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!!

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

Energize! Act like a startup

by

by
Rosemary O’Neill

Energize! Act like a startup

You don’t have to work in a high-ceilinged loft in San Francisco to take advantage of startup wisdom. The energy, passion, and fast pace of startup culture has a lot to offer almost any business.

It’s not all about the perks

We did have a foosball table in the early days of our company, but what we discovered is that everyone appreciates less tangible perks. A collegial atmosphere, where everyone is respected for their ideas, is much more important than Aeron chairs.

Lessons you can take from startup culture

  • Go all in. Sleep under your desk if you have to.
  • Appreciate your colleagues.
  • Don’t build any internal silos; everyone pitches in.
  • Maintain your hunger for the mission; gather true believers around you.
  • Get all excited over every new customer.
  • Take advantage of guerrilla (free) PR and marketing opportunities.

Even if you’ve been in business for a long time, you can incorporate some of the ideas that make startups successful. But you don’t have to eat Ramen noodles.

What can you do this week to inject some startup energy and passion into your business?

Author’s Bio: Rosemary O’Neill is an insightful spirit who works for social strata — a top ten company to work for on the Internet . Check out the Social Strata blog. You can find Rosemary on Google+ and on Twitter as @rhogroupee

Thank you, Rosemary!

You’re irresistible!

ME “Liz” Strauss

Are You in Business to Succeed or Fail?

by

Going into business  for yourself can certainly be viewed as a dicey proposition.

If you are currently employed under the watch of someone else, do you leave the salary, benefits, etc. to venture off on your own? If you do, is it in the back of your head that a high percentage of small businesses fail within the first five years? Lastly, do you have the required drive and available funds to make it through the toughest of times?

With a national unemployment rate of still more than 8 percent, it should not come as a surprise that many people are taking that chance, that chance where they can potentially make something out of nothing and turn a business profit.

As someone who has gone through a pair of corporate layoffs over the last six years, it has become more and more apparent to me that job security for the most part is a thing of the past.

Unlike many of our parents who worked for one company most of their lives, many of us today sport resumes that list a couple of employers, even a half dozen or more in many cases.

Starting your own business can be downright scary, however the rewards can be downright impressive. Yes, the financial rewards are important, but what about that feeling of satisfaction that you built something from nothing and made it work?

While there are courses and coaches that can help the prospective small business man or woman, there is really nothing better than those firsthand experiences.

Yes, you will hit some bumps in the road, perhaps many. Yes, you will question your decision to start a small business at 3 a.m. when your loved ones and neighbors are asleep. Yes, you will sometimes, many oftentimes, wonder if leaving that comfortable corporate check every two weeks was really worth it.

Being someone who has given more and more thought to starting his own content writing business in recent months, I can simply say that I would never discourage someone from pursuing their business dreams.

None of us can say with certainty what the small business climate will be like a year from now, let alone a few months down the road.

If you start a small business and it ends up not turning out the way you wanted, never forget the fact that you tried.

In the end, isn’t trying to succeed at whatever you choose what life is about in the first place?

Photo credit: ehow.com

Dave Thomas has more than 20 years’ experience as a writer, covering news, sports marketing, SEO, press releases, social media and more. You’ll find Dave at: http://www.examiner.com/news-in-san-diego/dave-thomas

 

Calculating ROI and Tracking Sales on Your Advertising Brochures

by

by Tara Hornor

Making an Investment in Marketing

Are you spending money on advertising brochures for your business? If so, it is important that you begin calculating the return on investment (ROI) to find out how much your business is benefiting from them. This also helps you prioritize your marketing efforts as you’re going to want to focus your marketing dollars where they have the greatest effect.

The sole purpose of making an initial investment in a marketing method such as advertising brochures is to end up making more than that original investment. Your goal is to spread the word about your business, gain new customers, and ultimately make more money.

Calculating ROI on Your Advertising Brochures

If you have never before attempted to calculate your ROI, don’t be intimidated. By following a few fairly simple mathematical equations (nothing a small business owner can’t handle) and gathering the right information, you can become a master whiz at knowing your profits for brochures, postcards, or any other print marketing material.

Calculations

The calculation for ROI is simple: (Profit – Cost) / Cost.

So let’s apply that to a sample project. You have the following costs:

$1,000 – designing the brochures
$1,000 – 10,000 brochures
$3,000 – mailing the brochures
$5,000 – total cost

After mailing out your brochures, you start to get orders. After a few weeks you step back and calculate that your total sales for the brochure campaign were $15,000. Here’s how you would plug this data into the ROI calculation:

($15,000 – $5,000) / $5,000 = $2

So you have two dollars as the result of the calculation. What are you supposed to do with this information? The result of this calculation tells you that for every $1 you invest, you get $2 back. That’s an excellent return on investment!

Simple, right? As long as you know how to determine which of your sales actually came about as a result of your advertising brochures.

Tips on Keeping Track of ROI

Most business owners appreciate the simplicity of ROI, as it is easy to calculate. But tracking actual profits that come explicitly from a campaign can be tough. When you create advertising brochures, you should have a specific advertising campaign in place. Since you will need to find out how many sales actually came from that specific campaign, make sure you use specific methods for tracking your campaign numbers.

Some of the techniques used for tracking a specific campaign include:

  • QR codes that customers scan. The code leads them to a specific landing page built specifically for your campaign.
  • Special phone number that is only associated with that campaign.
  • Coupon codes associated with that specific campaign.

The fact is that you probably have several marketing methods going on at any given moment for a single campaign from social media to emails to brochures. Be sure to isolate, as best you can, which is providing your profits so you can track properly. Therefore, if all of your marketing efforts are for advertising your latest product line – running shoes, let’s say – then be sure that your email leads to a different landing page than your brochures do.

As a business owner, you do not want to waste your money or your time, which is why you need to calculate ROI and track progress of the campaign on a regular basis. Once you do this, you can get a better insight into what consumers like and do not like. You will be able to figure out which brochures are working and which ones are not worth the initial investment at all.

Author’s Bio:
Tara Hornor writes about marketing, advertising, branding, web and graphic design, and desktop publishing for PrintPlace.com a company that offers online printing for print marketing media. Find her on Twitter as @TaraHornor .