How to Upload an Image to LInkedin Business Page, February 2013

Watch as Cindy Dalecki of Marketing 2 Go easily uploads a new image – 646×220 image (PNG, JPEG, or GIF) with a max size of 2MB – to a business LinkedIn page.

Think Like Zuck – by Ekaterina Walter

I came across this on Mari Smith’s website and thought it was worth sharing. Ekaterina Walter reveals ‘the simple five-part formula the upstart Facebook CEO used to change the world – and how any business leader can apply it to his/her own company..’. Enjoy!

1. Unleash your passion

No matter what you do, you have to be passionate about your customers. Only when you have your customers’ interests in mind you will be successful in inspiring loyalty. Customer-centric mentality will also spark some of your best ideas.

Some of the best things you can do to show your customers you care is to:

• reach out to them often within your social communities and to ask them what types of conversations/content they would like to see you bring up/post. On our Intel Facebook page we love to ask our customers open-ended questions and run in-newsfeed polls to make sure as our community grows we stay truly connected to them and know what their passion points are.
• co-create with your customers. San Francisco-based apparel company ModCloth not only allows its customers to vote on the items their stores should carry, but it has taken the concept of co-creation to a new level by creating an entire collection of user-generated designs.
• respond creatively and in real-time. This holiday season REI, for example, created custom video responses to consumer’s inquiries on Twitter regarding the best holiday gifts. I myself was a recipient of such a video and was not only pleasantly surprised, but have to say developed quite an affinity for the brand as a result of that.

2. Lead with purpose

Whatever you do, you have to be clear about your purpose. We live in the economy of attention deficit and consistent influx of new shiny tools. As a marketer, if you don’t know your purpose, your reason for being, your core objectives, it’ll be easy to get lost in a sea of tasks and strategies that may not be fully relevant. To stand out from noise, you have to be focused, disciplined and have a clear idea why you are doing all the things you are doing.

Take a look at your strategy and ask yourself the following questions:

• What is your vision? What are your objectives? What are your priorities?
• Do you have listening/monitoring tools in place? Do you have formal listening approach? And if yes, what are the conversations that are happening around your brand and how do you want to influence them?
• Who is your target audience and where are they engaging?
• Who are your customer advocates who are mostly engaged with your brand?
• Are your internal social media practitioners aware of your brand story and your brand voice?
• Do you know what your digital presence looks like across the web?
• How well does your current digital presence represent your brand? If not well, what are the steps to create the unified and meaningful brand presence for your company? What will it take to maintain those communities?
• Based on the basic native network insights, which channels drive the most traffic and engagement? Which are the least successful?
• Is your strategy scalable globally? Are you taking into consideration the needs of local markets as you craft your company-wide approach?

3. Take risks

In a lot of ways we are all still new to this digital landscape and to the mentality of a two-way marketing rather than one-way broadcasting. In some ways, it might still feel strange to let go of the control of your brand and fully engage without fear. But I promise you that the risk of not engaging is greater that the risk of participating.

So I urge you to take risks in whatever you are doing. There are no written rules and if you are truly passionate about your customers – let go of the fear. Some of the most amazing conversations around your brand might come from you jumping in and trying new things. I’ve seen this time and again. Of course, I have also seen some mistakes being made (and made some myself), but that was only a very small percentage.

When we first launched Intel’s global communities, we didn’t know the best ways to engage our advocates. So we just started experimenting. We tried engaging our communities in multiple ways. We posted pictures taken inside the Intel’s campus, we talked about Olympics and Valentine’s Day, we asked for stories, we said thank you when we reached key milestones, we bragged about our special products, we offered challenges, we crowd-sourced  photography. We tried everything our small team could think of to see what content will resonate and what will spark more conversations. And we got better at it as we grew our communities and tracked our progress along the way. We learned and we grew with our customers. And that is the most beautiful thing.

So take risks, try things out, and watch your customers inspire you and vice versa.

4. Don’t just market products, inspire movements

As marketers we often times tend to focus on acquiring new customers and generating broad awareness of our company and our product. But my philosophy is that if you engage your most passionate customers and your employees – those who are already familiar with your brand and love it – and you do so in meaningful and inclusive ways, you will be able to create a movement, not a campaign.

Scientists at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute have found that when just 10 percent of the population holds an unshakable belief, their belief will influence the adoption by the majority of the society. Imagine what this does for brands. Imagine if you give a platform to your 10 percent of passionate customers to co-create, engage, and spread word-of-mouth. Imagine if they know that you not only listen and participate, but give them the power to co-define your brand and thank them for amplifying your messages.

So, instead of chasing the numbers of fans and followers, focus on the quality of your content and relevance of your message.

5. Partner with the right people

The right people are those people who share your passion, live your values, and strive for the same purpose. Those are the people who will see the changes coming when you miss them and help you look in the right direction. These are people who not only have the right skills, but the right attitude as well.

As a marketer, when you build your teams or choose the vendors to partner with, partner with those who have the same passion for your customer as you have, who value authenticity, and those who are not afraid to take risks if they believe in something. Build the team with complementary skills: those who are passionate about human interactions (community managers), those who are passionate about data (analytics), some who know traditional media and some who know social media (because the two married together are much stronger at reach and amplification), and some who might not have any of those skills but have innate curiosity and unlimited desire to learn. Then empower them to create, guide them when necessary, and watch amazing things happen.

Ekaterina Walter is a social media innovator at Intel, a speaker, and an author of the book “Think Like Zuck: The Five Business Secrets of Facebook’s Improbably Brilliant CEO Mark Zuckerberg”.

Easily Convert Your Pinterest Page to a Business Account

Pinterest Business Accounts: The Definitive Guide to Getting Started

This is a detailed article on Pinterest’s new business accounts by Kristi Hines.

Pinterest has given businesses the ability to create business-specific accounts.

Now is the time to stop thinking about Pinterest as a personal playground for cooks and fashion lovers.

Pinterest should be an important part of your B2B or B2C social media marketing strategy.

This article will show you what you need to know to set up a Pinterest Business account.

Differences Between Personal and Business Accounts

Although the outward appearance of a business account is the same as a personal account, there are some key differences between personal and business accounts on Pinterest that you should be aware of.

New Terms of Service Agreement

The first major change since the big reveal of business accounts is the newly formatted terms of service (TOS) agreements for both personal and business account holders. The main difference between the two is that Pinterest now states that any account that wishes to use Pinterest for commercial purposes must create a business account and agree to the business-specific TOS.

The Ability to Specify Your Business Name

Instead of having to sign up as first name “Whole,” last name “Foods,” businesses can set up their account with their business name as is.

Marketing Education Geared Toward Businesses

Within its business site, Pinterest is adding educational materials specifically for businesses to learn how to market themselves. The tutorial currently covers how businesses can tell their story through their profile, build a community through collaboration, drive traffic through making products discoverable on Pinterest and learn and grow through finding out how others see your brand on Pinterest. We’ll look at these tips in depth in the Best Practices section later in the post.

Access to Upcoming Features

Pinterest is working on a whole new set of features exclusively for businesses to help them expand their reach and understand their Pinterest audience. Those who have set up a business account will be notified as soon as new features are available.

How to Set Up a Business Account

There are two ways to set up a business account on Pinterest. If you have already been using Pinterest for your business, you can easily convert your account or you can create a new one.

Converting Your Personal Account to a Business Account

To convert your personal account to a business account, log into your Pinterest account and then visit the Pinterest for Business section. There, you will see a big red button to convert your existing personal account to a business account.

Convert your personal Pinterest account to a business account.

Once you click on this button, you will be taken to the section where you can modify your current Pinterest account details. First, you will have to select your business type.

Choose your business type for your account.

Next, you will enter additional details such as your contact name and business name, plus you have the ability to edit your About information and website.

Update your public profile information for your business account.

Last but not least, you will have to agree to the new business TOS agreement and privacy policy.

Creating a New Business Account

Alternatively, if you don’t want to convert your existing personal account to a business account, you can sign up for a new business account. You will go through a similar process as conversion, except you will get the chance to choose a new username.

Convert or Create a New Account?

Not sure if you should convert your existing personal account to a business account or create a new one? Here are some things to consider.

• Does your personal account have a lot of followers? If so, you may not want to have to build them up again by creating a new account.
• Does your personal account use your business name as the username? While you may want to keep your followers, you may not want to do it if your business is ABC Company and your Pinterest username and URL is pinterest.com/joeysmith—you would want it to be pinterest.com/abccompany instead.
• Does your personal account include a lot of marketing-focused pins or personal pins? If your collection is mostly personal, you might want to leave it alone and just create a new account so you don’t have to erase all of your personal stuff. Alternatively, if your pins are mostly for your business and have a lot of likes and comments, you might not want to lose them by starting a new business account.

Getting Started

Once you’ve converted or created your new business account, you will be given four getting started options to choose from:

1. Verify Your Website
   Verify your website for your business account.

   The first option is to verify your website with Pinterest. This will allow users to see your full website URL on your profile and in search results.

   Verify your website for your Pinterest business account.

   To do this, you will need to either upload an HTML file created by Pinterest to your web server or add a meta tag from Pinterest to your website. If you are using WordPress, the meta tag might be an easier option because you will just add it to your theme’s header.php file or in your theme’s settings where it allows you to add scripts in the header.

   Adding the Pinterest meta tag to a WordPress theme’s header scripts.

   Once you have either uploaded the file or added the meta tag, you can click to complete. It will check your website for those files and confirm that your website is verified.

2. Start Pinning
   Start pinning to your new Pinterest business account.

   If you converted from a personal account, chances are you already have some pins on your Pinterest board. If not, you can click the Add Bookmarklet to add the Pinterest “Pin It” bookmarklet to your browser’s toolbar.

   Install the Pinterest Pin It button to your browser’s toolbar.

   Once you have installed this, you can easily pin images from across the web to your Pinterest account.

3. Drive Traffic Back
   Help people pin images from your website to Pinterest.

   Encourage your website visitors to share your images with their Pinterest followers by adding the Pin It button to your website. You can find the Pin It button on the Buttons and Widgets page. Alternatively, you can also find the Pin It button in popular social sharing plugins such as AddThis, ShareThis, Digg Digg (WordPress only), and Sociable (WordPress only).

4. Grow Your Audience
   Try the new Pinterest tools to grow your audience.

   Along with the Pin It button for your website, Pinterest has added new buttons and widgets to make it easier for people to see your latest Pinterest activity. These include the Pinterest Follow button to encourage people to follow you on Pinterest.

   Encourage people to follow you on Pinterest.

   The Profile widget, which displays your latest pins.

   Display your latest 30 pins using the Profile widget.

   And the Board widget, which displays your latest pins from a specific board on your Pinterest account. Using these on your website should help boost your following and engagement on Pinterest.

Pinterest Best Practices for Business

The following are suggested strategies of what works on Pinterest, as well as additional tips to help you get the best results for your business from your Pinterest experience.

Complete Your Profile

If you didn’t do it during the setup process, make sure to go back and complete your business account’s profile to have the following:

• Include a great image that represents your business and preferably matches your other social networks (Twitter, Facebook Page, etc.), so that your audience can recognize you easily.
• Include a short message about your business that states who you are and why people should learn more about you. This can be similar to the message you use for your Twitter bio or your Facebook Page’s About section.
• Include your verified website so that visitors to your Pinterest profile can easily see your domain name and click through to your website.
• Include a link to your Twitter and Facebook accounts, which you can set up by going to your account settings and connecting with Twitter and Facebook.

Keyword-Optimize Your Pinterest Profile Using the Boards

Search engine optimization doesn’t just apply to your website. Create boards on your Pinterest account that relate to keywords for which you would like to rank. For example, a photographer may want to create boards for wedding photography, family portraits, commercial photography and other types of services he offers. This isn’t just for search engines, but for your visitors as well, so they can get a quick insight into what your business has to offer.

Pin Images Based on Your Targeted Audience’s Interests

In content marketing, the goal is to create content that your target audience and potential customers will love. On Pinterest, you will want to keep this in mind when pinning images to your boards—make sure images you pin are ones that will attract your target audience, encouraging them to follow you.

Run Pinterest Contests

One great way to increase your Pinterest following is to run a Pinterest contest. Businesses that offer a prize to those who repin their images gain a lot of additional exposure for themselves through the Pinterest community.

Monitor Who Is Pinning Images From Your Website

Just like you may want to thank people who retweet you on Twitter or share content from your Facebook Page, you may also want to interact with those who have pinned images from your website. Use the following URL to see what people are pinning from your website: http://pinterest.com/source/yourdomain.com

For example, if we use the URL http://pinterest.com/source/socialmediaexaminer.com/, we would see the latest pins from this website.

See the latest pins of images from your website.

From here, you may want to comment or like pins from your website and follow people who pin your content often to show your appreciation. This can also help you determine which images and content from your website do best on the Pinterest network.

Measure Your Pinterest Traffic

If your goal is to drive traffic from Pinterest back to your website, you can use Google Analytics to see how much traffic you are receiving from Pinterest compared to other social networks.

Measure your Pinterest traffic in Google Analytics.

You can click on Pinterest in Google Analytics to see which pages on your website have drawn the most Pinterest traffic.

See what pages on your website receive the most Pinterest traffic.

If you have set up goals in Google Analytics, you can even see where Pinterest ranks in terms of social media–driven conversions for your business.

Case Studies

If you are still not sure whether Pinterest is right for your business, here are some Pinterest case studies you can review to see how other businesses and brands are using Pinterest to achieve their business goals.

Sony Electronics

Sony Electronics on Pinterest.

Learn what six things Sony did to gain over 2,500 followers in the first six months and get an 800% increase in traffic from Pinterest to the Sony store.

Petplan Pet Insurance

Petplan Pet Insurance on Pinterest.

Learn how Petplan uses Pinterest to provide pet owners with tools to care for their furry family members, attract new audiences and establish leadership in the pet health space.

Organized Interiors

Organized Interiors on Pinterest.

Learn how Organized Interiors uses Pinterest to communicate design ideas with clients, create a compelling brand presence and feature unique products.

Jetsetter Travel Community

Jetsetter on Pinterest.

Learn how Jetsetter uses Pinterest to engage brand advocates, encourage their community to share travel inspiration and obtain actionable feedback on site features.

Etsy: Handmade Marketplace

What type of business are you in and will you use Pinterest to promote your product and/or services?

Wayne Liew’s 7 Tips to Boost the Happiness Level of a Facebook Page

One thing we are at Marketing 2 Go is happy! In this article, author Wayne Liew gives 7 Tips to Boost the Happiness Level of a Facebook Page.

Sense of Humor

Having a sense of humor in your posts and interactions with fans helps to humanize your Facebook Page. Most Facebook Pages are boring. Sprinkling some witty lines and funny images across a few of your posts will immediately grab the attention of your fans. Almost every Facebook user is surfing the site in a casual manner, seeking for fun and entertaining content. This behavior caused the inclination of sharing amusing images or status updates.

And yes, a little sense of humor makes your fans smile too!

Engage with Fans

Connecting and interacting with fans on a personal level give the fans, who are taking extra efforts in commenting, the feeling of importance. And of course, when they realized that the ongoing interaction on your Facebook Page is actually happening in a two-way manner, they will come back for more. Ask yourself. Do you prefer talking to somebody that will give you a response or somebody that does not even bother what you are talking about?

Brainstorm for updates, comments and responses that will help to understand your fans more. Ask questions that force your fans to take sides and debate. Create a simple poll. Dive into the stream of responses and start pushing for more by asking for further elaborations or questions. Have fun and mingle around with your fans.

Be Personable in Your Responses

Avoid canned comments or responses because these fail to show the sincerity of your business and most of the time, your fans will be able to spot this quickly. Be personable and if you know a customer or client well enough, don’t be afraid to show it in your reply. Often times, by visiting a fan’s personal Facebook profile will reveal some recent happenings that will probably help you in crafting a personable response.

When these efforts are made in coming up with a response that your fans can relate to, you are actually humanizing your page and the fans will appreciate it since they know that they are actually interacting with a real person.

Choose Your Colors

Colors are elements that influence the mood level of your fans. Referring to the Psychological Properties of Colors, you may want to consider publishing images that contain mainly of bright colors such as red, yellow and orange in order to raise the happiness level of your Facebook Page.

Want some examples of Facebook Pages that are using brightly-colored images that do not only capture the attention of fans but also entice them to like and comment on the images? Check out the Skittles and Nutella‘s Facebook Page.

Always Be Testing and Repeat the Good Stuffs

In order to determine and understand which type of posts generate the most likes, comments and shares, you need to constantly track the performance of your posts using Facebook Insights. Identify which of them are performing well so that by increasing the amount of similar posts, the engagement level and positiveness of your page will increase.

How Can We Measure Happiness?

To be honest it’s hard to measure the level of happiness using numbers. Facebook stats (likes, comments and shares) are simple data points that you can use. In fact, happiness is something that you can sort of gauge for yourself when you visit a page. How positive or negative are the comments and updates from fans?

You can of course use sentiment analysis tools such as Trackur or Social Mention but they do not specifically measure the overall sentiment of your Facebook Page. Do ping us in the comment section below if you know a tool that does that.

What have your seen boost happy responses on your Facebook page?

 

Wayne is the Founder of Sprout Geek, an online publication with insights, tips and tricks covering all startup and small business aspects, for entrepreneurs and business owners.

 

A 4-Step Guide to Setting up Twitter’s New Profile Page Design

Twitter announced their new profile page design this week on the Today Show. The update is aesthetic and provides what looks a little like a right-aligned Facebook Timeline cover photo for brands to make their pages more visually pleasing. We will explain how to set it up and show you how a few brands have changed their Twitter profiles for some inspiration for your page!

How to Set Up the New Twitter Profile Page

# 1: Log in to Twitter, and click on the gear icon in the top right corner. A drop-down menu will appear. Select ‘Settings.’

# 2: On the next screen, you’ll see a menu of options on your left. Click ‘Design.’

# 3: Scroll down to the ‘Customize your own’ section and select ‘Change header.’Note the image size requirements — the minimum dimensions are 1252×626, and the maximum file size is 5MB.

# 4: Upload your image, and then simply drag the photo into the positioning you like, and zoom in and out to your heart’s content. When you like the look of your new Twitter profile header image, hit ‘Save,’and and that’s it!

Here are some examples to inspire you:

What do you think about the new profile page design? Will you implement it for you or your business?

Four Simple Steps to Launch Facebook Offers

Facebook continues to release Facebook Offers to more local businesses. Facebook Offers are a way to get the word out about your business through special offers and engage your customers. Facebook Offers also encourage people to talk about your page when your offers are shared between Facebook friends.

Here is a quick tutorial on how to launch your company’s Facebook Offers:

Step #1: Choose an image for your offer:

Step #2: Write a strong headline in 90 characters. Think like you are writing a tweet.

Step #3: Add the fine print such as expiration date, restrictions such as ‘not valid with any other offers’, ‘valid with $25 purchase’, etc. You can also set a limited number of items that customers can buy like a Groupon.

Step #4: Be sure to inform the staff of your Facebook Offer. When a customer comes in or calls to inquire or purchase the offer, your team should know everything about it. If not, it reflects very poorly on your company.

Facebook Offers are easy to claim for your customers. With one click on their computer or mobile device, they receive a notification that their offer is in their email in box, or they can simply show the coupon on their phone to your staff. The number of people that have claimed the offer displays under it. And, they will have the option, with a “Share Offer” button, to share the email with their friends or on their social media pages.

Do you think Facebook Offers will hurt other sites such as Groupon and LivingSocial? Will you utilize Facebook Offers for your business?

Marketing 2 Go’s Brandi Fowler Promoted

Contact: Cindy Dalecki                                                     FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Cindy@marketing2go.biz/386-566-3466                               DATE: April 9th, 2012

_________________________________________________________________________________

Marketing 2 Go’s Brandi Fowler Completes Training & Receives Promotion

Palm Coast, FL – Marketing 2 Go is proud to announce that Brandi Fowler has completed an intense 8-course social media training course and earned a promotion.

Brandi attended an 8-session online course hosted by Mari Smith entitled ‘Extreme Fanbase Growth’. Mari Smith is a social media thought leader, Facebook marketing expert, speaker, and author. She has been featured in Forbes, Fast Company, and Inc. magazines, and been dubbed ‘The Pied Piper of Social Media’. The half-hour sessions were as follows:

#1 – How to Build Your Facebook Presence

#2 – Creating a compelling design and magnetic content

#3 – Put Your Facebook Expansion into Overdrive

#4 – Facebook Timeline – The New Goldmine

#5 – Build Facebook Buzz on Your Website

#6 – Maximize Email and Facebook Ads

#7 – Boost Your Reach with Video, Mobile, & Other Channels

#8 – Ppint and Offline Promotion

Brandi had to take and past a test at the end of the sessions to receive her certificate. After completion of the test with an ‘A’ grade, Brandi received a promotion to Chief Operations Officer (COO) of Marketing 2 Go.

Brandi is celebrating her one-year anniversary with Marketing 2 Go this month. “When Brandi joined our team, she brought many talents we were looking for to provide the best service and results to our clients,” says Marketing 2 Go owner Cindy Dalecki. “We are happy to have her further her social media marketing education and she has worked hard for her promotion,” Dalecki added.

“Working for Cindy at Marketing 2 Go has been an exciting experience! I’m able to use my creative passions for marketing, writing, photography and video to help small businesses grow,” says Brandi.

According to current statistics; there are now approximately 850 million Facebook users worldwide, more than 200 million people and brands on Twitter, over 150 million people on Linkedin, and there are over 4 billion video views on YouTube every day. Not every business is equipped to manage their social media or marketing internally, and that’s where an outside social media and marketing firm such as Marketing 2 Go is beneficial.

Marketing 2 Go is a social media strategy, public relations, and marketing firm based in Volusia and Flagler County, Florida, dedicated to helping business owners create a buzz about their business. Marketing 2 Go can be reached at 386-566-3466 or online at http://www.marketing2go.biz, and http://www.facebook.com/marketing2go,

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