So, by now you have read our introduction to using Pinterest for business. You still might be wondering if it is the right road for you to travel. It is definately a topic to deliberate about.
Pinterest. The search engine that crawls all over the world looking for topics of interest for the user to add to their boards. The funny thing about Pinterest is we spend hours in search of new ideas, theories, recipes, DIY projects, but maybe it’s time to considered using it to promote your work or your business? Prompted by a webinar I listened to, I recently tried an experiment using my Pinterest boards. My time frame for this evaluation was one week. At the end of seven consecutive days I discovered re-pins, views and followers increased. This means, during the trial period, my boards I targeted on Pinterest are seeing an increase in traffic. Resulting in content I am posting is getting more attention. What did I do differently from the previous week or months, for that matter? I’ll use my Morning Muse posts that happen three times a week, Friday, Sunday and Wednesday. Prior to my test run, I would share these three posts only to my Morning Muse board. During the trial, I included the Morning Muse board and at least three other relevant boards. Relevant in that the content of the blog fit easily into the topic of other boards I have. |
The trick is to share your selection (at time of first share), whether it is something you have found on someone else’s board, website or from your own blogs, pictures or articles. The steps are easy, but you need to be quick on the draw after you make the first pin.
The first pin will result in a pop-up box with a button that says, “View Now”. That's your cue. Click on the view now button. The pin will open and you will now see the “Share” button at the top of the page. This is where you add it to as many boards as you like. The key to this part is changing out the description. This will help the Pinterest search engines in locating the topic, your board and ending with them opening the link to your website, blog or product. On a technical note, and someplace I don’t usually expound on, Pinterest is basically like every other search engines. They use algorithms to place keywords (words used in descriptions of the pins) to move you up the ranks and ultimately have people find you. Sharing one pin on 3-5, or more, boards indicates to the gnomes determining the ranking, that this must be a pretty important pin to have been shared so many times. You do have to be careful to not use the same description/keywords over and over, as like other search engines, Pinterest may consider it a type of spam and the actual post will, in all likelihood get punted to the bottom of the ranking ladder never to see the light of day again. |
There are several other ways Pinterest can play a large part in marketing your business. In future Morning Muse posts I will reveal what else I have found. Do you use Pinterest to promote your business? Share your story with us.
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Almost everyone has a Pinterest account. It’s a place you’ve set up to gather all the things you like, dream about and are interested in. Personal use of Pinterest is staggering. Believe it or not this trendy, sometime bling catcher and recipe hoarder is the perfect social media platform to promote a business. Let’s assume, for this exercise, you already have six or more boards set up in your account. How many of those boards actually pertain, in some way, to the business or product you are trying to promote? Weather you choose three or four, one, or all six is a topic I will discuss in a future post. The idea of using Pinterest to market your business may come as a surprise. Your account doesn't have to have a business name, although having a board named after your company is acceptable and not a bad idea. I will use my Pinterest account as an example. I have forty-one boards. Of those, I can confidently say seven reflect on my business which includes being a published author/writer and photographer. The next three or four are related to these topics; however, their use has now been relegated for gathering research material. That leaves the rest as boards that have been set up because . . . Why? Personal interests, I suppose, along with the fact that I like to have information in a manageable file like environment. All of my boards, at one time, I thought to be important. That was until I discovered I could make my personal account into a Pinterest’s Business Account by following their conversion steps. This is a free option, and comes with some good perks, takes a few minutes to do and worth looking into if you have any kind of business, home based or brick and mortar. The best part, you can use your existing account. There is no need to open a business specific account unless you choose to do so. Through this sign up, I now receive a suggested selection of possible pins. These come by email and are based on the relevancy of topics I pin the most (with a few more thrown in for enticement). These suggestions have quickly shown me the majority of my boards are just there to catch fleeting whims of personal taste and could/should be amalgamated, switched to a private setting or discarded. The thing to remember is you don’t need to spend hours scrolling through the masses of pins to find something, anything, that tweaks your interest or has any baring on your business. Your preferences can be handed to you in an email a few times a week, thus improving time management to do other projects of importance. You don’t need 1000’s and 1000’s of pins to be noticed. You do need to be consistent. Pinning material that showcases you, your product, your business AND, re-pinning pins from other like minded people. Slowly, at first, you will see the number of followers, re-pins and likes increase. As the numbers grow, so does the exposure of your business. Increasing Traffic to your business boards in Pinterest is one of the many topics I will share with you in future posts about Pinterest and Business. Ann Edall-Robson Author, Photographer, Lover of Life If you have found this information helpful or would like to learn more about Pinterest for Business, please let me know.
Choosing a platform for your blog or website can be a daunting exercise. There are so many out there to pick from.
It has been over twenty years since social media has become a part of my life. With guidance from a cousin, I learned to write basic html code while she helped me build my first website. Moving on with a vision, of something more than my ability was capable of, we out sourced to build what we call our mother ship site. It was soon into this relationship that we realized we had made a mistake. We were given the ability to change out text and some pictures, but we had no control over the overall look. Each time we needed to add a page or make a change to the presentation of the site, we required their expertise. Why? Because they had written the guts of the program in various forms of coding along with some trial and error of their own. The final straw came when they decided to close up shop. Giving us control over a site that still only gives us access to minimal changes and a definite need to either find someone to decipher their code or re-do the site in its entirety. In my research, I had stumbled across Weebly. It was one of the platforms endorsed by our web host and it looked to be fairly easy to navigate. It was on my radar for upgrades to our websites when the use of the program came to me through another project I was working on. Perhaps our experience will help others to decide a website or blog program.
We have decided to share our Weebly experience with you through a series of blogs over the next few months and beyond using question and answers.
Q. Why did you choose Weebly for your AnnEdallRobson.com website platform?
A. I didn’t. Using the Basic level, it was built for me as part of my publishing package for Moon Rising. The publisher asked me questions about what pages I would like and made suggestions. They did the rest and then turned its complete control over to me. Q. What did you think of the result of the website the publisher had built for you? A. Truthfully, I didn’t like the look at all. But knew I was going to be able to make changes once I got comfortable with the program. Q. Did you find it easy to use? A. Yes. It’s a drag and drop system. Put in what you need/want. Take out what you don’t. Q. Did it do everything you wanted it to? A. That depends on what you mean by everything. There are several levels of the program. Basic is just that, basic. No access to adding videos, audio or store. If these are not important to you, then the Basic is the way to go. Q. Was Weebly easy to learn? A. I think it is. The Basic level is a good opportunity to cut your teeth on website or blog building. Q. Are you still using the Basic level? A. No. I now use the Business level. Q. Why did you change from the Basic to the Business level? A. The Basic level had given me a good training ground for the Weebly program, but I needed to expand on the vision for the website and the Business level was the next choice to fulfill that vision. Q. Would you recommend Weebly to others looking to start a Blog, Website, Business? A. Absolutely! It has all the capabilities needed to sell your product, blog about the things that are important to you and build your dream.
If you have questions about Weebly you would like us to address, please send them to us. We'll do what we can to find your answers or share our experience.
Pricing and information on Weebly.
Whenever I hear mention of a social media Tweet, the song Rockin’ Robin comes to mind. If you are of the generation that recognizes the word play between the two, you probably now have the lyrics bopping around in your head. Modern day Tweets are the things you write on Twitter. Sharing with all who follow you and who have found you through those followers and use of #Hashtags. Getting to know Twitter so it works to your benefit is quite easy. You have up to 140 characters/spaces to get your point across. Become creative in wording can pay off. For example the sentence, Start with steps 1, 2 and 3. Condensed to Strt w/steps123. Offers up more character usage in the overall content of the Tweet. There is an etiquette to follow. One of my favourite lists of so called rules comes from Author/Blogger, Molly Green talking about Tweets You Should Never Send. Yet, some of these Tweets come from the fact that you were raised with manners, and thanking someone is a natural thing for you to do. Get over being overly polite. It’s just not appreciated by the vast majority of the Social Media world. Save it for your emails and private messages to friends. So now you know how many characters you can use. You have read up on the Tweets to never send, and it’s time to review the #Hashtag. How many hashtags (words) should you use? Since Hashtags are incorporated more and more in every social media platform, I found this article by Leanne O’Sullivan to be useful for Twitter as well as those who use Instagram. Her post outlines some of the basic protocol use of #Hashtags: The rule of thumb is generally no more than five. They should not be long-winded or a complete sentence. They should not make up the whole descriptive monologue (one hashtag word, after another hashtag word, after another). Most importantly, they should be relevant to the topic of the Tweet. You don’t want too many #Hashtag words cluttering the view. Making them all the reader sees. The message you are trying to convey is quickly lost and the reader moves on to other Tweets without paying any attention to you. Soon, they gloss over your Tweets and eventually, they either don’t bother at all with what you are Tweeting &/or they quit following you. In summary: 1. Utilize characters/spaces to your advantage; 2. Don’t send out tweets that are not appreciated; And 3. Be smart about your #Hashtag use. What do you think about using Tweets to promote your business?
New to the realm of social network? Do you spend more time trying to figure out the menagerie of alphabet soup letters than you do promoting your business and product. One such acronym is worth knowing about. Learning how to take advantage of its existence to boost your name up the ladder of the search engines. Search Engine Optimizers or SEO as it is fondly referred to in the soup can, is important and not that hard to master. SEO is a modern buzzword for the old fashioned, but still used term, Keyword. Basically making sure your site include words that are recognized by search engines. Wording to improve rankings and send traffic to your site. SEO’s not only use words in your written pages, but also identify with links to and from your pages. If you were to do a search for SEO on the internet, you will receive a result list of over 523,000,000 options to chose from. That in itself can turn you off of finding out about this important marketing tool. One of the better articles I have found to explain SEO in layman’s terms also offered a printable PDF version of The Beginners Guide to SEO. Marketing yourself can be a little easier if you have the use of some good tools and references. Share your SEO and marketing experiences with us. Coming across an article that piques your interest might result in you following the news feed from that website or blog. All to soon your Inbox is inundated with mail that you don’t have time to read.
Scrolling down the In Folder creates an exercise program for your fingers, not your mind. You originally thought, when you signed up for future readings, this would be a quick way to keep up with the trends. If your finger hits the delete button more often than the enter button to open and read what is before you, this might be telling you something. Flagging and saving mail in a Must Read file only adds more anxiety to your daily routine. When was the last time you actually went back, opened and read the saved mail? Here are some thoughts to keeping your Inbox at a dull roar rather than a chaotic mishmash of clutter. However, if you are an email junkie and need to see your Inbox full of mail, no need to read further.
Have a look at your inbox right now. How many emails does it contain? You might be shocked at the number. Imagine what it would be like to open your Inbox to say, a maximum 20 emails on any given day, excluding friends and family? Newsy emails that have meaning and don’t cause you anxiety as their numbers grow. Is it time to do some house cleaning? Once the initial clear out is done, which may take some time, it can be an easy do every day. Quick Tips
Are you missing out on some easy and free marketing for your business? Do you have a shoe string budget or no budget at all when it comes to advertising? This could be your breakthrough. Time involved, after initial set up . . . Under one minute. How can you take advantage of this opportunity? It’s easy. There is nothing to buy and after set up, there is nothing to sign up for.
You have now taken the initiative to increase your followers. More importantly, you have increased the exposure for your business.
You don’t have to invite everyone, and not everyone will accept your invitation. Consider it another baby step in marketing your business. One step that can be taken with little effort. Facebook is a cauldron of opportunity. If you are taking the time to post and read other people’s posts because you “Liked” their business pages; why aren’t you taking the one minute or less to invite others to Like your page? Get over the “I don’t want to bother people” attitude and start building your followers list. FB is a prime example of the ripple in the pond affect. For every person that Likes your page, one of their friends sees your page and ultimately your posts. You have now doubled the marketing value. Take advantage of what is right there in front of you. It only takes a minute! Tell us how do you utilize Facebook to market your business? I have been experimenting with fewer post days for Morning Muse. I have discovered that is a pleasing direction for most of our readers.
So, I'm going to change things up a bit. You will now see posts on Friday, Sunday and Wednesday. That's not to say, that on occasion, I won't deviate from the 3 Days. Believe me, if here is something I think is exciting, and I need to share, Morning Muse will appear on additional weekdays. But the plan for the summer, at least, is Friday, Sunday and Wednesday. This announcement is not, I repeat not, our Friday post. Stay tuned for what's coming later this morning. Silent Sunday. Mindless Monday. Travel Tuesday. Wordless Wednesday. Throwback Thursday. Foodie Friday. Sunny Saturday. All of these are meant to get your attention on any social media platform they show up on. So lets have a look at each day of the week and its quirky heading. Silent Sunday
Post nothing more than those words. Post a picture that reminds you of silence. Talk about what silence means to you. Mindless Monday Post nothing more than those words. Talk about how the mind wakes up idle after a weekend away from the real job. Use a picture to get your point across. Travel Tuesday Post nothing more than a picture of travel to somewhere. The thing is, travel could be a walk down the block or a trip across the sea. Talk about a trip you want to go on or have been on. Wordless Wednesday Like Silent Sunday, say nothing at all. Post a picture. Any picture. Be sure not to add any words. Let the picture say it all. Throwback Thursday Allows you to re-post something from a past time. Post a picture of reminders of your childhood. Talk about the good old days. The “Remember When” times. Foodie Friday Share a recipe. Post a picture of food. Share your favourite restaurant. Talk it up. Diss what you thought was your favourite place to eat. Tell what has turned you off from eating here. Sunny Saturday Talk about what Saturday means to you. Post pictures of your Saturday’s In review, we know there are days when it is deemed to be slow times on social media. These are the days when few words or little information is shared. The common denominator in the list is post a picture. Visual anything is an eye catcher. Whether you add words or not is up to you. If you don't have the time to post everyday, choose the one or two days that suit you best. Just get it done! Consistency is the key to promotion of anything you do on social media. Make up your own attention grabbing title for the days of the week and see if it helps to boost your views. |
October 2023
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