Archive | August, 2018

Pinterest is a social media website, best described as a visual version of Delicious and other link saving services. It’s grown like gangbusters since its launch in March of 2010, with 200+ million monthly active users.

Why is Pinterest so popular? It’s fun, it’s easy, and it’s about discovering the unexpected. It’s all about interests, not friends, and unlike Facebook and Twitter that is continuously streaming content, the pinboards stay put. Perhaps best of all, it can be about anything – any pinboard you create can be about any topic, and you can create as many pinboards as you like.

“Pinning,” as they call it, is adding photos (images) to a “pinboard.” You can either add images from websites using the “Pin It” button, or you can upload images from your computer. Now here’s the good part: Each pin added using the Pin It button links back to the site it came from.

So if your visitors are pinning your photos, two things are happening. First, you’re getting backlinks. Second, you could potentially receive traffic. When someone clicks on one of your photos inside of Pinterest, they are first taken to the pin page, and a second click takes them to your website. Imagine if you have intriguing, eye-popping photos that make people want to know more – you could receive free traffic and potentially newsletter sign-ups and perhaps even sales if you play this right.

And videos can be pinned as well. If a video link is pinned, Pinterest embeds the video inside the pin. Then there are repins and likes, potentially making your images and videos go viral and enter the conversations on Twitter and Facebook.

A repin adds an image someone finds while browsing Pinterest to their own board. No matter how many times an image is repinned, the source-link of the image is maintained.

If for any reason you don’t want images your website to be pinned, simply add the following code snippet to the head of any page on your site:

<meta name=”pinterest” content=”nopin” />

When a user tries to pin from your site, they will see this message: “This site doesn’t allow pinning to Pinterest. Please contact the owner with any questions. Thanks for visiting!”

Once you’ve joined Pinterest you’ll want to create your Pinterest profile and get the “follow” button for your website. Give your readers a reason to follow you on Pinterest by offering them useful content beyond whatever you’re marketing. You might pin images that inspire you and your company, images of your customers enjoying your products, etc.

Create daily pins to promote your brand, create contests to engage your audience and get them to your website, create a “See who pinned our products this week” section on your newsletter, etc. There are many ways to use Pinterest to spread the word about your products. Just think – a single photo can get pinned hundreds of times, making it just as viral as a great Tweet.

One of my favorite ideas is the “Pin it to Win It” contest theme, where you reward your customers for adding your products to their pinboards. But remember that it’s not all about you or your products – make sure you’re providing useful content such as “Insider Tips” and “Latest News” for your niche.

Explore Pinterest, and have fun with it. It can be a create source for new ideas, and new connections in growing your business and brand online.

If you have a blog you might want to consider allowing others to post on it. Here’s why:

1. Guest bloggers create content for you, meaning you either a) don’t have to create as much content or b) you can have even more content on your blog without the extra work.

2. Guest bloggers know things you don’t. You’ve got your expertise and they’ve got theirs, and while you could take the time to master what they already know, it’s far easier to simply let them write about it.

Bonus: You look just as smart whether you write it yourself or get a guest blogger to do it for you.

3. Guest bloggers see things differently. Let’s face it, reading everything from the same perspective can get tiresome. Allow your readers to see different perspectives and it will keep your blog relevant and interesting.

4. Guest bloggers bring friends. They tell their followers about their guest posts, bringing fresh traffic to your blog.

Diversity is a big key to success in every field. Don’t always “go it alone”. Invite others into your fold. Then sit back and watch in appreciation as your business and influence grows.

Have no doubt, email marketing is still a huge powerhouse and offers perhaps the very best return on your time. So how can your emails have an even greater impact with your readers? Here are 5 tips for strengthening and adding power to content you create.

Shorter is better. But not too short. Shorter sentences are more likely to be read than longer ones. And shorter emails are more likely to be read all the way through than 3,000 word behemoths.

But there’s also such as thing as TOO short. You know those emails that have one sentence designed to make you curious enough to click the link? Don’t be clever and copy those emails, because testing shows they don’t convert as well on the backend as emails that prep the reader for what they’re about to see. By that we mean, you may get just as many clicks as you would if you took the time to explain where your reader is going and why they should go there, but because you did not prepare them, you won’t get as many sales once they land on the page you sent them to.

The trick is to tell them, or in fact EDUCATE them just enough to make them want very much to go to the page you’re sending them to. This way they’re primed to learn more about the topic and quite possibly make the purchase. Think of it as warming up your prospect before sending them off to the sales page.

Being timely is key. Open your email with the latest news in your niche and then tie it into your offer and you’ve got a winner. Can’t find a way to tie the two together? Then don’t. There’s no reason why you can’t update them on both the latest news and your latest offer. Just be sure you lead with the news – keeping them informed is more important than making a sale, or at least that’s they way you should come across if you want your readers to continue opening your newsletters.

Be a problem solver. Regardless of whether or not you’re making an offer in your email, if you can show them how to solve a problem, you’re golden. Tell them about the solution you use and how they can use the same idea to fix their own problem. If you are promoting a product, begin with the problem it solves, and then explain why this particular solution holds an edge over the others.

Get them hooked, then link them over. A wonderful use of newsletters is to get your reader hooked into a story, and then at a key moment continue the story on your blog. This will get a vast majority of your readers clicking that link to find out what happens next in the story. (Be sure you put the entire story on your blog for those that land there without reading your newsletter.)

Be funny, or at the very least have fun. You receive two emails: One from your very serious uncle, the other from your cousin the comedien. Which do you open first? Obviously we all enjoy having fun, and if the writer had fun writing the newsletter to us, you know it’s going to be enjoyable to read. That’s why if you’re able to use humor, it’s like icing on the cake.

Keep these tips in mind the next time you prepare to write a newsletter or blog post, and you are sure to create more engaging content that draws your readers in.