Successful Blog

How to use Pinterest for a Commercial Website with Few Images

by

by
Marcela De Vivo

As Pinterest, the picture and board-based social networking site, has exploded in popularity. Many businesses have been scrambling to use it to drive customers to their websites.

For ecommerce businesses this has not been much of a challenge due to the product and photo-based nature of their websites. They can create relevant boards and promote their products with elegant and sharable photos, driving a lot of traffic — and hopefully purchases — to their website. By interlacing their own product images with other interesting and relevant images, they can create appealing Pinterest boards that drive user engagement.

What about the rest of us?

How to use Pinterest for a Commercial Website with Few Images

Many businesses that operate online are not product-based or may not have a lot of photos to work with. Are they simply out of luck when it comes to Pinterest, or are there creative ways to use this network to drive customer engagement and traffic?

Fortunately, as creative social media SEOs and marketers, we proudly proclaim that all hope is not lost! There are a lot of ways you can use Pinterest to interact with your customer base, even if you’re not a photo-centric business.

Inspirational and Motivational Images

If your business has a motivational or inspirational purpose behind it, you can use Pinterest to share these values with your customers. If you haven’t noticed that motivational images have been exploding around the internet, it’s time to open your eyes.

These types of images — a beautiful picture with inspirational text overlaid on top — are some of the most shared images on the internet. They spread through Facebook, Tumblr, and Twitter like wildfire and can be very effective drivers of traffic.

Pick out some values that your company stands for and turn them into motivational images. Throw them up on Pinterest boards and share them via all of your social networks. If you do your job properly you should see a positive response.

You can use a tool like PicMonkey to edit your images, add text, and make them fun and easy to share. You may also choose to add your watermark to improve your branding.

Curating Pins From Your Niche

If you can’t make the above strategy work, you can always act as the gatherer of information for your niche. There is ALWAYS value in aggregating all of the content related to your niche and organizing it into neatly consumable boards on Pinterest. A few websites have had major success using this technique. The best part: you don’t have to OWN or CREATE any of the content yourself!

Don’t get me wrong — this isn’t stealing. You’re going to pin and repin related content into boards that are organized. This way anyone interested in your niche can go to one place on Pinterest — yours — to get all of the information that they need.

Final Thoughts

Remember that Pinterest is just another social network. It’s not going to be the end-all of your social media strategies. It’s just another arrow in your quiver when it comes to delivering value to your customers and gaining their attention and hopefully their business!

Author’s Bio:
Marcela De Vivo is a freelance writer helping webmasters find the right tools to promote their websites online. She loves to connect on social media so be sure to follow her on Facebook and Twitter.

How to Get the Best People to Support Your Cause, Project, or Idea

by

Help Me!!


BigStock: What’s the Best Way
to Say “Help Me, Please”?

Ever wonder why some folks seem to have a slew of people ready to help them achieve their goals? Is their cause, idea, or project really better? Do they really know better people? Or is it the way they ask?

On September 22-23, I’m speaking at Pitch Refinery. Check out the agenda for the interactive event that proves

“Every business has a story…

how you tell it makes all the

difference.”

If you get a chance to be there, you’ll find the power of story to move people to action faster, easier, and more meaningfully.

How to Convince the Best People to Support Your Cause, Project, or Idea

In my role at the Pitch Refinery event, I’ll be outlining How to Leading Passionate Employees and Clients — How to get everyone who helps your business involved in sharing your best true story so that your business thrives. In that context, I’ll be talking about five steps to enlisting help on any cause project or idea.

In the spirit if a sneak preview, I’m sharing them here.

  1. Build your network before you need it. We might be on a team or leading one. We might be new to the industry. Maybe we’ve been working alone on a stealth project. Whatever our situation, success means we’ll need the help of others getting to know our story and sharing it. We’re better together than we are alone. As early as you can, share what you’re doing. Vvalue the people who take interest and invite the best them to get close so that they become part of the story too.
  2. Talk about them, not you. Every writer, teacher and storyteller knows that the opening of of a story is more than just information, it’s the moment that establishes a connection with the audience — the people we want to reach. Get to know what moves the people who love you. Get to know what wastes their tiem. Then when you reach out to ask for help you can start with them, not you. That will turn your offer from

    “We are a ___ that is trying to [stop world hunger] by ___. Akimi is a child parses out her rice each night so that it will last longer. You can help make those meals last longer.
    into
    “We’ve all had that horrible, deep pit in the stomach feeling of working on an empty stomach. It changes how we see the world. It’s hard to imagine what it would be like to live with that empty feeling for months, but some do. Imagine how that sets their world view.

  3. Come out from behind the curtain. A true collaboration, an invitation to participate in building something great, cannot occur if we stay in our office, hold our territory, or hide behind our website expecting others to show up while we tell them what to do for us. Come out when you reach out. Show your “face.” Say hello before you ask and get to know who you’re asking. Build a relationship so that people understand that you want their participation not just their money or their time. And so that they see that participation goes both ways.
  4. Turn the pitch into an invitation. The reason most requests offers, and asks, are requested is because the size of the “ask” is far greater than the foundation of trust we’ve built. Trust is built through proof that I’m safe to have faith in you. To establish trust most quickly, show the people you want to help you that you see, hear, and understand them by building an invitation that is easy to accept because it fits seamlessly into their lives, saves them time, and offers and outcome that has meaning to them.
  5. Celebrate your heroes. Allow for mutation. Leave room for ideas that are bigger, better, easier, and more meaningful than your own. Listen to those who start to participate. Invite the best to be hands-on and minds-on with what you’re doing. It’s not if you build it they will come. It’s if they build it they will bring their friends.

People whose offers always get great participation have figured something out. They focus on how to make supporting their cause, project, or idea easier, faster, and more meaningful for the best people to participate. Do the same by concentrating on the people, not the brilliance of the idea or cause. It’s not a pitch or promotion. It’s leadership — building something we can’t build alone.

What are you doing to invite people to support your cause, project or idea?

Be irresistible.
–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz on your business!!

Growing Your Business: Four Tips for Female Entrepreneurs

by

by
Ken Myers

cooltext443809602_strategy

What’s the key to small business success? There are many aspects to creating a successful small business — having a skill that others will pay for is only the first step. With more women than ever before getting involved in entrepreneurship, it’s important to be fully prepared with as much information on small business success as you can get.

Growing Your Business: Four Tips for Female Entrepreneurs

What’s the key to cultivating a lasting small business? Below, you’ll find four tips that other women in small business have used to reach their goals.

1. Connect in the Community

No matter what business you create, there are two major avenues for you to think about: Your “business-to-consumer” strategy and your “business-to-business” strategy. Even if you focus mainly on making sales directly to consumers, you can find great ways to achieve institutional contracts by addressing a need that others may not realize is there. Meet with other local business owners to find ways that you can cooperate for mutual benefit. Consider the needs of nonprofit organizations such as schools and libraries, too.

2. Build Your Expert Credentials

To create an enduring business, it’s essential that you become known as an expert in your field. Showcasing your expertise allows you to find customers more easily and put them at their ease. There are many different ways to do this — you can become active in industry associations and volunteer organizations, for example. Publishing books and articles on your subject is also a road to becoming a recognized expert. Help people get comfortable with your reputation! They will reward your efforts with repeat business.

3. Don’t Neglect the Internet

When you have a steady source of local business, you are at a huge advantage compared to competitors who mainly use the Internet to find their clients. That said, you should never neglect the Internet. Local clients and those who will be visiting your area for a short time will both use Internet search engines to find you. Make sure that your business is listed in “local search” features across the various major search sites; also ensure that your site allows potential customers to contact you, make purchases or set reservations. The longer your site is active, the easier it will be to discover you online.

4. Leverage Local Resources

Women in business can benefit from a large number of local, state and national resources. In addition to major volunteer organizations such as Rotary International, you’ll also find excellent resources at your local chamber of commerce and similar concerns. Don’t forget that, as a female entrepreneur, you can often qualify for grants and other assistance from the federal government and a wide variety of pro-business establishments. It is a good idea to gain some knowledge of grant proposal writing and fundraising!

Remember that a business does not typically turn a substantial profit in its first year. Many small businesses close within five years — and it may take up to three years for a business on a successful trajectory to begin showing a healthy balance sheet. During this time, it is important that you gain as much insight as possible into the aspects of business that support your main operation. Always be on the lookout for ways to expand your marketing efforts using word of mouth and direct contact within your local area.

Author’s Bio:
Ken Myers as an Expert Advisor on multiple household help issues to many Organizations and groups, and is a mentor for other “Mom-preneurs” seeking guidance. He is a regular contributor of “www.gonannies.com/”. You can get in touch with him at k.meyerst20@gmail.com.

Don’t Own the Problem. Own the Solution.

by

If You Argue FOR Your Problems …

cooltext443794242_influence

At least twice a week, I have a conversation with a person or a team about a problem they’ve discovered with their business. Soon as I can I start asking questions about what makes the problem a problem and how we might unravel that knot to get things moving smoothly again.

What’s interesting is that most folks first want to convince me how terrible, awful, horribly huge and unsolvable the problem is. They want to dig deep into the details and issue and vent the emotions they’ve carried while the problem was tying itself up.

If you argue for your problems, they’ll be yours.

Do You Argue FOR Your Problems?

Don’t confuse identifying the problem with communicating how you feel about the problem. The two are just not the same thing. In the same vein, focusing on the cause of the problem is rarely a solution.

  • If he hadn’t … but he did.
  • If they had just … but they didn’t.
  • If this was built this boat right … but it wasn’t and if we keep talking about it, we’re ALL going to drown. We need a way to keep from sinking or a way to get to the shore.

Talking about how we feel about the problem and its cause, doesn’t do much to change the situation NOW. In fact, staying focused on those points is arguing to keep the problem a problem.

Some problems do better if we solve them first and discuss how to avoid them later.
Some problems – like a dropped glass spilling liquid all over the floor — may be just be an accident and not discussion at all
Some problems — like a detour — aren’t problems at all simply a shift in what we were expecting to occur.

Change Your Mind

The way we see a problem is what keeps is a problem. Stop seeing an obstacle. Look for the opportunity.
Inside every situation that seems to be a problem is a chance to learn a new way of doing things. Along with that comes a challenge to show our courage, grace, flexibility, competence, and confidence when faced with the need to find new solutions.

Truth is if we give up the payoff in dissecting the problem we’ll move more quickly to solution.
Let’s just agree that we have one and get on with solving it. We can address the problem after we’ve achieved the solution. We’ll save urgent time and be more rational then anyway.

Don’t Own the Problem, Own the Solution.

New solutions are what lead to innovation.
Necessity (problems to solve) is the mother and father that gives birth to revelation.
Keeping our eyes on each other and our hearts on open communication can bring us to a solution that was better than what we ever thought we wanted.

And being the one who can positively identify opportunity when the situation has been shaken raises influence and gains esteem from the folks who are stuck and frozen. Being able to keep the focus on the direction that moves us forward is a trait of a leader. It’s irresistible to be ready to keep winning when the day is raining.

Don’t own the problem.
Own the quest to find the solution.
Don’t argue for convincing folks how bad it is that it happened.
Argue for how good it is that we’ve got an opportunity to make something great happen.
Don’t parse apart the people and the pieces to find what was broken.
Do all our can to make things whole and moving things whole again.
That’s winning.
And winning is irresistible.

How do you catch yourself when you’re arguing for the problem?

Be irresistible.
–ME “Liz” Strauss

Moving House or Business? 6 Things To Know about Your New Location

by

by
Eveleene Salt

cooltext443809602_strategy

After the Olympics, you might be wondering what it would be like to spend a year or two in London. Every city has it’s unique attributes, attractions, and amenities of distinctions. Whether it’s a dream or a real possibility, thinking through a home or business relocation is a great exercise in thinking.

Moving To London? What You Need To Know

Every year people from all walks of life move to London lured by its fast living, bright lights, appealing salaries and its cultural as well as professional diversity. What people find is a dynamic, expensive, yet thrilling world class capital city packed with opportunities and great experiences.

London is a huge idyllic place governed by vast administrative body including 33 boroughs and The Greater London authority. Deciding about moving to London is not like a simple across the country move, the whole process needs in-depth research from finding good relocation service providers to getting updated with whereabouts of the place.

Moving House or Business? 6 Things To Know about Your New Location

Any move requires research and planning, here are 6 things to think through about a relocation:

1. Housing

London is a huge city. Like any big city, making a decision where to live will ultimately depend on the factors like price, schools, transportation, travel times, and basic local amenities. Extrapolating the areas and speaking with people may help, but in order to find a peaceful crime free area you can talk to metropolitan police. Check their site to know about all the crime free areas and rent an accommodation in one of these areas.

The housing can be of any type which suits your expenses, there are Bedsits or studio apartments, flats or rental apartments, condos, townhouses, houses or a room in someone else’s house. Check the recent rental prices and guidelines for every kind of accommodation. The most important aspects that you need to consider are dealing with your landlords – tenancy agreement and council tax.

2. Career and Business

Check business climate and work opportunities in the news and through unemployment statistics. These will give you a basic idea about the amount of effort you need to put in order to keep solid financially. Gather and understand the general information about the basic costs of living and salary guidelines.

3. Setting up a bank account

In the U.K., as most locations, bank accounts are easy and safe way to manage your money. In order to open your bank accounts in the country you need to verify both your identity and address. Check with the local financial institutions about the documents you’ll need to set up personal and business accounts.

4. Accessing heath care

National health services provide majority of health care services in England including primary care, long term health care and inpatient health care. You are provided with NHS services by the London government if you are living in London irrespective of the fact that you have citizenship or not. Know the way that healthcare works in your destination before you finalize your decision.

5. Public Transportation

London transport consists of bus system, tram system, a wide spread tube network that include DLR, underground and over ground. There are national rails, black cabs and mini cabs too. For discounted travel rates you can have access to Oyster cards, the current public transportation passes used by the travelers in London. You can check on various public transportation websites and commuter reports to gather valuable information about moving around wherever you’re going.

6. Entertainment

London is vibrant, cosmopolitan and welcoming city where there is no end to opportunities and entertainment. Many of the variety of world famous museums and galleries have free admission. London has multitude of festivals taking up every year. Get a calendar of events in your new location that should not be missed. Some say that London’s Notting Hill Festival is the most famous festival of all.

Whether you’re dreaming or planning, whether it’s London or Honolulu, every destination offers some new challenges that require preparation and changes that might require adaptation. The most successful moves start with some research and planning.

Author’s Bio:
Eveleene Salt has been contributing regular article related to home improvement, reviews about London moving company and removal services

Thanks to Week 360 SOBs

by

muddy teal strip A

Successful and Outstanding Bloggers

Let me introduce the bloggers
who have earned this official badge of achievement,

Purple SOB Button Original SOB Button Red SOB Button Purple and Blue SOB Button
and the right to call themselves
Successful Blog SOBs.

I invite them to take a badge home to display on their blogs.

muddy teal strip A

They take the conversation to their readers,
contribute great ideas, challenge us, make us better, and make our businesses stronger.

I thank all of our SOBs for thinking what we say is worth passing on.
Good conversation shared can only improve the blogging community.

Should anyone question this SOB button’s validity, send him or her to me. Thie award carries a “Liz said so” guarantee, is endorsed by Kings of the Hemispheres, Martin and Michael, and is backed by my brothers, Angelo and Pasquale.

deep purple strip

Want to become an SOB?

If you’re an SO-Wanna-B, you can see the whole list of SOBs and learn how to be one by visiting the SOB Hall of Fame– A-Z Directory . Click the link or visit the What IS an SOB?! page in the sidebar.

–ME “Liz” Strauss