These days, staying ahead of social media is darn near impossible, especially when you’ve got, well…a life. With the recent rumblings about Google+ and the impact it has on search ratings, the last thing you want to hear about is yet another new social media site that you’ve got to be on top of. However, this one may leave you pleasantly surprised.

If you haven’t looked at Pinterest yet, it’s time to take the plunge. Go ahead – open it up. What stands before you on the screen is actually quite simple. Pinterest is a way to organize your interests. You create a Board, name it (“Recipes I Want to Try”), then dive into the Pins and put the ones you like (chocolate chip cookies) on your board. You can also create your own Pins with pictures from web pages (foodnetwork.com). You now have a virtual bulletin board of Pins about what interests you, hence, “Pinterest”.

Each Pin will link to the specific page where the pinned image was found, unless the person who pinned it did it incorrectly. Therefore, people on Pinterest create a web of SEO-friendly links. For your business, getting links in this web could be a very helpful way to drive traffic to your site via inbound links. So, how exactly should you go about it? Here are some helpful hints and points to consider when creating your brand on Pinterest.

• If you sell tangible objects, it can be easy to fall into a groove of just Pinning your products. Even if you have a very established brand, this will drive people away. Even Gap has an “I Want Candy” board, where they pin delicious-looking treats.
• If you don’t sell tangible objects, you’re going to have to get creative. Infographics, blog post images, and company photos are good things to start with. Then, start brainstorming interests or lifestyles that are related to your service or brand. If you own a cleaning company, post photos of really clean, cool houses. If you own a moving company, post photos of exciting locations your company has moved people to.
• Add personal touches. People want to see that Gap employees like candy. Make a several people in your company can Pin on, and all of you can post inspirational or interesting things that you like. Upload images of your head honchos meeting over lunch, or your receptionist playing Angry Birds. Fun, interesting, and exciting images are going to get clicked on.
• Pinterest does not have the same following that Facebook or Twitter do. So, advertise your Pinterest account on your other social media profiles, and anywhere else you promote your profiles.
• Follow the popular people in your category (Technology, Fitness, Food, Etc.). If you can get them to repin your Pins, you’ll reach more people.
• Pinterest is based on feeling more than thinking. Post images that will make people feel a connection, so they’ll want to click. Let’s say you sell motors. Pinning an image of a motor itself probably won’t get clicks. Posting an image of the motor in action in an awesome car is more likely to trigger some clicking.
• Create a keyword-friendly description for each Pin. Just don’t go overboard with adding links in the description, as that will turn people away. The Pin already links to your site once, so adding a bunch of links to the description area is not necessary.

Even if you follow all of these points and tips, Pinterest will just not work well for every company. For instance, let’s say you’re in the air conditioning/heating business. Pictures of air conditioner and heating units will probably not garner a whole lot of clicks, and diagrams of how your products work in houses will only get you so far.

How can you decide if Pinterest is right for your business or brand? The easiest way is to go to pinterest.com. At the top of the page under the logo, you’ll see the word “Everything.” Hovering over that word will produce a list of categories. If your business or brand fits well into one of those categories, you’ve got a much better chance than if you’ve got to stretch your imagination to make it fit.

For more information and other viewpoints about Pinterest and small business, visit these pages:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/quickerbettertech/2012/02/06/my-interest-in-pinterest/
http://www.inc.com/john-brandon/9-tips-boost-your-business-pinterest.html

Your Google products will still look and work the same. The privacy update supports the evolution towards a fully integrated suite of Google products that all share your information with the end goal of offering a simple, intuitive experience to users.

The main change will be for Google Accounts. If you’re signed into one Google account, Google will be able to access information from that product and use it to fill in the gaps for another product.

This policy shift is no big surprise as we’ve been noticing a trend towards simpler, more transparent policies globally.

What does this mean for you?

This change promises more personalized search results from a variety of sources. For example, if you search for Thai food in Minneapolis, you’ll not only get results from the web but you’ll also see relevant Google+ posts and photos. So, if someone from one of your circles posted a picture of Pad Thai while they were at Roat Osha, Google will add that photo to your search results.

Google is also suggesting that sharing your information between Google products allows them to offer more helpful feedback. Feedback unique and relevant to you. For example, if you’re taking a trip to Mexico, by sharing more information within Google products, you’ll probably see ads about traveling to Mexico. Google will also be able to auto correct misspelled names or even notify you if you’re going to be late to pick up your kids based on your calendar, your location and what traffic is like. Wow, that’s powerful! Keep in mind you still need to drive your car (at least until the autonomous car is here).

What isn’t changing?

Google is still committed to data liberation and they will not sell your personal information. You still have the ability to turn off certain types of ads and set privacy information within Google+ circles. Whew!

For more information, watch this quick video.

Official Google Privacy Policy

A growing list of internet powerhouses including WikiPedia, Reddit, Craigslist, Mozilla, and WordPress, are coordinating an online protest of the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the PROTECT IP Act. Thousands of sites are already displaying an alert bulletin about SOPA and PROTECT IP, and starting at midnight on January 18th, many sites will display a message about the bills in lieu of their regular content.

SOPA and PROTECT IP are United States legislation designed to give the Department of Justice the ability to pursue and shut down websites that are believed to be involved in illegal activities. Opponents say that the overreaching nature of the bills will place an unreasonable burden on legitimate websites, inhibit free speech, and cripple innovation, all while failing to impact the illegal activity it was designed to prevent. Search engines would be forced to block rogue sites when notified of potentially illegal content, and could also be punished for unknowingly linking to illegal content. Hosting providers, social networks, and content aggregators would be required to constantly review the data their users place on their sites and servers, or face being charged as an accessory to piracy. As Cory Doctorow of BoingBoing wrote,

“Making one link would require checking millions (even tens of millions) of pages. … If we failed to take this precaution, our finances could be frozen, our ad broker forced to pull ads from our site, and depending on which version of the bill goes to the vote, our domains confiscated, and, because our server is in Canada, our IP address would be added to a US-wide blacklist that every ISP in the country would be required to censor.”

After weeks of pressure from tech giants like Microsoft and Google, the White House has indicated it will not the support the bills as they are currently written. However, most sites involved in the protest say the fight is far from over. Sue Gardner, Executive Director of the WikiMedia Foundation, hopes that their blackout will raise awareness of a larger issue. Gardner states,

“The reality is that we don’t think SOPA is going away, and PIPA is still quite active. Moreover, SOPA and PIPA are just indicators of a much broader problem. All around the world, we’re seeing the development of legislation intended to fight online piracy, and regulate the internet in other ways, that hurt online freedoms. Our concern extends beyond SOPA and PIPA: they are just part of the problem. We want the internet to remain free and open, everywhere, for everyone.”

For a complete list of sites going dark on January 18th, visit SOPA Strike.

When marketing a website, there are many, many variables that must be considered. Now, more than ever, one important variable that must be high on that list is fresh content. For a website to really be successful in today’s competitive market, it needs to have fresh content. Here are some ways to make sure your site looks fresh and exciting in Google’s eyes.

Update Content

Google loves sites with content that’s both relevant AND fresh. No, this doesn’t mean that you have to try to mess with your content every single week, but it’s important to consider either adding a new page or two or revamping some of your content every once in a while. Updating just a paragraph or the order of the navigation won’t do much. Instead, try to completely update whole pages of content.

Get Blogging

Having a blog on your domain that you update often would help Google to think kindly of your site, as a blog counts as fresh content. Think about what kinds of updates you could give your audience. Is there any news in your industry? Within your company? Do you have any ideas about how you could get customers involved in commenting on posts or submitting them? Get creative!

Make sure to build your blog on a subfolder page (mysite.com/blog), rather than a subdomain (blog.mysite.com) or new domain (myblog.com). A subfolder keeps a good amount of the authority that your domain already has, whereas a subdomain or new domain does not. A page will benefit from being on an already powerful domain or subdomain.

Build Links

Link building is important in general, but it is also important when looking at site freshness. If you have some new links every month then your site looks fresh, especially if those links are from other fresh sites. Be careful here, though, because Google could detect something fishy if you’ve got too many new links in a short amount of time.

Keep Users Around

Google takes user behavior into account when ranking search results. A page that users spent time on will look better than one they clicked on, then navigated away from right away. People are naturally going to stay on your site longer if you’ve got up-to-date, fresh content.

Watch for Updates

On November 2nd, 2011, Google announced that they had released a new update that can figure out when to give the searcher really up-to-date content. Depending on the content/purpose of your website, this update may not affect you. For instance, search “Decision 2012″. This phrase uses Google’s new results update, as you can see by the very timely results. Most of the results have time stamps from the last couple months or days, even though popular content exists from 2010. Now, search “house plant”. See the difference? No time stamps or recent news stories appear in the results, as they did for “Decision 2012”.

Whether this Google update affects your site or not, it is important to keep your content up to date, fresh, and interesting. Think about the sites you visit on a regular basis. Would you keep going to them if new stuff didn’t pop up? Also, watch your competitors’ sites. How do they keep their content fresh? Just make sure not to copy them. Use your creativity! The writers of Field of Dreams got it right: If you build it, they will come.

For more information about Google’s update, watch SEOmoz’s Whiteboard Friday clip.
For more information about the importance of fresh content, check out this great article, also from SEOmoz.

For web technology, 2011 was a year of great growth and change. 2012 will, no doubt, call for more updates and new functionality. Let’s take a moment to look back at some of the notable web technology events of 2011.

1. January 1 – Instagram, a popular photo-sharing iPhone app, has an average of 3 photos uploaded per second. By the end of 2011, that number rises to 60 per second, and President Barack Obama gets an account.
2. Feb 11 – President Hosni Mubarak steps down after the uprising of the Egyptian people, who used social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube to organize and broadcast parts of the revolution.
3. April 29 – Prince WIlliam marries Kate Middleton. Twitter records 227 tweets per second during the event. Even some celebs, including Katy Perry, were tweeting.
4. July 12 – Netflix announces a change in plan prices – it will now cost more for customers to keep both the streaming and DVDs by mail functionalities.
5. September 20 – Google+ is rolled out to the public. By the end of 2011, it has more than 62 million users.
6. October 4 – The iPhone 4S is released. The new version features Siri, a personal assistant application that allows a person to use voice to send messages, make phone calls, schedule meetings, and more.
7. October 5 – Steve Jobs, co-founder of Apple, dies, and the Apple community mourns. Apple creates a “Remembering Steve Jobs” page.
8. November 14 – Amazon launches Kindle fire, which has its own web browser, Amazon Silk.
9. December 7 – Facebook releases Timeline, its new profile design.
10. December 29 – After first supporting SOPA, the Stop Online Piracy Act, the popular Web hosting company, GoDaddy, decides to oppose it after losing tens of thousands of domains.

As 2012 kicks into gear, it’s time to think about your current marketing plan. If you’ve finally gotten Facebook and Twitter down to a science, or if you’re just beginning your social media marketing journey, you’re probably wondering about Google+. How important is it for your small business, and just how much time should you spend looking into it and/or setting it up? Here are some important points to consider when these difficult questions are hot on your mind.

The +1 Button SEO Boost

You’ve either seen first hand or read about the evidence that Facebook “Likes” and Twitter “Followers” and “Retweets” can boost your SEO rankings. There’s evidence that +1′s will do the same. This tidbit from Google’s Google+ Webmaster FAQ page explains:

“Content recommended by friends and acquaintances is often more relevant than content from strangers. For example, a movie review from an expert is useful, but a movie review from a friend who shares your tastes can be even better. Because of this, +1′s from friends and contacts can be a useful signal to Google when determining the relevance of your page to a user’s query. This is just one of many signals Google may use to determine a page’s relevance and ranking, and we’re constantly tweaking and improving our algorithm to improve overall search quality.”

Hangouts

Hangouts are like Skype for Google. Google+ opens your webcam, and you can instantly video chat with anyone in your circles who’s online. This can be really handy for:

1. Internal meetings: Say you’ve got an employee working remotely, and you’re going to have an important meeting. If you start a hangout, that employee and the other meeting attendees can chat face-to-face via webcam. Also, since you’re already on the Google platform, if you use Google’s document or calendar sharing functions, those are only a click away.
2. Connecting with customers: Pretend for a moment that you’re a web design company, and you’ve got some people in your circles who’ve seen your work and are thinking about getting a new website. You can host a general information session during which you invite your potential clients and show them, all at once, what your company is capable of. Not only do you get to show off, but your customers also feel more connected to you, since they can see your face and interact with you directly.

Circles

Circles are categories that you can add your followers to, and then you can post updates just to specific ones. For instance, say you have 3 circles: Clients, Potential Clients, and Employees. You can post a special offer to your potential clients that your clients won’t see. Or, you can make a post reminding your employees about an upcoming meeting, and your client circles won’t see it.

The Cons

While those three features are great for small businesses, there are a couple things that you should be aware of when considering investing time in Google+.

1. You have to have a personal Google+ page to have a business page, and it is tied to your personal account. However, personal pages are easy to create if you don’t have one yet. Also, you can give other people rights to edit your business page, and they won’t see your personal stuff.
2. Facebook and Twitter still win. They’ve still got many more users than Google+, and people are much more active in general on them. However, if Google+ is going to blow up in the future, this lull gives you time to figure it out and grow with it.
3. You can add other businesses to your circles, but you can’t add individual people until they add you first. This is sort of the same thing as Facebook, though. Your updates don’t appear on peoples’ walls until they “Like” you.

Decisions, Decisions

The decision about whether or not Google+ is a good investment for your small business is ultimately up to you. If you already barely use Facebook and you see no benefit in getting a Google+ page, then perhaps it’s not for you. If any of the above functionalities appeal to you, then maybe it’s worth a try. Either way, it’s a social media-eat-social media world, and we’ll all be watching as Google+ takes its place in the social food chain.

For more information about Google+ and small business, check out these resources:
http://mashable.com/2011/12/25/google-plus-for-small-business/
http://www.cio.in/news/seven-ways-use-google-help-your-enterprise-209692012

The new Facebook Timeline profile is now available to anyone who wants it. So, to update? Or not to update? That’s probably your question. To make your decision a little easier, I’ve updated my own profile to learn the ins and outs of Facebook’s newest creation.

I’ll admit, I was feeling daunted by the new profile. It just looks complicated. And, for those of us who don’t spend our every waking hour on Facebook, I was concerned that it was going to take too much of my time to update it. However, after clicking the button to apply the new profile, I was pleasantly surprised. Not only does Facebook give you the option to not publish your new profile for a couple days while you work on it, but the only thing you really have to do to make it look complete is choose a “Cover”. Which, if you’re not too picky, is pretty darn easy. Just select a picture that’s already uploaded to your Facebook or computer, and simply drag it around to fix the positioning.

Now, let’s move on to the stories area. This is where things can get a little tricky, as a lot of time can be spent here. Basically, Facebook has made it easier for you (and your profile viewers) to look back at your entire Facebook history. It even offers yearly highlights: pictures that were posted that year, status updates that received lots of comments, popular shared links, etc. It even gives you a space to upload a picture of you to highlight your birth (feeling uneasy yet?). If you want to add more life events to your profile, such as trips, times you moved, or relationship beginnings/endings, you can click the “Life Events” button that appears in the top right corner when you’ve scrolled down to your stories.

The good news here is that you can pick and choose which kinds of things appear on your timeline. Just click the “Activity Log” button on the top right of your page. From there, you can prevent certain kinds of stories from appearing on your timeline,  and you can delete any of what Facebook deems “Events” from your past Facebook activity.

Now, for those of us who have been on Facebook for many years (6 for me), that’s a lot of stuff to wade through. It also makes me feel a little uncomfortable. If there’s someone creeping on my Facebook profile that I don’t know about, that person can now easily access anything I’ve put on Facebook for the past 6 years. So, here’s my advice:

1. Don’t publish your Facebook Timeline immediately after activating it. First, make sure that any incriminating things from your past that you’ve forgotten about don’t show up in your stories, and choose which kinds of stories you don’t want appearing in general.
2. Check out your security settings. Make sure that your settings are the way you want them to be. In my opinion, only people you’ve authorized as friends should be able to view your entire Timeline.
3. If you’ve chosen the option that only friends can view your stuff, do a friend cleanse. Hey, random person I met 5 years ago and haven’t talked to since then…sorry, but you’re being unfriended.
4. Play around with it! There are lots of things I haven’t mentioned, including “Apps”. Check them out! Perhaps there’s a new fun time-waster just waiting to be discovered.

For more Timeline viewpoints and news, check out Mashable and USA Today. If you’re looking for some inspiration for your Cover, look these examples.

What do QR Codes Do?
With the ability to hold lots of information, these little babies make it easy for anyone with an app on their smartphone to scan your code out in the real world and find your business or marketing campaign online (without running home to Google you later.) This is called hyperlink migration, where links are moving from the virtual world to the tangible world without typing in URLs. And because the use of QR Codes is free of any license, it means that this little code is egalitarian, making its use available to even the smallest business budget.

Generating a QR code for your business is free, using one of the many QR code generating websites. After generating the code, all you need to do is print that code on anything you like from business cards to posters to print advertising or product packaging and it’s ready for use.

According to Forrester.com, QR code adoption in the US has increased from 1% to 5% of the market with about 15% of consumers carrying smart phones. Why aren’t QR codes more popular? QR codes are a tool not a strategy.

What Can I Use it for?

Get New Site Visitors: A great way to generate sales leads and interest in your product or service. You can set your code to link to a webpage with a specific deal or discount for users who scan your code, driving those who want the deal directly to your business and all with a simple scan. If you’re looking to drive foot traffic to your physical location, have a coupon that they must print out and bring in available on that page.

Build your Email and Mobile List – Offering white papers, e-books and deals with the scan of the code can deliver prospects right to your landing page, where they fill out your opt-in form to claim their *Free offering. Your form can require email or mobile numbers in order to get the deal emailed or texted to them.

Sales or Informational Videos – Offering more information about your product, tips or advice via video (hosted on a mobile–friendly web page, of course!) can drive traffic to a landing page and all they have to do is quickly scan your code.

QR Codes a Fad or Here to Stay
QR codes are here to stay, at least until something with even more promise comes along. We are knee-deep in the information age, knowledge is power and content is King. With mobile devices, people are no longer chained to a terminal. They’re free to move about the planet and get their learning on the go. For a society that values information, freedom and ease as well as instant gratification– the QR code is a bit of a no-brainer.

Still, we’re just dipping our toes in at the moment but adoption is happening quickly – with sales of smartphones increasing every day, it won’t be long before QR codes are on everything.

Where to Get Your QR Code
Want to learn more about QR codes or generate a free code for your business or marketing campaign? Check out the library of content on QR codes and the comprehensive list of free generators QR Media.

A good infographic can increase traffic to your website.
Since 2008 the number of searches for the term “infographics” has increased exponentially. Infographics can help your company with its social success online. Making your infographic embeddable allows people to share and re-post the image to social media sites like Facebook and Twitter. It is also helpful to create social sharing buttons in your infographic that will allow your visitors to easily Tweet or share a link to your site.

Infographics are a great way to build brand identity. As more and more people view and share your infographic they will be sure to notice the brand logo you have appropriately placed within the design. It is also best to use relevant data in your infographic, making it more accessible within search engines.

Lastly, a successful infographic creates alot of links by being shared or adopted by other users. It is easier and more engaging to share an infographic rather than a blog post full of text. It is the propensity to be shared that makes the infographic such a powerful SEO and marketing tool and its visual appeal makes it that much more fun to share. We are, after all, visual creatures.

Brothers and sisters the infographic is not dead! Viva la infographic!


Check out Arcstone’s infographic work!

Infographics for Barrett Moving and Storage, Meshbesher & Spence, and Gassen.