone liking your Page -
Engage with more of your fans
Run Page Post Stories, which automatically insert your posts into a sponsored story that is shown to a wider base of your fans -
Drive in-store traffic
Use Check-in Stories, which are shown to people when their friends check-in to your business’s location
In the next blog we’ll talk about how Facebook makes it super easy to keep your budget in check with the Facebook ads.
How To Plan Your Virtual Events for Success
A big thank you to Della Bercovitch from Della-Gate for being our guest blogger. Be sure to check out her website, more blogs, and her service offerings.
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Virtual events are a way to bring people together from around the world and everyone can attend from their own desk. All an attendee requires is access to a computer with Internet connectivity. This is a perfect way for companies to market their products and/or services.
To host a virtual event requires planning. It also requires time and effort.
Here is a “to do” list to consider:
- Are you going to host a webinar or a teleseminar?
- Research the technology that is available to you for either a webinar or a teleseminar based on whether or not you are going to present a PowerPoint or a video with sound. Do you want to be able to share your desktop? Would you like the audience to participate? Do you want a recording for your website?
- Are you going to charge participants or allow them to attend free of charge?
- What topic are you going to present? Research a topic or create a survey and send it to your target market to find out what they want to learn about.
- It is always a good idea to attend a few teleseminars or webinars in order to get an idea of how other people conduct them and what you would like to do for yours.
- Are you going to present alone or are you going to have a guest speaker?
- Prepare your presentation.
- Set up a sign up form.
- Branding your webinar room is important as you want to create a professional look.
- Marketing your event is imperative to attract as many participants as possible. There are many avenues that you can use to market with: email lists, newsletters, press releases, blogging, your website, your strategic alliances, status update on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and other networking sites you belong to, to name a few.
- It is important to have a practice webinar or teleseminar before the actual event. In so doing, you will get a feel for the room. Having a practice ensures that on the actual day you will be able to deliver your presentation without any glitches.
- Send out reminder emails to those who have signed up for the event. These can be in the form of thank you for signing up and then reminders a couple of days before the event and then again on the day of the event.
- On the day of the webinar or teleseminar, it is advisable to allow yourself some time before the start. This enables you to upload your presentation, make sure it advances properly and do a sound check.
- When presenting remember to acknowledge and interact with your audience. If someone types a question in the chat line, mention the person’s first name when providing the answer. Run polls. This builds a connection between you, the presenter, and the audience.
After the event, it is important to follow up with your attendees. Send them a thank you for attending along with any handouts or material that you promised during the event. Direct them to your website for further information.
Take time after the event to analyze the success of the event. Did you achieve your goal?
Use the results to learn for the future; what worked well and what needs to be improved.
As you can see there is a lot of planning, time and effort that goes into creating and having a successful event. If you find all of the tasks overwhelming, consider using the services of a Virtual Assistant to assist you with the details of the webinar as well as moderating it for you. Having a VA assist you will enable you to focus on the content and the preparation of the presentation.
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I would like to invite you stop by my blog. I would love to have the opportunity to connect with you. Please be sure to introduce yourself.
Della is a Virtual Assistant who specializes in Book Marketing Online, Online Events as well as administrative services for small businesses. Please visit her website at www.della-gate.com
Design Your Facebook Ad
- Include your business or Page name, a question, or key information in the title
- Provide a clear action to take in the body copy, and highlight the benefits
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Use a simple, eye-catching image that is related to your body copy and title
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Target different audiences to determine which groups are most responsive to your ads
Below is an example of graphic that tends to catch peoples attention. It is just a simple graphic with an arrow. On an ad, the arrow would point to the Like link.
Popular is copy that invites a person to Like a page if they hate or like something. For example, using a picture of a puppy and the title of the ad reads: Love puppies? The body reads: Click like if you love puppies! What is this ad for? Well, it could be for a dog food company, a dog apparel company or anything.
Next blog we’ll discuss other things you can do with your Facebook ads.
