Customers are Buying Things Online

People are now buying online – a lot. In fact, research shows that 81 percent of consumers search for a product they’re interested in online before actually buying it. And 55 percent of purchases occur within an hour of a customer’s initial search. What does this mean? Well if you don’t have a website, you’re missing out on a lot of potential customers and a chance to increase your sales.

Purchasing is just one area of the internet that you should focus on. Keeping your customers happy with your product or service and gaining positive reviews is another important task. A survey has shown that 88 percent of consumers put their trust in the reviews of other people. So if you don’t have any reviews online about your product or service you could be losing potential buyers.

Social Media Marketing

90 percent of all marketers say that their business exposure has increased thanks to social media. At this point, it’s imperative for all businesses to have a strong social media presence. The reason – social media platforms are where customers are most active. Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and Twitter are all platforms where you can find your ideal customers and reach out to them with your offers.

One of the main benefits of using social media for marketing is that it can drive targeted traffic. With Facebook Ads, you can target specific customers based on age, demographics, and interests, etc. Another great benefit of social media marketing is that it can provide social proof to your audience which may increase your conversion rates. In simple terms, social proof means that people do what others do or they believe what others like to believe. You can use different activities on social media as social proof. For example, if someone comments on your Facebook posts praising the product of your company, you can use it. If someone tweets about your company, you can post it on your other social media platforms as social proof.

Final Thoughts

We can go on and on about the potential of the internet and social media and how important it is for your business. But, we’re sure you get the idea from what we’ve discussed already. In a nutshell, if you want to excel in the business landscape, it’s imperative that you get online, find the right internet plan for your business needs.

Use Hashtags

Using hashtags enable people to find you easily. To find out what hashtag to use, do research on the hashtags that other influencers are using. Besides, check out what hashtags are trending on the social media by going to the Trending category. On the social media, do a search on conversations that are concerning the niche. You can draw attention to your product by using the hashtag to create your own contest.

Schedule Your Social Media Posts

If you have no time to post every day, you can write the posts first and then use a scheduler to schedule the posts in advanced. Posting regularly on your social media is necessary if you want to have an account with a large following. If people see you stop posting for a while, they will quickly un-follow you. Scheduling ensures that you maintain consistency in your social media marketing effort.

Use Image in Your Social Media Posts

Image is the best tool for capturing attention from audience. You can check your analytics to track which image gets conversion from the audience. If you found an image with especially high clicks, you should post more of that type of images to get more engagement for your products. The images you include in your social media post should be high quality. Usually, there is a limit on the image size so make sure you resize it to the correct size. If you auto share your blog posts, it will be a good idea to include at least one image. In this way, all the post shared on the social media will feature the blog post image.

Use Videos to Capture Audience Attention

Video can help you to grab the attention of the audience faster. It is easier to consume the information in the video compared to reading a paragraph on the social media. The success of social media lies in the ability to capture audience attention and get the message across in a short span of time. Video fits in perfectly for this task. At the beginning of the video, make sure you include callouts so that the viewer know the message before turning their attention away.

Videos posted on the social media need to load fast – in this case, you will have to convert it into MP4. MP4 video is small compared to the standard AVCHD format which your video is stored in camcorder. You can open the video file in an avchd converter online program and convert it to MP4. When the Online Video Converter load, you simply drag the AVCHD file into the file drop zone and it will be loaded. Next, you navigate to the Video tab and search for MP4. After you found the MP4 format, select it and click the Convert button to convert it to the destination folder.

Regularly Update Your Social Media Account

You should try to be as regular as possible when coming to updating your social media account. It is recommended that you make at least 3 posts on different times throughout the day. You can vary your posting frequency, for example, today, you post 3 times and tomorrow, you post 5 times.

Be Active on Multiple Social Media Networks

Survey shows that more than 80% of marketers actively post on at least 4 networks. You can choose to be active on at least 2 social media. There are a few major social media networks and each one is designed for different business niches. If you are an educated professional, you can use LinkedIn as a place to promote your business. In LinkedIn, you get to list your academic backgrounds. You can use an image based social media platforms like Pinterest and Instagram if you are into a business where you have a lot of nice pictures to show off.

Research shows that 96% of lawyers who participated in a study reported using social media. The most used LinkedIn and Facebook at 84% and 80%, respectively, while 59% used Twitter.

Simply put, if you’re not active on social media, you may soon fall behind your competition. Of course, it’s not enough to simply be on social media — you also need to stay up to date on it.

In light of the above, here’s a rundown on what’s new in social media for lawyers this year.

Let’s get started!

Facebook

Facebook’s algorithms are increasingly making it hard for companies, including law firms, to market themselves without paying a lot for this.

In other words, it’s difficult to generate posts in a manner that will give you the visibility necessary to draw prospects.

Still, some of the platform’s services related to paid advertising are extremely powerful and effective for attorneys in 2019.

In addition, you can still use Facebook this year to keep yourself in front of your colleagues and clients. By sharing posts about a continuing education course you’re teaching or a conference you’re attending, you paint yourself as an active and interesting person with whom people wouldn’t mind working.

LinkedIn

LinkedIn is another essential social media platform for attorneys, especially for business lawyers.

Considering that LinkedIn is so powerfully optimized in 2019, you can expect your law firm to be ranked high when someone searches for you online. So, it’s important that your LinkedIn page is carefully crafted.

LinkedIn is particularly valuable for lawyers who have business-to-business practices, or even for anyone who works as an appearance attorney on call. If you’re trying to network with other lawyers, LinkedIn is the marketing platform for you this year.

Twitter

Twitter has doubled its character limit for an individual post to 280 characters. This is now allowing for more detail in your posts, which you can use to your advantage.

In addition, in 2019, Twitter is allowing you to embed more videos — which includes live streams — images and articles than before.

What does all of this mean for you now? It means that Twitter messages no longer have to feel limiting. Your posts can be extremely effective if you have a strong following coupled with great hashtags.

How We Can Help with Social Media for Lawyers

In addition to providing the latest advice regarding social media for lawyers, we offer a wide range of search engine optimization, or SEO, tips for business owners in general.

For example, we explain what SEO means for local companies and the importance in 2019. We also offer advice for hiring SEO professionals.

In addition, you can find out through our site if your clients’ online reviews impact your SEO efforts.

Take a peek here to find out more about how you can use SEO and social media to draw more clients and thus strengthen your bottom line in 2019.

When devising a social media marketing campaign, many marketers forget about social media search engine results. Here’s why social SEO is important.

You’ve been rocking your SEO campaign. Except, you’ve been neglecting your social media search engine connection in your campaign. Which means your campaign could be performing better.

Let’s put it in context: 72% of adult internet users are on Facebook. And if you’re not there too, you’re missing out on their business.

Here’s what social media SEO is, how it works, and how to incorporate it into your existing SEO strategy (plus a few potholes you should dodge along the way).

What is Social Media SEO?

First things first: what is social media SEO? It’s the thing that makes the social media search engine connection make sense.

It’s also what makes your social media sing.

You could be forgiven for being confused – Google used to give contradictory statements about how social media factored into their algorithm. These days, it’s a boon. It has something to do with how social media has evolved in the past several years.

Let’s break it down.

How It Works

Let’s be clear. Social media isn’t currently a direct ranking factor.

However, that doesn’t mean it has zero effect on your ranking. Actually, neglecting social media’s role in SEO is one of the biggest mistakes social media marketers make.

Content that performs well on social media – strong engagement, likes, and shares – correlates with content that performs well on websites and blogs. That is, content that performs well on one platform is likely to see similar engagement metrics on the other because it’s good quality content.

A good social media presence, combined with a good content marketing strategy, create strong brand awareness and engagement, which boosts your rankings.

Social Media and Search Engines

Nothing is ever simple, is it? Certainly not when we’re dealing with the social media search engine relationship.

So it pays to know what the benefits of social media are for your next SEO campaign. As we said, social media isn’t a ranking factor officially, but it can help boost your SEO rankings indirectly.

That’s because of how social media works. Many of the benefits of social media translate over into your SEO.

Links, Links, Links

Also known as the boon of any SEO campaign.

Let’s be real. You need links. Earning links is what you want – it allows you to gain multiple links from a single posting (SEO folks call that angels singing).

But unless you’re a big site with tons of traffic, it’s hard to earn links.

Unless, of course, you’ve got social media.

Think of it this way. You have x friends on Facebook, y followers on Instagram, etc. They all have their own list of people who friend and follow them.

If your content sees traffic on social media, it has a higher probability of reaching more eyes – and being cited by other websites.

Et voila. Link earning.

Front of Mind

How often do you check Pinterest? Or YouTube? Or Instagram?

Probably more than you’re willing to admit. But you’ll notice something.

The successful social accounts post often, which means you’ll usually see them when you log on. Depending on the platform, many will post several times a day.

Guess what you get as a result?

Every time you log on, you remember them.

So not only does your business get frequent user traffic from social media, it keeps you front of mind with your customers.

Brand Authority

It’s not just brand awareness.

Frequent production of high-quality social media content establishes your brand as an authority in your area while it familiarizes your followers with your brand, style, and products.

Of course, people are more wary of false information on the internet in general and social media in particular. That shouldn’t be a deterrent – if anything, it should be your cue to make sure you’re producing quality content every time you post.

And if you’re playing your cards right, there’s a fair chance that the next time your followers do a search that’s relevant to your product, they may even search you.

Things to Know About Social Media SEO

Ready to jump down the social media search engine rabbit hole?

Hold your horses. You need to know a few ground rules first. It’s not as easy jumping into a pool.

You also probably have a few assumptions about social media SEO that are frankly inaccurate. Those will hurt you in the long run if you’re not careful – or just hold you back from making your social media campaign that much better.

Here are three things you need to know about social media before you start to incorporate it into your SEO campaign.

Social Links Aren’t Guaranteed

We said earlier that link earning is one of the big pluses of taking a leap of faith into the social media search engine rabbit hole.

Thing is, those links aren’t guaranteed. Not even a little bit (if they are, or someone is

guaranteeing them, there’s a fair chance of something shady going on up in here. Don’t do it.)

There’s also a chance that the links won’t boost your rank. Wait, what?

That’s because the quality of those links matters more than the quantity of them – you’re always better off with five backlinks from reputable sites than ten backlinks from questionable sites.

Take your time, make good content, and use content marketing best practices to earn those links you have. Patience, as they say, is a virtue.

The Social Media Search Engine – Social is a Search Engine Too

Fun fact: you should actually be considering a social media search engine as, well, an actual search engine. Because there are more search engines out there than Google.

In fact, YouTube is the second most popular search engine on the web.

Profiles Rank Too

Social media might not directly impact your spot in the rankings, but it can directly change the content that shows up in that ranking.

In fact, social media profiles rank just as much as your business website or blog.

Why does this matter to you, way down there in the social media search engine hidey-hole?

Because social media channels aren’t just another office cubicle. They’re often the place where your company can show personality before a viewer takes one look at your website.

And if potential customers have fun getting to know you, there’s a much better chance they’re going to buy from you.

Making Social Media Work for You

It’s not just a matter of handing over the keys to your Adwords management. Although that does tend to make your life easier.

You need to make sure what you’re doing on this social media search engine deep dive. Here are three things to get you started.

Optimize Your Posts

It’s a strategy that relies on available pre-existing content, but it has the benefit of opening you up to another avenue of search. Fun fact: Google will sometimes feature popular social media posts in the first few SERP slots.

More avenues of search are always a good idea in the social media search engine rabbit hole.

The easiest way to do this is by using your standard SEO best practices on your posts. We’re talking strategic (not obnoxious) keywords, links to great content, and, of course, great post content.

Influencing Social Sharing

Need brand authority? Enter stage right: social sharing.

It’s just another way to give Google a clue that your site is an authority on your subject area, whatever that may be.

The best way to go about this is to target it directly. Give your followers an incentive to like, share, retweet and comment on your posts – like, say, a promotion.

It rapidly becomes a self-perpetuating cycle – the more people share your posts, the more people can see, like, and reshare your posts. You get new followers, more traffic and, if you’ve done it right, more business.

It all comes back to quality content.

Encourage External Inbound Links

And, finally, our old friend in this social media search engine journey: links.

If you’re doing your social media right (with great content, frequent posts, and good SEO practices) it encourages more external sites to share and link to your content.

Know what happens when they link to your content? Authority in the eyes of the almighty Google.

Like we said earlier, there are no link guarantees. You’re going to have to do your time and pay your dues – in the form of consistently creating useful, engaging content that’s worth sharing and linking.

Rock Your SEO (and Your Social Media)

Think you’ve made sense of this whole social media search engine thing?

Great. Let’s make it even better.

Check out our blog for all kinds of useful information to bring your social media SEO to the next level, like this post on the four errors that can damage your company Facebook page or this post on planning for your first Facebook ad.

If you have a question we haven’t answered, head on over to our contact page to let us know. Or, if you’re a writer, come write that answer for us.

With the tight overhead that your franchise probably has, it might be hard to spend 35% of your marketing budget on digital like other small businesses. Franchise companies sometimes also have to abide by guidelines that restrict the kinds of marketing campaigns that other companies are able to implement. That’s one of the reasons that SEO is so vital for franchises.

Franchise companies need to take a different approach to SEO than other local businesses. It’s not enough to turn customers onto your brand. You need to make sure you get people working on your specific franchise.

Tackling SEO for your company requires flexibility different than local or national SEO. Here are 10 tips for implementing strong SEO for franchise companies.

1. Know The Right Local Keywords

Have you ever noticed that if you type “pizza” into Google, you’ll get results that are relevant to your area? It’s not magic. Search engines use your user account, past searches, and stored browser data to match where you’re searching from with local results.

Depending on the kind of franchise you have, you could be competing with other franchises in your city. In order to make sure you have a strong foundation for your business, use local keywords that mention neighborhoods and geographic markers.

You might also have different terminology for your area. If you’re running an ice cream shop, you need to know if people in your area will be searching online for “jimmies” or “sprinkles”. Make sure you’re thinking like a customer of franchise companies like yours and you’ll build a strong local following for your brand.

2. Have Two Keyword Lists

Franchise companies need to have multiple keyword lists.

You have a strong brand with products and services that customers will be searching for. You need to ensure that when customers are searching for services like yours, they find your brand easily.

You’ll also need a keyword list to catch all of the people searching from your region. While your brand might come up high on the list, you need to make sure your franchise is the number one hit in your location.

If your brand comes up first for “carpet cleaning services”, you need to make sure your franchise comes up first for “carpet cleaning services in beverly hills”.

3. Unique Listings

Owners of multiple locations in franchise companies need to have unique, verified listings. When it comes to using Google My Business, Yahoo! Local, or Yelp, just typing in your brand name could result in unhelpful information.

You need to make sure every location and every branch of your franchise has its own page. This way, clients and customers have options to and can build a relationship with the location that’s closest to them.

4. Manage Your Reviews

Find a clever way to capture email addresses from your clients. Reach out to your most dedicated customers and ask them for reviews on your site of choice.

Offer an incentive for visiting your location and showing off their review on Yelp, Angie’s List, or Google. You should be building up your reviews even if you’ve just opened your location.

The more positive reviews you can gather at the opening of your franchise, the easier it will be to balance out negative reviews later. A one-star review against a single five-star review will put you below 3 and could ruin your reputation.

Check out HealthyYou vending reviews for more tips on how to manage your reviews.

5. Separate Franchise Pages, One URL

When franchise companies create separate websites for every single franchise location, it can be confusing to a customer. Products or services offered at BrandXMiami.com could be different than what’s offered at BrandXNorthMiami.com.

This will lead to customer confusion and a loss of trust from your customers. If you can’t hold a consistent site with a clear definition of what each branch offers, how can I trust your products or services.

Create one central site with separate pages for each franchise location.

6. Unique Social Media Accounts

Your franchises should have unique social media accounts for every location. If one of your locations isn’t doing as well as the others, you can offer a special promotion to drive traffic to that location.

If one of your locations has an electrical problem and needs to close, you can direct customers to the other locations. And if a staff member at one location upsets a customer, driving them to post on Facebook, you won’t see an impact at every location.

Show off the personality of each one of your franchises with separate social media accounts.

7. Run Different Cross Promotions

Having separate accounts and identities for different locations allows you to cross promote with nearby businesses. Every social media account should be following the businesses closest in proximity to your location. You can comment on one another’s posts and find ways to complement each other’s services.

Get your heads together and see if you can run some promotions to create a rising tide to lift all boats.

8. Create A Blog for Each Location

Put the power back into the hands of the people working at each franchise location. Find out who some of the more talented writers are working at each franchise and allow them to shine.

Give them some direction and let them produce great content that will also help to drive traffic. Ensure that they use your most important keywords, promote their posts on social media, and attack SEO from every angle.

9. Be Mobile First

As mobile usage surpasses desktop browsing, you need to find ways to integrate into the apps and tools that your customers use the most. Your site needs to be optimized for mobile viewing or your services will look outdated.

If you have an app, find ways to connect to your customers’ social media apps for an integrated experience.

10. Consolidate Efforts

Make sure every one of your franchises is in contact with the others. Avoid running duplicate campaigns or promotions. And if one branch is focusing on a particular service or product, have the other branches focus on another.

Franchise Companies Can See Big Returns on SEO

If you manage your online presence carefully, you can get more returns from SEO than you would from a TV or radio campaign. Find ways to do things differently than your competition and you’ll be able to stand out in ways that customers will appreciate.

If you’re ready to make your next move in digital marketing, contact us for how to start implementing this strategy.

I noticed more and more of rich pins on the Pinterest website lately.  What is a rich pin?  Well, it basically provides more information about the website the pin content origination.  For example, it will show helpful information with the pin, like a Favicon (the icon shown in your browser tab for a website), the author, the website name, and even recipe information if your article is recipe based.  It looks really professional when you see the company name and icon next to it and makes the pin more likeable, or errr pinnable?

How to enable Rich Pins on your WordPress website

Pinterest has a developer section where you can test and validate rich pins.  It can get a little confusing and complicated if you’re not a web developer. Even I had problems with it validating until I found out there’s an SEO plugin called by Yoast called the WordPress SEO Plugin.  This only will work for a WordPress website, so only read on if your website is WordPress or you are planning on starting a website using WordPress.

First thing’s first.  Add the plugin via your WordPress control panel or download/upload it.  Activate the plugin.  Now Navigate to SEO > Social.  Now simply enable “add open graph meta data”.  This will add the open graph meta tags necessary for rich pins.  Now add any other settings you wish to add below.  It may be good to add your Facebook page URL.  I added a front page image and description in case someone pinned my website’s homepage.  It’s not necessary to validate your site with Pinterest rich pins, but I did it anyway.

Great, now head on over to Pinterest’s Rich Pin Validator.  Copy and Past a page from your website into the validator and click “validate”.  Now that your page is validated you can click “apply” so they can accept your rich pins.  If something goes wrong they will email you.

Here’s my website validation:

The difference in percentages in interest of people in Pinterest and other social media like Facebook and Twitter is simply remarkable. It shows that Pinterest forum is quite attractive as compared to other social media websites.

Pinterest offers tremendous ideas for holidays as follows

• Holidays and Events
• DIY and Crafts
• Food and Drink

The most obvious reason for using Pinterest heavily is to gain novel ideas about the holidays. Around 83% of Pinterest users are sharing recipes while 74% are involved in receiving great ideas for amazing gifts.

Analysis in the light of statistics clearly shows that Pinterest has changed life of 94% of their users in the realm of holiday preparation. The traffic count on Pinterest is quite large in the holiday seasons. More than half of the users visit Pinterest during the holiday seasons of November and December while majority among these stay for a long periods of time once logged in.

Large number of people visits Pinterest during holidays to be aware of the latest fashions and items in the market. During November and December, the companies increase their marketing efforts in social media websites to promote their sales. A number of brands is introduced to catch the attention of people. Pinterest offers information about all these latest offers like cooking and baking, gifts, clothes and décor etc.

Around 20% of the social media uses tend to spend more money in holidays than usual working days. Among these, 59% said that they have purchased some items based on the Ad presented on the Pinterest. 15% of Pinterest users claimed that they tend to spend less money in November and December since DIY projects are cheaper than original products. Around 66% of Pinterest users are of the point of view that holidays don’t affect their spending a great deal.

The aforementioned results are extracted from the survey carried out on 500 Pinterest users of above 18 age in United States in November 2013.

After checking out the examples, I clicked on a board that showed a bunch of geo targeted markers.  After clicking on the marker, the application brings you to the pin it relates to.  Kind-of cool.

But while it’s easy for a homewares company to make the most of Pinterest, it can be difficult to be positively active on social sites if your sector is somewhat unglamorous. So how can you make social media work for a business that isn’t typically attractive?

The shock factor

Setting up a page on Twitter or Facebook is easy, whatever your sector – but it’s what you do with this page that makes the difference. The beauty of social media is that the subjects you choose to cover can be a lot more fluid than on your main website.

Use a blog to make comment about things related to your sector rather than your specific services. Find out what is trending on Twitter and use news stories as inspiration for your blog. You might offer pest control services, for example – necessary, but not beautiful. In this case, you might want to keep your eye on the science pages for information about deadly diseases or germs on the rise and use this information in your social content. Make it into an infographic for maximum shareability. It’s not pretty, but it’ll get people reading.

Give your customers the information they need

Usually the drier, less attractive topics cover the aspects of life we all need, rather than what we want. Fashion and travel are subjects many of us are happy to read about… finance is not. However, it is possible to write engaging articles on subjects that are relevant to your business, if they offer inside information that can help your customers.

Total Peace of Mind offers insurance, for example, but on its blog pages, the company provides money-saving hints and tips that attract readers – and customers. Insurance might be an unappealing subject but saving cash ain’t.

Competing for attention

You can always grab attention using a competition. Facebook is a great platform for this with its “share” function. If you run a financial company you could ask the question, ‘if you had £1million what would you do?’, and award a prize for the most outrageous answer. This is a great opportunity for your brand name to be seen by thousands of people within a short timescale.

Social media can be well utilised as a marketing tool even in unglamorous sectors, as long as you take the time to create quality engaging content that your target audience wants to read.

Ben Chu

Tweets by BenChu_

Economics Editor of The Independent, Ben Chu heads the newspaper’s blog and offers a Twitter profile too. He provides personal views on the economy in both a national and international capacity and has a Twitter following of more than 2,800. Bankers beware, Chu’s economical insight and sharp writing allow few of the financial world’s discrepancies to slip through the net unnoticed.

Christine Lagarde

Tweets by Lagarde

The managing director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Christine Lagarde is active on Twitter and offers insights into the global economy. If you’d like to find out where the world stands financially, analyse the challenges ahead, and access the latest reports, Lagarde is most certainly one to watch.

Chris Smith

@AwesomeFinance

With so many people up to their eyeballs in debt, it’s no surprise that many young adults haven’t got the foggiest idea how to manage their money. Chris Smith of Awesome Finance is here to change that, offering simple strategies to help you understand the fundamentals of finance. His hints and tips extend from investing in long-term funds to necessary everyday spending, and how to get the most out of your cash. He’s the “man on a mission – to raise the personal finance IQ of young adults everywhere.”

Irene Aldridge

Tweets by irenealdridge

Author of High-Frequency Trading: A Practical Guide to Algorithmic Strategies and Trading Systems, Irene Aldridge’s financial expertise can be accessed online as well as on paper. With a regularly updated Twitter feed, she gives insight into high-frequency trading and more.

David K Waltz

Tweets by davidkwaltz

David K Waltz is a Fortune 500 Financial Officer with a Twitter following of 5,282. He writes the Treasury Cafe blog, which empowers people in the strategy and finance sectors with tools, information and insights.

Whether you’re a long-term investor, new to the money market, or work in the industry, you’ll find financial influencers ready to advice and inform on social media platforms.

Today Microsoft launched it’s beta version of Socl, their new social network that’s strikingly similar to Pinterest.  I took a trip and signed up for Socl to see what the buzz was about.  After logging in I was a little confused as to how it worked so I’m sure a lot of new users will be as well.  Basically you create a new “topic” which will create a new post.  When you type in a topic, it searches Bing for images and videos to attach to your topic.  You can then add the pictures to your post.  A lot like Pinterest but not even close to as functional or fun.  Pinterest lets you browse a full screen of images while Socl only allows you to browse a narrow set of images.  At first I thought you could only search Bing for images on Socl, but then I realized you can past in a link from a website and scrape through their images to add to your “post”.  To me Microsofts new social media network is ridiculously similar to Pinterest but confusing and unnecessary.  Why do we need a confusing Pinterest clone? It already looks like it’s getting spammy too.  I’ll keep my eye out for a good use for this platform to drive traffic, but for now I’m going to set it aside and see what comes of it.  Hopefully for Microsoft they don’t have everyone wanting to set it aside.

Pinterest, watch out!  Facebook is moving into the Pinterest “Want” market by creating “Collect” and “Want” buttons.  They are rolling it out and testing it on some big retailers like Pottery Barn.  Soon in addition to the “like” button on your website you’ll be able to add the want button to gain some more product visibility.  To me, this sounds like a cool feature that will definitely compete with Pinterest, but I really don’t think it will take the place of Pinterest.  Pinterest user’s will probably agree too, there’s not really a replacement!

Pinterest Annoyance #1 : Wait to be invited, we’re so exclusive

I am particularly annoyed by one thing Pinterest did though.  When I signed up it gave me two options:

I understand how marketing works, and I understand they are looking to use the edge of demand, curiosity, and anxiousness to make you want to join.  I do however think it’s very annoying when they are already well established and I’m just trying to get my account started.

Pinterest Annoyance #2 : We’re so exclusive we’re letting you explore pins while you wait so you can be annoyed as hell

Ok, I just requested an invite for Pinterest so I’m thinking, “there’s no way they could possibly hold this process up!”.  No I was wrong.  I checked my email thinking they would say, we’ve added you to Pinterest!  But no, they give me this pathetic email message that tells me to explore pins.  Why would I want to explore pins when I can’t pin them?!

How to speed up your Pinterest invite

Stupid me didn’t think to use Google before I requested an invite.  Apparently you can get approved faster if you know someone with a Pinterest account.  They just have to invite you from their Pinterest account!  Hopefully you get your invite through an invite from a friend when you join.

Aaron was the type of person that took great joy in unexpected kindness.  Once after receiving exceptionally bad service at dinner, from a rude waitress, he left her a $50 tip. Things like this, given or received, were what he thought left a mark on a person’s life.

Aaron passed away July 7, 2012 just 3 weeks after his 30th birthday.  He left us a will full of his personality. He asked that any debt he owed his parents be repaid should he have money in the bank at his death, but also had the following request:

“Third, leave an awesome tip (and I don’t mean 25%. I mean $500 on a f***ing pizza) for a waiter or waitress.”

To me, buying Facebooks Likes today is equivalent to when website owners bought a thousand (or some kind of a “too good to be true” amount) article submissions, search engine submissions, and bogus text (footer? or sidebar?) links all for a ridiculously low price. Internet Marketing scams like these have been around forever and they always will be.  They might not last a while, because Google (and hopefully Facebook) catches on and changes their algorithms to detect scams and quick money/ranking schemes.  Luckily Google’s smart new algorithms have devalued purchased links, tons of spammy text, lame question/answer sites, and low value article links.

Until Facebook and social media networks find a way to combat the newest scams to gain likes and followers, here’s why you should be weary of buying any sort of a fan or like.

1. Suspicious Fans
   Many Facebook page owners who purchase likes have noticed the likes have come from strange profiles names, locations that don’t even match up, and have unrealistic profile information.  Some have profiles that say they are previous manager’s at large corporations, then when you look at their birth date it doesn’t even come close to making sense!  This is just one example.  You’ve probably already noticed this too, but I’ve noticed some friend requests I get have names that just look suspicious. Stay clear away from these type of likes or friend requests because there’s a reason why it looks fishy.  Think: no conversions or even virus.
2. A Modern Internet Scam
   There’s always a new scam out there.  Right after a new website or technology comes out or Google changes their algorithm, the scammers are ready to create the next loophole to cheat the system or make a quick buck.  Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest are all targets of the most recent internet scams since their high popularity.  Common sense but you can see the shift in momentum if you have been working on websites for at least 5 years.
3. Little to No Value
   What value does having these purchased likes bring to your table? The only thing I can think of is having a high fan value that may attract legit “likes”, but is it worth it?  Not to me.  I would never want strange likes and non-readers on SocialMediaSEO.net.  It would make for a very boring, uninterested fanbase don’t you think?
4. The Wrong Way to Gain Facebook Likes
   When you look at the overall picture, it’s not worth gaining likes by buying them.  It’s all short term recognition that you don’t want.  You don’t want temporary results for your company or website.  Temporary results may be gratifying at first, but in the grand scheme of things you’re looking for customers whether they are simply reading your content or buying a product.  They won’t buy or read if their lame user’s set up from robots or overseas workers.  One my favorite examples that shows the Wrong way to gain Facebook likes comes from The Oatmeal called “how to get more likes on Facebook“.
5. Common Sense (Duh)
   Come on, you really think that buying 3,000 fans is the right way to do things?  I may be repeating this one like a broken record but I’m going to reference The Oatmeal again.  The Oatmeal creates awesome content, is it a wonder where they got their 642,000 Facebook fans from? I’ll bet you that almost all of those fans are active readers and engage constantly.  Buy likes or beg for them and you’ll end up disappointed in the end. (kind of like forcing a relationship where one is just not interested, friends can see the disaster from a mile away!)

So how do I gain a ton of Facebook Likes the right way?

Lets face it, you’re going to have to work the hard way to gain your Facebook Likes.  Yes, you could gain a million by having an article, video, or product going viral, but don’t count on that.  Just create start your own blog beautiful content and your audience will come.  Put a simple like button on your website, people will see it.  You don’t need a flashing Facebook button that looks like the Las Vegas welcome sign, we all get it by now!

6 of the Best Pinterest Clone Scripts

1. Pinterest Clones

2. PINDERFUL – Pinterest Clone

3. Pinnect SOCIAL PICTURE SHARING

4. Social Pinboard – Pinterest Clone for Joomla

5. Pinterest Clone Script

6. Drupal Pinterest Clone Script

Hopefully this list will get you off to a good start with your Pinterest style website.  I haven’t used any of these, only browsed the basic features of the scripts, so use your own judgement when deciding which one is best for you.

Search Engine Ranking (SER) and Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

To understand the benefits of social media used for a website there are a couple of things one should know about. SER and SEO are acronyms that webmasters and business owners should be very familiar with. Because there are millions of websites online, search engine ranking is a major part of people being able to find a website. There are many, many search engine ranking factors, Google uses more than 200 algorithms to determine search engine ranking, but many SEO experts provide some general guidelines and tips for getting started. This article will focus on the benefits of social media used in conjunction with a website and how social media can help with search engine ranking.

Benefits of Social Media used in Conjunction with a Website

• Twitter posts, Facebook “likes”,  and links in both have a positive correlation with higher search engine ranking
• Social media indicates that real people are “talking” about your brand, products, or services
• Both Google and Bing have confirmed that links through Twitter and Facebook have a direct impact on search engine rankings
• Social media provides a simple environment for businesses to interact more intimately with customers
• Social media provides a place for quick updates, news, and special offers
• Social media is yet another medium for customers to leave comments, feedback, and questions
• Social media is instant – reach hundreds or thousands of people within seconds

This is only a tiny glimpse of some of the benefits of using social media in conjunction with your website. Even though a website can be dynamic with regular updates, articles, special offers, etc.; there is only so much a company is going to change on a daily basis. There are very few websites that customers, or potential customers, are going to visit on a daily basis. Fortunately for businesses, millions of people are using social media daily or even multiple times throughout the day. With a little bit of marketing, a business can get hundreds or even thousands of people to “like” or “follow” them; thus providing incredible marketing power.

Social Media and Spam

As with any other marketing, a business should never use social media to spam customers. Spam is sending messages to a group of people that either didn’t agree to receive them or sending so many messages that it becomes annoying and has no benefit (spamming is illegal). Remember that is it just as easy for your customers to “unfriend” or stop following you as it was for them to start. Also keep in mind that while still social media is still relatively new for marketing and websites, many businesses are getting onboard with social media and too many messages flooding these social media outlets becomes counterproductive. If over-used people will recognize the message as spam and skim right over it or hide your company updates from their feeds. Making sure that every message has real value to customers will ensure a business’s success in using social media in conjunction with a website.

Examples of Social Media used in Conjunction with a Website

It is easy to see that a there are many potential benefits to using social media for business. Let’s take a look at a couple of examples.

• XYZ Web Hosting Company is launching a huge new product. With a very well designed and established website they are hoping to make thousands of online sales in the first few weeks. However, management recognizes the need to draw new and returning visitors to the company website to learn about the product launch. A smart marketing manager comes up with a short, creative blip about the company and product and includes a short URL that goes straight to the new product page. The marketing team posts this blip on Twitter, Facebook, and other popular social media sites. Because the message is timely, creative, and has real value, XYZ Company is likely to see thousands of visits to this new product page in the first few weeks.
• John’s Pizzeria has noticed an increase in lunch time traffic at their competitor’s business down the street. John noticed their business marquee out front says “Like us on Facebook”. John visits the company’s Facebook page and finds that the establishment is offering a free drink with every purchase between 11am and 2 PM on weekdays. Looking back through previous tweets and posts from the same company John sees that the company has regular “Manager Special” offers and other time sensitive promotions. What a great way to drive in extra traffic. John visits the competitor’s website and finds that they have “Like Us” and “Follow Us” buttons right on the homepage with prominent text promising customers “Exclusive Offers and Discounts”.

The possibilities are endless. A key benefit comes from that fact that search engines are using social media as an indicator of how often and how many real people are talking about and using a website. The higher a websites search engine ranking, the more traffic and business the site is likely to receive. Check out some of the top ranked websites for even more ideas about how to use social media in conjunction with a website.

Pinterests exponential growth over the past year has marketing experts buzzing and companies of all sizes leaping on board.  The site launched its Beta trial in March of 2010 and has not stopped growing since.   By December of 2011, Pinterest was listed among the top 10 social media networking sites with more than 11 million visitors a week.  Last month (February 2012) alone, Pinterest experienced over 103 million visitors.

Pinterest allows members to comment curate their own collections by “pinning” their favorite images on theme boards they’ve created.  When a member posts a pin, it instantly becomes visible on the home page of the member’s “followers”.   Any member can “re-pin” their favorite things either from those they follow or from Pinterest in general.   Pins may get even more visibility if they turn up on Pinterest’s home page even for a minute of two.  The beauty of the “pins” is that they are images with direct links to the websites they originated from.  This has aided in the growth of many small and large businesses alike.

We followed one “DIY” & inspiration blog, picklee.com as they experienced tremendous growth from Pinterest in just the past couple of months.  Picklee.com creator, Jordan Crompton shares her Pinterest success story:

“Picklee began in the beginning of 2012 as a place for me to share my creations and inspirations.  As a home design consultant on the East Coast, I began posting my own DIY projects, furniture revival before & afters, and recipes to Picklee on a daily basis.  As I published posts on Picklee, I would occasionally upload an image of the post to my personal Pinterest account; I started receiving an unbelievable amount of traffic from Pinterest almost immediately.   Since Picklee began just a few months ago, I’m already experiencing between 200-500 visitors daily, as well as a remarkable amount of newsletter subscriptions.  I know I would never have seen such rapid growth without the use of Pinterest.  The amount of visibility Picklee has received so quickly is truly incredible and inspiring.  I will continue to use Pinterest as an outlet for sharing my creations on Picklee and I look forward to watching the growth in the future.”

Pinterest has become huge in terms of referral traffic.  The website offers its own hints for companies that are looking for some bounce from the site, “re-pinning the picks of other users is one of the best ways to build a network of followers, and the more followers you have, the more visibility you will receive”.  Pinterest also suggests that businesses spotlight “aspects of your brand that may not come to mind at first,” such as environmentally friendly characteristics.

Like the old saying, “nothing attracts a crowd like a crowd”, Pinterest is certainly drawing a massive (growing) crowd.  The next few months should be telling in terms of social media trends.  Are social media trends moving away from profiles and status updates and toward the sharing of creative interests?  It’s certainly appearing that way!