I’m warning you, this is an Epic post.  Grab a cup of coffee and find out everything you need to know about getting started on Pinterest.  Make sure you follow me at www.Pinterest.com/GrandmaMaryShow

Getting Started on Pinterest

Step 1:  Request an Invite

Just go to www.Pinterest.com and click the Request an Invite.  Invitations are typically in your inbox within 12 hours.  Sometimes faster.  But you don’t have to wait for your invite to search around a little and check things out.  Search on any term in the upper left search box to see what’s happening.

Once you get your invite in your e-mail box, click on the link provided to set up your account.

Step 2:  Link to Facebook or Twitter

They do have you sign up through Facebook or Twitter and it will pull in your initial information from there.

Step 3:  Go to App.

Once you have chosen to authorize through an account (I chose Facebook) you will click Go to App.

Step 4:  Enter your Username and e-mail.

Your Username will be the URL of your Pinterest account.  You cannot have spaces and the Username will show up in the URL like this:  www.pinterest.com/username.  So choose a name you want to brand.  This can be changed later.

Step 5:  Click on Interests.

This will help Pinterest give you some initial people to follow.

Once you are done click the blue I’m Done button.

Now you are essentially done and you can start Pinning and creating Boards willy-nilly.  But here are some hot tips to maximize your presence.

Pinterest Tips

Tip #1:  Fill out your profile.

Make sure you add your description and website.  These may have been pulled in from one of your accounts but you want to make sure that they are complete and have all your good keywords in there.  Click on Settings under your name in the upper right corner.

Tip #2:  Don’t let them Pin your crap.

Take a look at what is already being pinned by going to www.pinterest.com/source/yourwebsitename.com.  Your website name should be without the www and with the .com.

Tip #3:  Link your Pinterest Account to Facebook and Twitter

When you signed up, you chose one account to link Pinterest to but go back in and link Pinterest to your other account if you have both.  You will have some automatic connections from your other sites and it will make it easier for your friends to find you too.    Go to your Settings area under your name drop-down menu in the upper right corner.

 Tip #4:  Make sure your Pins have Links

If you are using a Pin it button on your website, the Pin will automatically link back to your site.  But if you have uploaded a tip, go back in and Edit the pin to link somewhere meaningful.

Tip #5:  Install a Pin It button on your blog.

I use this one and it’s been great so far:  http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/pinterest-pin-it-button/  You can set which picture the post defaults to, track how many pins your posts have, and more good stuff.

Tip #6:  Follow others.

Connect with others on with your profiles and make sure others  know how to connect with you.  You can add a Pinterest button to your website sidebar to make it easy for people to find you.

Tip #7:  Add a Pinterest Tab to your Facebook Page.

Show case one of your boards or show them all.  Use the Woobox Pinterst app (it’s free!) here:  http://www.woobox.com/pinterest

Tip #8:  Change those e-mail settings!

Good lord, why do we need so many e-mails?  Go into the Settings and click on the E-mail Settings button right next to Notifications.  Make sure you uncheck what you need to and you can also have all your notifications sent in one daily digest rather than as they happen.  Yikes!

 Watch my Pinterest Video:

 Pinterest Stats

Here are some amazing stats on the Power of Pinterest from the folks over at Internet Marketing, Inc.

WHEW!  What do you think?  How are you using Pinterest?  Share your best Pinterest tips in the comments below!

Are you wondering how businesses are creatively using Facebook’s Timeline features?

You may have read my recent post on Social Media Examiner about all the changes here:  7 New Facebook Changes Impacting Businesses   But as businesses adapt to the changes, what Timeline Features are being used well?  Take a look at these examples of how businesses are creatively using the Timeline.

#1 Adding Interesting Milestones

Interesting Milestones may work better if your company has some history such as Coca-Cola, founded in 1886.  But you still may be able to get creative with product releases and things that you have accomplished.  Coca-cola has the benefit of a long and interesting history where they can show their products from 1916 and how they have evolved.

Posted in 1916, Coca-cola encourages people to peruse their Timeline for brand evolution information.

The New York Times, founded in 1851, gives you a walk through history with their Milestone posts.

Interesting older articles give you a real sense of history.

Be sure to spread out the posting of your Milestones as those posts will go out to all of your Fans.  Don’t post 10 in a row or you may irritate your community with “over-posting”.

#2  Incorporating the Profile Picture into Your Cover Photo

The profile picture is a good place for your company logo but since the profile picture overlaps the cover photo, you will need to leave some blank space in the lower left corner of your cover photo.  But why not blend the two pictures?

Tim Ware posted about creative personal profile cover photos in this post:  http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/16-creative-ways-to-create-your-facebook-timeline-cover-photo/   And it includes a Photoshop template to incorporate the profile picture into the cover photo.  But we are now seeing how Brands are getting creative with their profile picture and cover photo in these examples.

Ford Mustang gets creative with the profile picture but also demonstrates the speed.

Captain Morgan gets creative with the logo and the bottle.

See some other creative Timeline cover photos in this post from Ching Ya:  http://www.wchingya.com/2012/03/timeline-cover-facebook-pages.html

#3  Telling a story with photos

Photos have gotten larger in Timelines and you can use the Highlight feature to even show more of the album.  The Kia Soul page has highlighted their concept car album to display more pictures.

Kia Soul has highlighted an album in their Timeline.

Also when you add photos to an album, you will have a post on your Timeline.  But then you can share the album to again showcase the story in a different way.  People love seeing photos (think Pinterest) and using them extensively on your Timeline can be a good way to tell your story.

The Aquascape Foundation  got good mileage out of their photos of their recent trip to Uganda by having them post in different ways to their Timeline.

The Aquascape Foundation uploaded photos and share the album.

#4  Branding with Apps

Apps are much more visible on the new Timeline.  The Facebook Photos app will always be the first App in the first row, in the first position, and will always display the most recent photo.  The next three Apps in the row will be most visible so put your best Apps in the first row.

But if your Apps are interesting, you may have people click the down arrow on the right side to see what else you have available.  Notice how these Pages have really branded their Apps and added a “Call to Action” within both the App name and the custom graphic of the App.

SoLatina’s Apps help build their brand and contain a simple call to action.

More In Media’s Apps are helping to contribute to the eyeglasses logo.

As a reminder, the App custom graphics are 111 pixels by 74 pixels and can be changed by clicking the down arrow on the right side to show all the apps, then mousing over the App and clicking the pencil icon to show the dropdown menu as shown.  Click Edit Settings to change the title of the Custom tab or add custom graphics.

Click Edit Settings on the App Icon dropdown menu.

If you are wondering where to get Apps to add to your Page, take a look at this post:  http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/how-to-find-and-add-facebook-apps-to-your-facebook-page/

Adding Apps to your Timeline works just the same as adding Apps to the older style Facebook Pages.

#5 Using the About section to Give a “Call to Action”

While you can’t have a call to action (such as Click Like, or Buy Now) or your website address in the cover photo of your Timeline, you can have that information in your About section. The About section is hot property so use it well.

You can have a call to action and website information in your About section.

There have been many pages that don’t have anything in their About section at all and this could be due to confusion on where to edit this information. To edit your About section, click the About link, then mouse over the upper right corner near your About section until you see the Edit button with the pencil.  Click the Edit button and you see the older-style Dashboard page as shown.

Fill out your About section since this is the most visible part of your Info Tab on your Timeline.

You can have your website address and a call to action in your About section but you only have approximately 160 characters to work with before it is cut off depending on how the words flow.  In fact, your previous About section may have been longer but is now cut off mid-sentence.  Make sure you correct that in the new Timeline view.

If your Page is also a Place or Local Business, your address and phone number will be the default About section.  There is no way to change this unless you want to change the category of your Page.  If checkins are part of your strategy, then keep the local business classification.

Place or Local Pages cannot change their About section.

Don’t only focus on just your About section that appears on your main Timeline page but make sure you are looking at what your About section looks like when you click the About link.  Use that space creatively to link to special places on your website and tell people more about what you do and who you serve.

Hopefully these 5 tips give you some good ideas on how to use your Timeline more creatively.  How about you, have you seen any Pages using the Timeline in new and creative ways?  Tell me in the comments!

Note:  This article originally appeared on Social Media Examiner and is reprinted with permission.

Are you using Facebook Groups?  If you want to let people know about your group easily, you’ll want to create a custom URL.

We’ve been creating custom URLs for Pages but did you know you can also do it for your Group?  It’s easy peasy.

Watch my short tutorial on where to find it and to see how it works:

All you need to do is go up to the little wheel and click Edit Group.  Note:  You will only have this option if you are and Admin of the Group.  Regular members cannot Edit the Group.

Then you set up the Group e-mail address.

Name your Group e-mail address and this will also be your Group Custom URL.  So in this case, the custom url would be www.facebook.com/groups/SocialMediaBizSchool  If you use uppercase letters and people type the lowercase letters it will still go to the same place – capitalization doesn’t matter.

Hope that helps and make sure you connect with me on my Facebook Page:  www.Facebook.com/GrandmaMaryShow  Love ya!

Do you want to be a published author?  It’s not as hard as you think!  You can get your book onto Amazon in 3 easy-peasy steps!  Today I’m very excited to welcome James H. Byrd with a special guest post to tell you how to do it!

I have a special affinity for James because he also has an alter ego.  He is a published author under a pen name and he dresses up like a wizard.  A man after my own heart!  If you have a book that you want to get out into the world, read this great post and then stay tuned for more information on a fantastic conference coming up that will help!

Guest post by James H. Byrd

More people are self-publishing these days than ever before. First, the introduction of print-on-demand printing made it possible for authors to affordably publish their own works in print form. Now, the digital revolution in publishing allows authors to produce ebooks and get their work onto major online retailer sites for virtually no out-of-pocket cost.

Amazon led the charge of the ebook revolution with its KDP (Kindle Direct Publishing) platform. Using KDP, authors can take a Microsoft Word document, upload it to Amazon, and publish it as a Kindle ebook in hours. How easy is it? It’s so easy that you could probably take a finished manuscript today and offer it for sale on Amazon tomorrow. In fact, getting publishing your book only takes three steps.

Step 1: Prepare Your Manuscript

Amazon allows you to upload several file formats, but the easiest one for most authors to deal with is the one they write their book in: Microsoft Word. Make sure your document contains all of the standard elements readers expect in a book, such as a title page, a copyright page, an “about the author” page, and so on. Do not include a book cover image, however, as you’ll be uploading it as a separate file.

You should also simplify the formatting in your book as much as possible. When starting with a Word document, KDP is still best suited for books that are largely text. Books that contain bullet lists, tables, and a lot of images can cause problems during conversion. You’ll also want to eliminate any print-oriented Word features, such as headers, footers, and special fonts.

Fortunately, the KDP site has plenty of helpful information on how to properly prepare your Word document for publication. Amazon has even published a free book on the subject: Building Your Book for Kindle (http://www.amazon.com/dp/B007URVZJ6).

Step 2: Create a KDP Account

Creating a KDP account is simple. Just go to kdp.amazon.com and sign in with your existing Amazon account, or click the link to sign up for a new account. You’ll need to enter your contact information, tax identifier (SSN/TIN/EIN), and how you would like to get paid. You can choose to receive a check from Amazon or have your royalties deposited straight into your checking account.

How you want to get paid is the only real decision you need to make when you set up an account. I recommend using the direct deposit option for two reasons: you get paid more quickly, and the “Magic Money” effect.

If you ask to receive a check, Amazon may hold on to your royalties until they exceed $100, but if you get direct deposit, that threshold is only $10. I use the term Magic Money to describe that feeling you get when you receive an email that says $X was just deposited to your account. Your books are pumping money into your account while you are busy doing other things. That’s magical.

Step 3: Upload Your Book

Once you create an account, you are ready to publish your book. From your account bookshelf, you click the button to “add a new title” and enter the information about your book. You set up a book in two steps. In the first step, you enter the information about your book, such as the title, description, author, language, publisher, categories, and keywords. You also upload your Word file and your cover image. In the second step, you choose your royalty, set your price, and select sales territories. If you get stuck on either step, you can save the changes you’ve made so far and come back when you are ready to continue.

Selecting the royalty rate seems to be the main thing that confuses people about publishing a book. Amazon offers a 35% royalty program and a 70% royalty program. Why would you ever want to choose 35%? The main reason to choose 35% is because your book doesn’t qualify for the 70% program. As of this writing, books must be priced from $2.99 to $9.99 to qualify. The 70% program has a couple of other ramifications relating to lending and pricing: you must allow readers to lend your book to others, and Amazon may pay your royalty based on the discounted sale price of your book, rather than the list price that you set. Be sure to check out the KDP “Pricing Page” for more information.

Congratulations You Are Now a Publisher!

The first time you set up a title at KDP, it may not feel as “easy” as the title of this post suggests. But once you have your account set up and have gone through the process of setting up one title, you’ll see how publishing your next book will be a breeze. After the first time, you’ll only have two steps!

If you already have a completed manuscript, you can probably tweak the formatting, add a title and copyright page, and upload the manuscript to Amazon in an afternoon. Once you click that “Save and Publish” button, Amazon says your book will be available for sale on Amazon.com within 48 to 72 hours. In my experience, the book usually appears on the site the next day.

How’s that for instant gratification?

****

James Byrd is a published fiction and non-fiction author, a publisher, a book consultant, a software developer, and co-owner of Logical Expressions, Inc. He is also one of the organizers of the 4th Annual Self-Publishers Online Conference (www.SelfPublishersOnlineConference.com), which offers 15 sessions of incredible self-publishing knowledge and interaction on May 8, 9, and 10. Register now and use coupon code VAHL12 to save 10% off the registration fee!

Ohhh yeah, baby I’m in Paris!  And I’m walking the streets looking for people Tweeting.  You may have seen my other Twitter Street Walking videos but now I’m international.  I met a lot of fantastic people in this video, although some of them pretended not to speak English but they couldn’t fool Grandma.

Coming to Paris has been on my vision board for 4 years now and it’s happening.  I said when I got to a certain point in my business, I would treat myself to an international trip.  I love traveling and have been to Paris many times but it’s been 10 years since my last trip.

It’s important in your business to have some fun!  Make some goals and then when you reach the goal make sure you reward yourself.  Because you work hard!  Even if it isn’t as extravagant as a trip, make sure it’s something good.  Even just an extra cookie (Grandma said you could have two).

Seriously, I’ve had a lot of fun on this trip and I love getting connected with people through social media.  In fact, I posted about my trip on my Facebook Page and asked who was in Europe and got to meet a new friend, Khema Waasdorp.  We saw some sites, had some good laughs, walked around Paris, met more friends, and she was my film crew (thanks Khema!)  I would highly recommend that you go and Like her Facebook Page at http://www.facebook.com/thebluemeteor – especially if you are in Europe!  Great info and great networking.

So the message today is, get out there, meet people you talk to online, and make sure you reward yourself for all your hard work!  Bon Sour!

This was part of a series of webinars I am doing for the Business Lunch Series at the Vernon Area Public Library.

Lots of great information in this hour-long webinar and we had some great Q&A at the end.

Some of the highlights we discussed were:

• Four reasons blogging can help your business get found on the web
• How to choose the right blog platform for your business
• Integrating your blog into your website
• Five essential plugins that will make blogging easier
• Best practices to ensure your blogging success

 Grandma says, don’t show your privates!  Facebook privacy settings keep changing and it’s time to give yours a tune-up.  With all the Timeline changes, you may not have updated your settings or even known where to find your settings!

Your first step is to take a look at how your profile looks to the public.  The easiest way to do this is log out of Facebook and navigate to your Facebook profile page.  If you have a custom URL for your profile like I do, you can just type it in as your URL:  www.facebook.com/andreavahl.  If you don’t have a fancy URL, you can get one at www.facebook.com/username  (make sure you are setting it for your personal profile and not your Page).  Think carefully before setting it because it can’t be changed!

If you don’t have a custom name, just go to your profile (click your Name in the upper right corner of Facebook) while you are logged in, and then copy the URL of your profile.  Logout of Facebook and paste the URL in the browser window.

Take a look at how your profile looks to the public.  Here is how Andrea’s looks:

To change what is displayed here, log back into Facebook, and click on the About section link on your profile page just under your profile picture.

Then you will see your About section and you can click on the Edit button next to each section.  Use the dropdown menus to select Public, Friends, Only Me, Custom, or just share things with certain lists of friends.

Now go through each of the areas to the right and adjust the Privacy settings.  Click the Friends link to adjust who can view all your friends.

Then you may not want everyone to know what Pages you Like or all your Interests.  Click the dropdown menus to make adjustments.

Privacy Settings

Now it’s time to check out your Privacy Settings by going to the upper right corner, selecting the down arrow and then Privacy Settings.  You will see this screen:

Check all your privacy settings individually.  Always good to review.  I’m not going to get into each area but the one I want to highlight is the Apps and Websites.  If your profile is posting strange things, then it is probably due to a bad App that you may have clicked on accidentally.  There are some bad hackers out there who make Apps that auto-post without your permission.  Go in and delete any App that you don’t recognize!

So that is everything you need to know to get your Facebook Privacy under control!  If you have been hacked or have some big Facebook problems, check out my post about What to Do If Your Facebook Account Has Been Hacked.  Have Facebook Privacy questions?  Ask in the comments below!

Wondering why people go to SXSW in Austin?  I was too until I went last year and yeeha, what a great time!  You meet people you’ve only talked to online, make great connections, learn new things, and go to parties.  What’s not to love?

I also took the opportunity to do a few interviews which I will share with you here.  Lots of great tips in these interviews and hope you enjoy them and connect with these fabulous people.

Grandma Mary interviews Lori Randall Stradtman about Online Reputation Management

I got the opportunity at SXSW to interview the lovely Lori Randall Stradtman about her upcoming book, Online Reputation Management for Dummies and she gives us some great tips about how to make sure you are protecting your brand!  Make sure you connect with Lori at http://www.social-media-design.com/

Grandma Mary interviews Nathan Latka of Lujure

I had a great time talking to Nathan. Lujure is an application to help you create beautiful custom tabs very easily for your Facebook Page. I love their new feature where you can import any web page into your Facebook custom tab with just a few clicks.  Easy peasy!  We talk about the new Timeline changes and how that affects custom tabs.   Connect with Nathan  and learn more about their Custom Tab App at http://www.Lujure.com

Grandma Mary interviews Shane Ketterman

I had the pleasure of interviewing the fantastic Shane Ketterman at SXSW. We talked about his new role as Conference Director of BlogWorld and why you should attend events like BlogWorld and SXSW. Love him!  Make sure you connect with Shane at http://www.ShaneKetterman.com

Grandma Mary at the Copyblogger Party

If you have not met my friends over at http://www.copyblogger.com, you need to get over there right now. They really know how to throw a party but more importantly, they have great advice on how to write for your business and market your business. They had a great party at SXSW with 9000 people on their party list. I tried to get a chant going but it didn’t go so well. In any case, a good time was had by all.

Sonia Simone, Grandma Mary, Pamela Wilson, and Jen Waak

Things got a little crazy when I made Martin Whitmore mad

The Best Part

The best part of SXSW was hanging out and connecting with the friends I had met last year.  We shared a house together, shared meals together, brainstormed, and shared ideas.  These are fabulous people and include Pamela Wilson, Carole Brown, Jen Waak, Amy Harrison, Kelly Kingman, Karl Staib, Pace and Kylie, Johnny B Truant  Rhiannon Llewellyn, Martin Whitmore, and soooo many other fabulous people

Jen Waak, Carole Brown, myself, Pamela Wilson, and Kelly Kingman

Thank you everyone, especially my Remarkable homies and I hope to see you all next year!

I love Premise!  It’s a handy WordPress plugin that you can use on your website to create gorgeous sales pages.  A sales page is a page on your website where the sole purpose is to talk about your product or service or free report.  It doesn’t have all the distracting sidebars or links or menus because the only thing you want someone to do is to either buy the product or sign up for the free thing.

Here’s one that I created in about 15 minutes for Social Media Biz School:  www.SocialMediaBizSchool.com

A while back I got the chance to interview the wonderful Sonia Simone about Premise.  But now, Premise 2.0 is out and it’s on sale!!

The $95 early release steal deal includes all the great features Premise already had, plus the ability to:

• Build rock-solid membership sites with WordPress
• Take recurring payments with automated access management
• Automatically drip content out over time
• Securely sell ebooks, software, and other digital downloads
• Confidently create private forum areas with vBulletin
• Quickly set up password-protected content libraries
• Easily build check-out pages for PayPal and Authorize.net

But it ends tomorrow. 5pm Pacific on the dot.  Seriously don’t miss this! Premise 2.0: The Complete Digital Sales and Lead Generation Engine for WordPress (affiliate link but I only promote the best stuff!)

5 p.m. tomorrow the price goes up to $165 so get it now!

Well no wonder we are overwhelmed! Look what happens in one day on the internet!

Created by: MBA Online