Pinterest might be more important to your brand than you think!  More brands are recognizing the power and importance of a strong social media presence to convert to sales!!  Many major retailers are turning to Pinterest and not simply relying on Facebook. According to Sephora’s head of digital Julie Bornstein, Pinterest members spend 15 times more on the company’s products than Facebook fans.

Here are 5 EASY Tips that will help get your pins and boards noticed:

1. Create at least 24 Pinterest boards; which will give you 3 rows of board content. It may sound like a lot of boards, but once you get started, you will find it is easy to find topics.
2. Don’t just create content related to your business. Add some topical boards that will drive people to your boards such as celebrities, movies, food. Make them fun!
3. Make your images dynamic. Look for photos that are colorful and large. People are visual and you will get more likes, and repins of from those images.
4. Add fresh pins daily to your boards. You can look through the feed, do searches on Pinterest under key terms or find new content via google. The more you add, the more visibility you will gain.
5. Gain new Pinterest followers by liking pins that interest you and following others!! The more activity you create, the faster you will gain followers and visibility. (

Do you currently have a Pinterest account? Feel free to share a link to yours here as well as any tips you have found that have helped you convert your pins into sales!

This morning Twitter announced a new advertising feature for businesses. It allows advertisers to reach people who have tweeted specific keywords in their recent tweets . What does this mean for you?

If you are a business that sells golf equipment, your tweet can reach people that have an interest in golf or have recently tweeted about it. You can even more narrowly target your search with Geotargeting by city, state and country and gender which you can see here.

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Not sure that keyword targeting will be incredibly effective yet as it has limitations. Twitter doesn’t really currently target habits, interests, age groups, etc as Facebook advertising  is able to do through your profile information and posts to integrate it into their advertising platform.

Have you used Twitter in an advertising campaign? Would love to hear your thoughts!

Here are 5 worth looking at:

Evernote – https://evernote.com/

• The ability to save anything from webpages to clips to photos to sounds
• Evernote syncs each device so you are always updated
• You can also research and work with friends on projects
• You can plan for events
• You can remember important things to do, dates, times and more
• Includes powerful search functions

Teamly – http://new.teamly.com/home

• Ability to download it from Google Chrome Web Store
• Integrates with gmail or you can use it as an app
• You can fill in  a daily to do list (I recommend 5 things)
• Every day you get emailed a list of what your to do items were
• Highly recommended.  Very simple and easy to use

Remember the Milk – http://www.rememberthemilk.com/

• As old as time this one
• Available in just about every format on every device
• Can also sync with gmail and integrate into it
• A nice simple to do list
• Also allows you to send to do reminders via Twitter DM just follow @rtm
• http://www.rememberthemilk.com/services/twitter/

Wunderlist - https://www.wunderlist.com/#/login

• If you are a design junkie then you will really appreciate the work that has gone into this to do list
• Features beautiful clean design, wonderful backgrounds and fonts
• Integrates with devices across all platforms and syncs from cloud storage

Do it  (Tomorrow) – http://tomorrow.do/

• A wonderful little to do list which you can add to google chrome.  Very simple and beautiful to look at.
• Superb design and sounds.  They think of everything.
• The idea is to just put one or two things in it.
• Aimed at people who love to procrastinate
• Gives you the ability to just simply move things to Tomorrow.   Hence the name.

What is your favorite To Do App?

image from lifehacker.com

About Author

Fred Felton is a keynote speaker, social media consultant, author business analyst and website designer. Fred is also owner of Falcon’s Cove a digital media agency based in Umhlanga Rocks, South Africa. You can also find Fred on Twitter and Facebook.

Here are 5 Tips You Can Easily Incorporate Into Your Daily Schedule

1. Add photos to your page that you know will draw response. Every fan page has a different audience however, most people love photos of animals and inspirational quotes. Also, adding an open ended question to the post to draw in a response encourages engagement. You can allow your Fb fan page post to go directly to Twitter, which will create activity on Twitter and your Twitter followers will be able to access you back on Facebook.  Photos and videos are the most sharable posts!!!
2. Make sure that you occasionally add tags to your photos. You don’t want  to overuse this feature because if people are continually tagged, you may lose their support. If you have lots of friends on Facebook, you can rotate the people you tag.
3. Contest are an incredible  way to draw followers and attention to your page and company. Make them fun, add great photos and make one of the criteria for the contest that they both “like” your page and post as well as “share”  your contest.
4. Consistency in posting. Make sure that you post 2- 3x per day! Don’t post too much as you don’t want to annoy your followers but you want to gain their support and make them evangelist for you!!. Very important to follow up and respond to your followers comments!! Keep them engaged. People love attention and if they are taking the time to leave a comment on your page, then be responsive and in a timely manner.
5. Promoted Post are a very inexpensive way to gain visibility on Facebook. Since Facebook limits the people that see your posts, you can promote your post for as little as $5 .

Hope that these tips help. Are there any tips that you would like to add that have been very successful to your Facebook campaign to grow your following?

 1. Make sure you change your copyright to 2013

When you start out this year the first thing to do is to change your copyright to 2013.  This protects you and your work for the year ahead so that nobody can copy your work.

 2. A picture is worth a thousand tweets

Yes it is true what they say, a picture is worth more.  So make sure you include interesting and relevant pictures in your blog.   If they are interesting they may just be picked up by the news media and shown in newspapers or even on Television and that is priceless.  They may even find their way onto social networks and before you know it you will be famous.

3. Make sure you have an editorial calendar for the year ahead

If you are serious about your blog then invest in an editorial calendar and schedule what you will be writing about for the year ahead.  Therefore you will have plenty to write about and not have to worry about what your next topic will be.

 4. Take a new look at your blog

What do I mean by that?  Well take a look at your blog.  Does it look tired or does it load slowly.  Are there too many meaningless items on it?  Well if there are then it is time to trim the fat.  Cut out all items that are too old or serve no benefit.  You will be left with a blog that loads fast and looks great.

5. What do you blog about?

It is important to find your niche.  So whether it is cars or movies or social media, find something you are passionate about.  Become the expert in that niche and soon people will be contacting you asking for help.

Also remember to share your blog on all the social media networks.

 Happy Blogging!

About Author

Fred Felton is a keynote speaker, social media consultant, author business analyst and website designer. Fred is also owner of Falcon’s Cove a digital media agency based in Umhlanga Rocks, South Africa. You can also find Fred on Twitter and Facebook.

So you have read and followed my advice from my first post 4 Steps to Social Media Success BEFORE you start on Social Media:

1) Know what you want to accomplish
2) How much time can you spend on your social media
3) Narrow down the networks you will participate in
4) Plan your content

And now you are ready to get going with the next steps.
I know you are eager to get moving and to start seeing results, but don’t jump over these steps they are very important to reaching that success you so want and deserve. They are the foundation to everything in the future and believe me, it’s easier to do it right the first time than to have to go back and fix it later.

Am I suggesting you will never change these things once you have set them up? Not at all… in fact I recommend you review the previous 4 steps regularly as a way to evaluate the success of what you are doing and to review the upcoming steps often as well.

As your goals grow and change, as the social media world changes and as your business changes, you need to review these items regularly. That’s not the same as skipping steps now to get going and having to go back later to do them because skipping them shorted you on some success. So invest in yourself and go through the steps now!

So what do you do next?

1) Know and follow the rules of the networks you are joining: Most of these social networks are free so it’s their sandbox and you are getting to promote your business for free… the rules are there to make it fair for everyone so take the time to follow those rules so you aren’t penalized for breaking them. This could mean losing access to your accounts to having them shut down completely. It would be a shame to lose all your hard work because of a rule being overlooked.

2) Fill out your account info completely: This is a great opportunity to tell people who you are and what you do and it’s where people will make a judgement about you and your business. So take the time, fill it out completely and then review it at least quarterly to ensure all your details stay accurate.

3) Find the right people to follow to build your network: Use the search option on the network you using, try a variety of terms. Find a leader in your industry and follow them, then follow the people following them as well, these people are looking for your info, you just need to connect. Add your numbers, be selective about who you connect to, send a hello to them, start the conversation and connect.

4) Listen: Spend time on your social networks listening to other people’s conversations, contribute when you have something useful to say (not just “me too”). Use the search field to find conversations relevant to your industry to participate in.

5) Give before you receive: Start sharing and responding to other people’s posts. People notice this and usually then make an effort to do the same back for you. We all want people to engage with us, be the first to go and engage with them. It will be noticed.

6) Add value, be the go-to resource for information in your field to the people in your niche: Find useful information that the people in your niche need to hear and be the one to share it. Don’t worry about being the one to create the content; sharing content is a powerful way to position yourself as the go-to expert.

7) Ask for the action you want: When you post a thoughtful, useful or just fun item and you want people to engage with… don’t be shy to ask for what you want, sometimes people need to be guided. They are sitting at home nodding their head in agreement, but the thumbs up or retweet is the virtual head nod… ask them to do it!

These steps are the basics of any successful social media campaign on any channel. They will guide your interaction with the goal of growing your network, engaging with people in a caring way and building relationships. Don’t short change yourself or your business by not doing these steps; the results won’t be the same without them.

I’d love to hear how you are doing on your social journey!

About Author

Sherri-Lee Pressman is Your Social Media Minder, helping business owners use Facebook and Twitter to grow their businesses. She is a Social Media strategist, educator, speaker and coach. She lives near Vancouver BC, Canada with her two kids, one crazy cat and an even crazier puppy. You can visit Sherri’s site here.

Building a website can be very time consuming and financially draining. So, you want to be sure that you have carefully thought out both what you are trying to convey on your site and that it is user friendly!

Top 5 Tips for Maintaining Your Website

1. No clear message as to who or what you are from visiting your home page. I cannot even tell you how many sites that I have visited where there is no visible clue as to what a company offers. You have perhaps 5-10 seconds to gain someone’s attention. You might have an amazing company, but if there is no visible benefit for the viewer, your opportunity will be missed!

2. There is no homepage link or it is broken. Be sure that you have a visible homepage link. The best advice is that it says “home.” If someone begins browsing through your site and wants to go back to your homepage, it must be easily accessible for them to return. Also, make sure that it works!!

3. Make sure that your site works on multiple browsers and MOBILE!!! Your site must be easily viewed on mobile networks as a significant percentage of your viewers will be checking your site from their cell phones.

4. Too much flash is not your friend! Flash can be an exciting feature to add to your website but, it is not seo friendly, can slow down your website and can actually detract from people viewing your website. A little is okay but don’t make your homepage all flash and no content!

5. Don’t allow your website go stale. This can happen when businesses are not web savvy or have very little interest in their website maintenance. Sometimes, products no longer exist, contact information changes, links are not working or worse yet, a website can go down! Even if your website does not require constant updating, it is important to check in frequently to make sure everything is up to date and working properly.

I hope that these tips will help you to keep your website running smoothly!!

You know you have to be using social media to achieve success, but you may not have a clue how to get started! It’s can be confusing to get started, but if you remember that it is just networking on steroids and follow these few simple steps you will be off to a great start!

Before you start on any social networks, you need to know a few things to do it properly, so answer these questions before getting started:

1)    What do you hope to accomplish from your social media efforts?

Let’s face it, we all want to make more money, but with social media you have to be very patient to get to the money making part. It takes time and energy to get to that point. Until then, what do you want to accomplish? Do you want to build brand awareness? Connect with existing customers in a new way? Offer better customer service? Grow your network through meeting new people? Really take the time to figure out what else you can get from your time on social media while working on the money part.

2)    How much time do you have to spend on your social media efforts in a week?

Are you prepared to make the commitment required to see this work for you? The more time you are able to put in, the quicker your results will come. You can accomplish a lot in 15 – 30 minutes a day. Do you have the time in your schedule to do this, or do you have a staff member who will take this over for you? And be really honest here, there is no point in saying you will work on it for an hour a day if you really can’t do that. Pick a reasonable amount of time and stick with it.

3)    Figure out what networks you are going to focus on.

There are so many networks you could not possibly run all of them very well. And what’s the point if you aren’t going to do it well? So pick one to get started with and focus on building your connections and relationships there. You can’t just randomly pick a network though; you have to know where your current clients are spending their time so you can focus on the network that will get you the most traction quickly. How do you find out where your current clients are? Poll them, email them, send out a newsletter to ask them, have a questionnaire at your cash register for them to complete. There are lots of ways to find out  Just do it. Once you know where your current clients are you’ll likely find new clients there as well.

4)   Plan what content you want to share with your readers.

Know what you are going to say, at least roughly, before you start up your account. Get a sense of what information your clients – new and old – want to hear from you. Aim for sharing great content that expands their thoughts of you. So, if you are a printing company wanting to connect with clients on Facebook, don’t just post about your printing specials or your equipment or even just industry news, share tips on how to get the most out of the new batch of cards they just got, how to network effectively, how to write great copy for newsletters and more. You get the idea; really brainstorm all possible avenues you can access to offer a wide range of valuable information to your clients. This will make you very memorable in their minds and position you as a source of reliable, important information.

Now you might be expecting my #5 here to be, get out there and start your accounts and start posting! But hold your horses, it’s not quite that simple… yet! Bear with me. Watch for my second post here on your next steps to Social Media Success – Starting out!

About Author

Sherri-Lee Pressman is Your Social Media Minder, helping business owners use Facebook and Twitter to grow their businesses. She is a Social Media strategist, educator, speaker and coach. She lives near Vancouver BC, Canada with her two kids, one crazy cat and an even  crazier puppy. You can visit Sherri’s site here.

Starting a blog or website has many learning curves. Unless you are extremely web savvy, the lessons can become very costly.

Here are 5  tips to help you avoid your website becoming a money pit:

1. Become familiar with some basic html code. You don’t have to know much anymore as most websites and blogs have great editors. There are times that you will need it and you can simply copy and save the ones you will use most in a text file on your desktop for easy access.
2. If you are going to be posting content on your blog on a consistent basis, hiring someone to create your graphics can become rather costly. Learn to do some of your own images. You don’t have to be a graphic designer as there are free banner maker sites such as Bannernow as well as inexpensive ones like Flashadcreator.
3. When hiring someone to work on your site, make sure you  are clear as to the service they are providing and the quality of their work! . Don’t rely on an oratory of their workmanship, you need to visually see what they can do for you! Then, you must make sure you have the details of the service in writing. This ensures that neither of you has misunderstood the nature of the service! A simple email is sufficient to map out what you both have agreed to.
4. Google and Youtube should be among your best friends! Most of the questions you have when working on your website can be found in one of those 2 sites. When I cannot find what I am looking for on Google, I seek out tutorials on Youtube!!
5. Avoid a lot of flashy features that you feel are going to attract people to your website.  Although it is true that people are visual and your site must be appealing to the eye, what is going to drive repeated traffic to your website is CONTENT!! Whether you are selling products that people want or your website provides people with great information that is relevant to them, it is all about CONTENT! For bloggers, it is truly about giving your readers consistent, great content that will keep them coming back.

Are there any tips that you would add to my list to help someone’s website from becoming a money pit?

1. Start with a simple blog

When you start out blogging use one of the easier blog formats. I would suggest you use tumblr to begin with. It is easy to use and great for photographers and writers.
It is also perfect for those starting out. It is a great way to learn the format.

2. Your title

Think about this carefully. Your title is how you will be known. So decide if you want a catchy title for the blog or if you want to use your name and establish a brand for yourself.

3. What do you blog about?

Many of my clients ask me this. How do you find something to blog about? Well here are some tips to get you started. Write about good service at a shop. Write about bad service. Scan Twitter and see what most people are talking about. Write about that. Solve problems, help others. If you are an expert in a certain niche, share your expertise with your followers. Interview someone famous. Interview someone in your field of work.

4. Share your work

When you feel comfortable with your writing skills start to share your blog with people.
Share it all over on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Google+ and other social media networks. Share it on Blogging Networks like Triberr.

5. Add sharing buttons

Add social sharing buttons onto your blog so that your readers can share your work with their friends, family and business associates. Make sure those sharing buttons are at the top of your blog so people can see them easily enough.

6. Add widgets

Once you are blogging away look at adding some widgets. Widgets are small programs or little ways that you can add different items to your blog. So you can add such things as, pictures, lists, subscription forms, bloggers you recommend, the weather, the news and so much more. You will find many such widgets on blogs such as Blogger or WordPress or Posterous

7. Work on the design of your blog

Take a look at your blog regularly. Does it jump out at you? Would people want to read this? Look at it and make sure all the links work correctly. Does it take long to load? If so change it. Work on the design.

8. Work on the headline

Each blog post you write should have a headline that grabs your eye. So work on that headline. Make it interesting. Would someone want to read that blog?

9. Learn to guest blog

A powerful tool for a blogger is to guest blog. What that means is you write a blog post for another blogger. So find other bloggers out there. There are many that are dying for a guest blog. Also look for big bloggers and email them, ask if you can guest blog. The impact will be huge for your blog. So get out there and start writing your blog.
Happy Blogging!

Do you have any tips about Blogging?

About Author

Fred Felton is a keynote speaker, social media consultant, author business analyst and website designer. Fred is also owner of Falcon’s Cove a digital media agency based in Umhlanga Rocks, South Africa. You can also find Fred on Twitter and Facebook.