Follow Up Marketing Experts Blog

33voices interview with co-authors of Pinterest Power, Jason Miles & Karen Lacey.

via www.33voices.com

New Pinterest - Everything You Need to Know About the New Pinterest

Pinterest is all about pinning things to other things, so with their newly launched redesign, they wanted to make it easier for users to find more pins to pin. The redesign was tested out on a handful of users in a closed beta, and will now begin rolling out to users via invite as early as today. So what can you expect from the new Pinterest? Pins. So. Many. Pins.

via www.medianovak.com

7 Things You're Doing Wrong on Pinterest | Inc.com

via www.inc.com

Can You Use Pinterest for Business-to-Business Marketing? | SiteProNews: Webmaster News & Resources

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8 Great Reasons to Start Using Pinterest for Your Small Business | SiteProNews: Webmaster News & Resources

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The Soaring Popularity of Pinterest [INFOGRAPHIC] | Social Media Today

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The Engaging Brand - Podcast 424 - Marketing on Pinterest - Blubrry

The Engaging Brand - Podcast 424 - Marketing on Pinterest - Blubrry

How to use Pinterest to market your business.

“Do we really need another social media channel?!” That was the premise I went in to this interview with.

“Yes we do!”, is my view following this chat … on the proviso that it’s easy to manage and provides a commercial return.

The guy who convinced me is Jason Miles – the co-author of the best-seller Pinterest Power, VP of advancement at Seattle’s Northwest University and co-founder (with is wife) 0f Liberty Jane Clothing – a six-figure online business successfully selling designs for doll’s clothes.

As the head marketer for Liberty Jane Clothing, Jason is successfully using Pinterest to drive traffic and rank highly on Google – and in my fireside chat with him, he shares exactly how he’s done it. Jason is also successfully using YouTube and Facebook to market his business, so our conversation naturally strayed in to those two channels as well.

In order to learn how to use Pinterest to market your business, the questions I asked included:

1. What do you love about social media?
2. Explain what Pinterest is and Why should I care?
3. How does it work?
4. Can you wrap some numbers around it? When did it start? User profile? Where are they? Who are they?
5. Where does it fit amongst Twitter etc?
6. What types of businesses is it suited to?
7. What’s the secret to using it successfully?
8. Step us through how you’re using it to grow your wife’s business? liberty jane clothing
9. How could I use it for my show?

PLUS I put it out on the Small Business Big Marketing’s Facebook to find out what you wanted to ask. Your questions included:

1. Is it more important just to be active on pinterest, or should you try to promote your own products? Khalana Gocken
2. How can a service based small business benefit from Pinterest compared to an ecommerce biz? Bianca Board
3. How best to use it to promote products? Gaz Midson
4. I have a personal pinterest account, but have neglected it as Im unsure what its all about! I would love to know how it can beneficial to a service business Mac Smerdon
5. Why do you think females have been so keen on the take up of Pinterest? Richard Hunniford
6. How can manufacturing companies mainly in b2b utilise pinterest? Gavin Hodgins
7. I’ve mentioned Pinterest to clients and the response is “what’s that?” or “nooo not another social networking site”. With Facebook, twitter, LinkedIn, google plus, the people I talk to are overwhelmed with what’s out there, my question “what’s the benefits that Pinterest offers that differentiates it from other social networks?” Stuart Upward
8. Finding stats on people who view your pins and other Pinterest reporting tools? Darryl De Abru
9. How do you make sales from it? Jillian Bullock
10. is it only suitable to businesses that are visual, such as fashion, art, photography etc? Simone Outeridge
11. Is it good for SEO? Danial Archow
12. How do you build a following? Davd Newgass

As a result of the interview with Jason, the Small Business Big Marketing show is now on Pinterest.

PLUS in this episode I give a big shout out to the guys at Key Person Of Influence and quietly mention the fact that I’m soon to open up the Small Business Big Marketing Forum.

26+ Pinterest Tools and Tips to Enhance Your Pinning Experience | Social @ Blogging Tracker

I’m not saying tools are a must but if used properly, social media apps can be great enhancers to your social networking endeavors, especially one that involves images and graphics like Pinterest. You don’t have to use anything complicated, just a few that enough to meet your pinning requirements. I hereby share with you some tools I tested and how they can be helpful in your daily pinning activities:

To Add Watermarks:

#1  PicMarkr

PicMarkr lets you upload pictures (maximum 5 at once) and add custom watermark to them to protect your copyrights. You can add text, image or tiled watermark; and set 40% opacity for your texts. Not much font choices but enough to fulfill its purpose.

 

To Create Quotes, Covers and How-to Pictures:

#2  Quozio

You can easily create a quote from the ready templates in quozio. All you need is type in the content and author. No uploading required.

Here’s the final result:

You can choose to pin directly by using the pin button below the template but the source will be leading to Quozio. You can change the link after or save the file then upload it manually.

Tip: You can create a quote from Quozio then use PicMarkr to brand your picture with watermark.

#3  Posterpin

You can upload own picture or customize the poster with ready-made templates. You can either keep the border or remove it, or create a text-only poster with Posterpin. All these can be previewed before saving it to your PC.

Final result for the chosen quote:

#4  PinWords

Another handy tool I love to easily create a quote by uploading own picture or use the templates instead. You may reposition and change the font color. Quite sophisticated for a free tool.

#5  Share As Image

Share As Image allows you to create and customize your quotes but free version comes with limited font and background color. Go for PRO then you may customize the color, size etc.

#6  PicMonkey

Comparing to above tools, PicMonkey can do so much more than just creating quotes. Not only it allows you to touch up your picture, you can add seasonal effects, frames and create collages from your uploaded photos! Here’s one I created for an article I read before uploading it to Pinterest last year:

Another thing I love is the ability to customize your picture with various themes! I’ll let Carolyn explain it all in her post how to make full use of PicMonkey.

Professional-looking, right?

To Capture Website Screenshot:

#7  url2pin.it

Insert the web link to generate the web preview as a screenshot to be pinned to Pinterest. A great way to recommend a website of your choice for Pinterest followers to check out.

#8  Shotpin

This browser extension allows you to take a screenshot from a webpage easily and crop it. A fantastic solution for blog posts that have no images or when the blog images are too small for pinning. Plus, it also allows you to Pin a PDF file, however this is only enabled for Chrome browser.

To Create Captions, Notes and So Much More:

#9  Pinstamatic

Got to be by far, the most widely used Pinterest image-creating tool any pinners would appreciate. Not only quotes and website screenshots, you can post sticky notes, music clips, map locations, twitter profiles with latest tweets, calendar dates.. all by using Pinstamatic.

Here’s an example of a quote created by Pinstamatic:

Online Photo Editors:

#10  Pixlr

Pixlr is a free image editing software that you can use directly in your browser, no download required. You can choose to upload the pic from your PC or open image by URL. It’s like a simpler ‘Photoshop’ tool yet so equipped with most of the necessary features: filters, layers, adjustments and much more! Perfect for any intermediate to advanced image editing work before uploading it for blogs or pinterest. Did I mention you can even select preferred language for the app too?

#11  LunaPic

LunaPic is a web-based photo editor that is famous for its multifunctional photo effects: to create animation or blend photos together etc. Since we won’t be using animation in Pinterest, one thing I use it for is creating photo collages and blending the picture within a special photo effect, such as 3D cube or like the one shown below:

For each setting or effect to take place the browser needs to refresh itself.

#12  FotoFlexer

FotoFlexer is fun and easy to use. Upload your photos (even from various social networking sites) and start editing at will. You can beautify, decorate, distort and apply multiple effects to your picture. One thing I love is that you can view all the changes right within the same browser, needless to refresh much. You may adjust the size, click at an area to apply the effects easily or if you’re not into anything fancy, the ‘basic’ option is pretty much enough for any pinners.

#13  iPiccy

If you are not into complicated customization, iPiccy is the online photo editor for you. It’s easy to navigate from one setting or effect to another. You can adjust exposures, fixing colors, add frames, retouch etc.

#14  Ribbet

Ribbet is very similar to iPiccy, including some of the options but a few (such as touch up, stickers, effects, frames) are for premium members which you need to register first before using it. For now it’s free to register but for limited time only. If you’re not into registering then can always check first if iPiccy has the option you need.

For Research & Analytical References:

#15  Repinly

To get more info on most popular pins, boards and pinners, Repinly is your go-to source. I see this as a reference to discover how people normally behave around Pinterest and which types of content they are most interested in general. A quick glance at the Pinterest statistics will give you an idea how people are using Pinterest:

#16  Pinreach

A tool to study your general Pinterest activities via total pins, likes, repins, comments, boards, followers etc. You can study all these stats for your Pinterest boards and find out your most influential followers on Pinterest. Take note on other options like ‘Trending Pins’ and ‘Trending Members’ and learn from those emerging users and their popular pins.

Monitor your influence and engagement level and improve your strategies from time to time.

#17  Pinpuff

Pinpuff is another pinterest-scoring system that looks into your overall influence, popularity and reach on Pinterest. I’m not into scoring system but if you wish to get an overview of how your boards performed, Pinpuff’s ‘score profile’ will do just fine.

#18  Pinalytics

Pinalytics is both a self-analytical and keyword tracking tool. When logged in, you can integrate your Google Analytics account to pull in your blog data and analyze them to check who and what had been pinned from your website.

Or you can always use Pinalytics as a simple keyword-analytical tool by typing your selected keyword and Pinalytics will help you to find and evaluate content (pins, boards or people) on Pinterest, including social sharing results on other social media sites. A great place to find like-minded pinners and boards to follow/engage besides analyzing your pinning efforts.

Currently the results seem random and you can sort them by various social signals. Would be great if we can sort them by date though.

For Pin Scheduling:

#19  Pingraphy

Pingraphy is still the only web tool I know that allows multi-pin scheduling. This is especially useful if you are a heavy pinner and it’s important to space out the pins to not overwhelm your followers; or so your target audience will see your pins even you’re not in the same timezone with them.

To Read: How to Schedule Your Pins to Pinterest Board with Pingraphy

For Pin Notifications:

#20  PinAlerts

I absolutely adore this tool! PinAlerts is useful to inform you whenever someone pinned from your website, all you need to do is provide your email address. This is great to improve engagement and build new connections, a perfect way to use it alongside with Pinterest’s very own notification system.

If you’d like to learn more on how useful Pinalerts is, check out Shelly’s post here.

To Create Infographics:

#21  Infogr.am

Equipped with all the data and rich media resources but no idea how to present them? Infogram is your answer! How? By letting you add all those visual content into their ready-made template without much hassle at all. You can create basic chart or an infographic, save your work in the library, duplicate it (optional) and edit from there. Infogram’s free service provides quite a number of elegant designs. Great tool for anyone who’s not much into designing or image editing but just to tell your story with facts and figures.

To Read: How to Easily Create Infographics in PowerPoint

For Fun and Entertainment

#22  Someecards

With someecards you don’t have to worry about the drawings, just be creative and add a caption that goes with the image. But be cautious on the type of humor you’re spreading while representing your brand.

#23  Imgflip Chart

Another fun thing to try is to apply humor on charts. All you need to do is add in the text and adjust the portion for the chart as shown:

Here’s an example of how it will look like:

Extra Tip: I’m not a fan of memes, but if you’re into them then perhaps can check out this meme generator.

Bonus Tips

Why not integrate your pinning effort with your existing social networks? Here are some bonus tips for you guys who are active on Facebook:

#24  Pin Deal from Tabsite

I heard about Pin Deal back in September last year but haven’t tested it yet. However the concept is revolutionary: encourage your fans or visitors to ‘Pin’ your promotion on pinterest, then the discount code will be shown to them to be eligible for a special offer. A great way to extend your reach and visibility without having to force someone to be your fan (the option to ‘Like’ the page is optional and completely up to the page admin during setup).

Pin Deal isn’t free but you can take it a spin with its 14-days free trial by selecting TabSite Platinum Plan.

#25  4 Timeline Apps to Add Pinterest to Your Facebook Page

Including Pinterest apps for Facebook Page from Woobox, ShortStack, Tabfusion and Pinvolve.

And for your guys who are sharing pins on Twitter, don’t forget:

#26  Twitter card Support

Here’s an article by Kelly showing how your pin will look on Twitter upon followers clicked on ‘View Photo’, very neat! I’m still trying to figure out how to make it work, if you’re interested can refer here.

There are just too many Pinterest apps available, for example Reachli (formerly known as Pinerly) is now offering campaign-setups for image advertising, while curalate and octopin are both analytics and monitoring tools that required DEMO-request that I don’t have access to yet. Even so, I think the above apps are pretty sufficient if you just started to emphasize on growing your presence on Pinterest.

5 Ways to Make Pinterest Work for Your Nonprofit | Engaging Volunteers

Pinterest is mostly known as a place full of cupcake recipes and wedding ideas, but it is so much more than that. Pinterest is a site for discovering and sharing inspiration–which makes it a great place for nonprofits. Here are some useful tips:

Showcase the impact of your work.

Your Pinterest page should showcase the positive impact that your work does for the community. Sharing your impact on Pinterest is a great way to increase your nonprofit’s visibility while attracting new volunteers and gaining donors.

For example, Operation Smile has touching before and after portraits of children who have gained new smiles through life-changing surgeries. Given the fact that Pinterest is a highly visual site, consider pinning photos that visually tell a powerful story about the work your nonprofit does.

Share your ideas with other nonprofits.

Pinterest can be used to engage with other nonprofits. One way to connect with other nonprofits is by sharing creative ways to fundraise. For example, look at the inspiring ideas charity: water pinned onto their fundraising board.

Create a business account.

You can convert your existing account into a business one. Upgrading your account gives you access to exclusive goodies such as a board widget, follow button and pin it button – all of which can be used on your blog and website.

Add a Pin It Button to your website.

Add a Pin It button to your nonprofit blog so readers can easily pin their favorite posts onto their own Pinterest page. Be sure to place the button near your other social media sharing buttons to make it easier for your readers to find it.

Use Pinterest to fundraise.

Pinterest can be another platform for fundraising online. The easiest way to fundraise is by turning your pin into a gift. Simply type in the price in the pin’s description. As soon as your pin has a price tag, it’s automatically added to the gifts category. Just make sure your pin links back to your nonprofit’s donation page.

If you want to take your fundraising to the next level, think about creative ways to reach donors. Take a look at the powerful Pinterest campaign that UNICEF launched for some inspiration.

Check out the VolunteerMatch Pinterest page here.