Pinterest Dimensions [Infographic]

If you’re looking to use Pinterest to improve engagement and get more repins, the first place you want to start is with your images.  It is important to have the right Pinterest dimensions – not just for your Pinterest account, but also for any images you include on your website or blog.

The reason why you should optimize your website and blog images in addition to having a completed profile on Pinterest is so that when readers pin your images, they look great on Pinterest.  This will benefit you, because if you have great images that people want to repin and they are sized properly, not only will they look great, but people will want to share them with others. This means more traffic back to your website or blog!

To help you out, I’ve created an infographic with all of the Pinterest dimensions you’ll need. 

Pinterest Dimensions

Continue reading Pinterest Dimensions [Infographic]

Pinterest for Business – Is It Right for You? [Infographic]

Pinterest for Business – Is It Right For you?

Pinterest for business – it’s a topic I often hear a lot about.  It’s also an area where I see a lot of businesses mess up too. That’s because most businesses join Pinterest for the wrong reasons. 

Pinterest for business and why a strategy matters

While there are a number of successful businesses on Pinterest, not all businesses will achieve these levels.  Those that are successful often have a social media strategy in place and the following items defined.

  • A defined set of goals
  • An action plan to help achieve your goals
  • Performance indicators to help you measure if you were successful

Without a strategy in place, don’t expect just being on Pinterest to do very much for your business.  You can add a Pinterest social media icon to your website to let visitors know you’re on the site.  You can do the same with your email newsletter too.  While you may get a few people to follow you on Pinterest, don’t expect a ton of people.

The reason why you need a strategy in place is because people want to follow Pinterest users who are pinteresting.

If your business doesn’t have a lot of original content – your own images and videos – you may want to reconsider using Pinterest for business.  The same goes if you don’t have the time or the resources to dedicate to Pinterest.  As I mentioned, Pinterest for business is not for everyone. It’s a social media channel you have to work at in order to build up followers and fans.

If you’re still unsure if Pinterest for business is right for you, this infographic can help you decide if Pinterest for business is a good idea.

Continue reading Pinterest for Business – Is It Right for You? [Infographic]

How to Set a Board Cover on Pinterest [video]

How to set a board cover on Pinterest

How to set a board cover on Pinterest

For those of you who are unfamiliar with Pinterest, it is a site that uses boards to let you share and organize your favorite quotes, images and videos from around the web.  What’s great is that in addition to being able to organize photos and videos onto boards, you can set a board cover photo.  We’re going to show you how to set a board cover on Pinterest to make your boards more appealing to users.

How do I make my board stand out on Pinterest?

Besides pinning quality images to your boards on Pinterest, a great way to get more people to follow you and to repin (share) your content is to set a board cover.  Setting a board cover is similar to deciding on which photo to use for your DVD packaging.  The more enticing an image, the more chances you have that someone would want to look further into what you have pinned on that particular board.

To help you learn how to set a board cover on Pinterest, I’ve put together a set of brief instructions along with a video on how to set a board cover photo on Pinterest.

Continue reading How to Set a Board Cover on Pinterest

How to Be Pinteresting and Build Influence on Pinterest

How to Be Pinteresting and Build Influence

Do you know how to be Pinteresting? We all know what Pinterest is, but what does the term Pinteresting really mean? Basically Pinteresting means that you’re interesting on Pinterest.

Why be Pinteresting?

Before we talk about how to be pinteresting, think about the people and the pinboards you currently follow on Pinterest.  Why is it that you follow them?  Is it because they are boring?  I hope that’s not the case.  Why would anyone want to follow a pinboard that’s boring?  Instead, if you want to grow your Pinterest following and get more repins, you have to be Pinteresting.

If you’re pinteresting, not only will it help you get more repins and followers, but it will also help boost your online influence on Pinterest because people will find the content that you curate interesting and in-turn, share it with their friends.

Although most of the users on Pinterest are women, Pinterest continues to see a lot of men join the network.  This makes it a great a platform for businesses to boost their online influence and helps them to reach their target audience.  By targeting the right audience and getting into their minds, you can influence Pinterest users to not only buy your products, but to also help build your brand, promote your business, and grow the size of your Pinterest following at the same time!

Be sure to check out this Pinterest infographic on the different types of Pinterest users, what they do, and where they shop.  You may want to connect with like-minded users to help boost your online influence with Pinterest.

Continue reading How to Be Pinteresting and Build Influence on Pinterest

Make 2013 Your Best-Ever Year: A 12-Month Plan For Social Media Success [INFOGRAPHIC]

2012 was the year of social media.  Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram and Pinterest all experienced tremendous growth in social media.

So how can you as a business, capitalize on the success of these growing social networks in 2013? First, you need a social media plan.

No, you don’t have to get your calendar out and start feverishly writing. Instead, there’s a handy infographic that can help you figure out what you need to be doing each month to reach social media success in 2013.

A few of the key steps include:

  1. Assessing your social fitness
  2. Revisiting your social goals
  3. Becoming a better listener
  4. Integrating all of your social platforms, and
  5. Planning for the future
  6. ….

Continue reading Make 2013 Your Best-Ever Year: A 12-Month Plan For Social Media Success [INFOGRAPHIC]

How to create Pinterest secret boards to surprise your competition

Do you wish you could create Pinterest boards ahead of time without other users seeing them?

With the introduction of Pinterest secret boards, now you can.

This means you can curate content on your Pinterest boards and keep them private until you are ready to publish them.

What are Pinterest secret boards?

Pinterest secret boards are boards that are only visible to the person who creates them and the people they invite to pin to them.

When you create Pinterest secret boards, they don’t show up anywhere else on Pinterest.

This includes: categories, search results, your feed, as well as the activity pages.

To create your own Pinterest secret boards, follow these instructions.

How to create Pinterest secret boards

Continue reading How to create Pinterest secret boards to surprise your competition

Everything I Need to Know About Social Media, I Learned From Football

Blue 42, hut hut, hike.  Who’s ready for some Football? With the NFL Playoffs set, I put together this fun (and handy) infographic to help explain social media in terms of Football.

Continue reading Everything I Need to Know About Social Media, I Learned From Football

Embed This Image On Your Site (copy code below):

The State of Social Media in 2012

2012 was a HUGE year for social media – especially for mobile.  Twitter revamped their mobile app, Facebook followed suit and overhauled Facebook for iOS (which was sorely needed). Then, not to be outdone, Pinterest launched business pages for Pinterest, which allowed businesses to create their own accounts that didn’t require a complex way to squeeze your business into the first name and last name fields (finally).

Besides mobile, 2012 was also big for investors as well, as Facebook went public – and who can forget about Facebook Timeline, which also launched in 2012 – I know, it’s hard to remember all the way back to January 2012.

So what else happened with social media in 2012? Take a look at this infographic on everything that happened in social media in 2012.

Continue reading The State of Social Media in 2012

6 Useful Pinterest Tools to improve engagement and get more repins

In just 2 short years, Pinterest has rocketed to the top of many users favorite social networks.  Weekly visits to Pinterest jumped 2,183% – a staggering increase, given its short life. So how can you take advantage of this popular social network without spending all of your time doing it?

In this article we have compiled 6 useful tools for Pinterest to help you create engaging content, schedule pins, curate pins about your brand, and set Pinterest alerts for your website. Together, you now have a powerful toolbox full of userful Pinterest tools to help you grow your engagement, increase your influence with others and get more repins on Pinterest.

Check out these 6  Pinterest tools to help you create more engaging content and get more repins!

Continue reading 6 Useful Pinterest Tools to improve engagement and get more repins

8 types of social media zombies and how to avoid them [Infographic]

With Halloween upon us, it’s time for all of the ghouls, goblins and zombies to come out. Unfortunately, while social networks aim to help us grow our network of followers, some of those zombies stick around well past Halloween and can often be seen lurking on many popular social networks like Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and Instagram.

What is a social media zombie?

Social Media zombies can come in many different forms, but one thing is for certain, they constantly exhibit the same pattern behavior on many of today’s popular networks.

Take a look at these 8 types of social media zombies to see if you recognize any of these social media zombies and learn how you can avoid becoming a social media zombie too!

Continue reading 8 types of social media zombies and how to avoid them [Infographic]