LinkedIn Guide For Beginners

LinkedIn Account Signup & Profile

LinkedIn is a great place to connect with like-minded people, from past classmates to potential JV partners, the connections are unlimited. The first step to making the connections is to set up your account and profile so others can find you.

Let’s start by visiting, http://www.linkedin.com to join.

Step 1: Account Setup

When you visit the LinkedIn home page, you’ll see this image. Simply fill in the requested information and click the Join Now button. Or sign up with your Facebook account.

Step 2: Create your professional profile

Add in your country, zip code and if you’re currently employed, seeking a job or a student. Then add your job title and your Company name (if employed), otherwise you will get other options, as add in your college or your last job.

Step 3: Search via Email Contacts

This step allows LinkedIn to connect with your email account to see which of your email contacts already have LinkedIn accounts. Those that do, you will be able to instantly connect with and those who don’t, you can choose to send an invitation to join.

To do this step, simply enter your email address and click the continue button or click “Skip this step” to go to the next step without connecting with your email account.

You will be asked to confirm your email address by clicking the link in an email sent to you when you registered.

Step 4: Proceed to Profile

From here, you will be presented with a few screens asking you to connect with others. We are skipping these steps so that we can set up our profile first. After all, we don’t want to invite people to view our blank profile.

So when we see this page, we click “Skip This Step”

Then we get a Congratulations box, with options to Share on Facebook and/or Twitter. Let’s skip this step.

Step 5: Profile Setup

Once you reach your dashboard, mouse over Profile in the upper navigation and select Edit Profile.

Here, you’ll see a summary of your profile information and be able to edit each section.

You can either click the + sign next to each section above to edit the information or scroll down the page and add the information there as shown below. Each section has an explanation for what you should include in it.

Once you finish filling out your information, you can view your profile by clicking Done Editing.

Step 6: Contact Settings

The final step before making connections is to set your contact settings. It’s important to do this step or your inbox may be flooded with emails from LinkedIn.

In the top, right-hand corner of your dashboard, mouse over your name and select Settings.

Step 7: Email Preferences

Now, down on the left side of the screen, click Email Preferences and a box will open to the right with more options as shown below.

Clicking the options to the right will bring up a new screen for each one allowing you to adjust the settings. Below is the frequency of emails screen.

Following the same instructions outlined in Step 7, you can also adjust your groups, companies and application settings as well as make more advanced account settings.

Find Connections & Accept Connection Request on LinkedIn

In order to make LinkedIn work for your business, you need to regularly make new connections. This is simple to do and only takes a little bit of time each week.

Step 1: Add Connections

From your dashboard, mouse over Contacts and select Add Connections.

Step 2: Options for Adding Connections

There are two ways to connect to people you already know. The first is to allow LinkedIn to scan your email address book to see which contacts are existing members of LinkedIn.

To do this, simply fill in your email address and password and click Continue.

It will scan and give you a list of everyone who has a LinkedIn account. Simply select the ones you want to connect with and click the “send invitations’ button.

You’ll be redirected to your dashboard where you’ll have a new success message.

If you aren’t comfortable with that or simply prefer to manually enter each person, you can enter the email address of each person you wish to connect with – each address should be separated by a comma. Click the Send Invitations button when you’re ready.

Once you send the invitations, a new success message will appear at the top of the page.

You can also choose to upload a contacts’ file. You can upload a .csv, .txt or a .vcf.

Step 3: Accept Connection Requests

When someone wants to connect with you, they will send an invitation to you. When you log into your LinkedIn account, you’ll also have these notices in your inbox. Just click the Accept button for each person you want to connect with and you will have the option to connect immediately or ignore that connection.

Posting & Viewing Updates in LinkedIn

Now that you’ve made connections, you can post updates to keep people informed of what’s going on in your business. You can also view updates of those you are connected to and post comments to their updates. Here’s how…

Step 1: Post Updates

When you visit the LinkedIn home page, you’ll see this image. Simply fill the box with your update and click the Share button. You can choose to send to LinkedIn, LinkedIn and Twitter or your Connections.

Step 2: View Updates of Connections

Your account will show the most recent updates of those you are connected to. When you log into your account, directly below where you post your own update, you’ll see a list of updates from others.

Step 3: Like, Comment & Share on Updates

If one of your connections posts an update that you like, you can “like” the update. You can also comment on their by clicking the “comment” link. You can share an update you like with your connections simply by clicking the “share” link.

When commenting, a box will open where you enter your comment. Then you simply click the “comment” button.

Step 4: Send Messages

Move your mouse to the envelope icon in your dashboard, and click Compose message.

Enter the email address of the person you want to send the message to or click the icon to select from your contacts.

Your address will automatically populate in the “from” field.

Add a subject, your message and click “send message” as shown below.

Sending Updates/Tweets to and from Twitter and LinkedIn

When submitting updates to LinkedIn, you can also send these updates. In addition, you can send your tweets to your LinkedIn account as updates. Please note, that in order for this to work, your Twitter account must be set to “public”.

Step 1: Add Your Twitter Account

Go to your settings.

Then, on Profile, click on Manage your Twitter settings.

Then click on Add your Twitter account.

A pop-up will open asking you to allow LinkedIn to access your Twitter account. Enter your Twitter information and click Authorize app.

Step 2: Updating your Twitter status from Linkedin

Now that both accounts are connected, you can update Twitter directly from Linkedin by selecting the LinkedIn + Twitter option when posting a new update in LinkedIn.

Step 3: Updating your LinkedIn status from Twitter

When you post a new tweet in Twitter, add the #in hashtag to the end of your message. This will ensure your tweet is also added as a LinkedIn update.

A word of caution: Be selective in which messages you send to LinkedIn. Typically speaking, professional business associates don’t want to know what you are had for breakfast.

When and How to Hire Someone for Social Media

by Nicole Munoz

Hiring a social media manager or assistant is often a difficult choice. People often try to do their own social media for as long as possible, even when it’s clear that it’s not the highest leverage way possible to use their time. For one reason or another, even managers and business owners who’re keen on outsourcing everything else often insist on doing their own social media.

But at some point, this can become a real bottle cap. Once your social media activities reach a certain threshold, it really becomes a full or part time job. You can’t run your business and run your social media any longer.

So how do you know when you reach the point where you should hire a social media manager? And how do you choose an “A Player” social media specialist? Let’s take a look.

When to Hire a Social Media Manager

When is it the right time to hire someone to take on your social media responsibilities? Here are a few common signs.

It takes more than 2 hours a day. Once you get to the point where you’re spending 3 or 4 hours a day on social media, it’s time to look at outsourcing.
You feel stressed and overworked because of social media. It stops being fun.
You’re prevented from launching major initiatives because you don’t have time to manage it. For example, you can’t launch a social media contest because you don’t have the time to run it.
You find managing social media distracting. It affects your productivity and prevents you from performing at your best.
Your revenues reach the point where your time is more valuable than the person you’d hire’s. This can happen sooner than you realize in a business.

When you hit one or more of these issues, it’s probably time to make the switch.

What to Look for in a Social Media Manager

First off, it’s important to realize that you can hire a social media manager part time. If you don’t have full time needs, don’t feel pressured to hire a full time manager.

Second, realize that you don’t have to hire someone who brands themselves as a social media specialist. A web savvy, driven and passionate hire who’s able to learn quickly can often do just as well as a social media specialist at a fraction of the cost.

All that said, here are a few things to look for when you’re hiring a social media manager.

They’re passionate about social media. They use it in their spare time. They love everything about interacting with other people online and being an online connector.
They’re familiar with multiple platforms. They should know and understand how to use LinkedIn, Google+, Facebook, Twitter and so on.
They love to learn and they learn quickly. Part of the job will often involve them learning new skills. In order for them to pick up those new skills quickly, they have to absolutely love learning.
They need to be able to write articulately and take on different voices. They should be able to write in both professional tones and humorous tones.
In addition to the people side of social media, they should also understand the analytical side. They should understand metrics, understand tracking and understand analytics.

Finding a great social media manager shouldn’t be too difficult. The trick in many cases is finding someone you absolutely love to work with.

Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn – Where to start?

Start Ranking Now will establish your online presence by creating social media profiles with links back to your main sites. We will then proceed to build out your profiles and enter into the conversation by posting updates to your profiles on a regular basis.

10 Tips for Staying Focused on Social Media

by Nicole Munoz

Getting sucked into social media distractions is a real concern for anyone using social media professionally. You might only plan on working on your Twitter account for 20 minutes, then look up 90 minutes later wondering where your time went.

Social media is notoriously distracting. So how do you stay focused when you’re working on your social media strategy? These ten tips will help.

Tip #1: Keep Your Business & Personal Accounts Separate

Mixing the two accounts is a recipe for disaster. You’ll log on to update your Twitter status, then get sucked right into the funny video of your next door neighbor’s niece.

If you have your accounts mixed, separating them alone will drastically boost your productivity.

Tip #2: Do Not Multitask

When you’re working on social media, you should spend that time only working on social media. Don’t do other things at the same time.

People will often try to do social media “on the side” while they’re taking care of other things. For example, you might be listening in to a company wide call that isn’t taking up your full attention. So, you might hop on Twitter at the same time to post a few things.

This is bad, because it trains your brain to not separate social media work time from other things. By not multitasking and only doing social media during social media time, you train your brain to work on social media in a very focused way.

Tip #3: Have a Daily Action Plan

Having a plan for how you spend your time on social media can really help minimize distractions. For example, if you plan on using your social media time to build an influence, you might break your time down like this:

5:00 – Schedule Posts in HootSuite
5:30 – Respond to @Mentions, Read Tweets, Retweet
6:00 – Send Personal Messages to Influencers

Don’t “wing” your social media.

Tip #4: Do Your Social Media When Your Work is Finished

Plan your social media time after the majority of your work is finished. Though social media is an important marketing venue, it’s rare that it’s really so urgent that it needs to be done early in the day.

Doing your social media last helps cut down the likelihood that your social media work would detract from the rest of your day.

Tip #5: Avoid Chats

Turn off your chats. Turn off Facebook chat, Google chat and any other chat programs you have running in the background. Many social networks will have a chat program weaved into their basic functionality. Make sure those chat systems are off.

Chats can throw your entire day out the window. Someone might message you and a 15 minute social media session suddenly turns into a 40 minute conversation. Often time’s you’ll have trouble saying no to someone’s communication because you don’t want to damage the relationship. You’re better off just turning your chats off in the first place.

Tip #6: Learn to Recognize Seemingly Urgent But Unproductive Behaviors

Do you really need to watch that 2 minute video that someone just uploaded? Do you really need to respond to that provocative comment?

A lot of the content you see on social media is designed to be inherently attention catching. They can seem urgent. But when you look at them objectively, you’ll find that it’s really counter productive to spend your time on it. Whenever you’re tempted to click on a link, ask yourself: “Is this really going to forward my business?”

Tip #7: Don’t Do It Alone

Doing social media alone is a big pitfall for many reasons.

First, there’s nobody to tell you when you’re going off course. Second, it’s easy to get distracted and not get things done if there’s nobody you’re accountable to. Third, you have nobody to share your triumphs with, which makes social media less exciting.

Having someone to share your social media ventures with gives you a strong framework to work in. Sharing your projects with a supervisor, a peer, with your business partner or with fellow online entrepreneurs can really help boost your social media focus.

Tip #8: Stay Focused on Learning One Thing at a Time

Social media users often try to take on far too much at once. They try to learn how to run a contest, how to learn new software, how to use a new social network and so on all at the same time.

Each task individually might not seem like it’s challenging to learn. But when you pile your plate high with new things, you’re going to have a scattered attention span. That sense of being scattered will cause you to be more easily distracted. It’ll also take you longer to learn any skill than if you learned them thoroughly one at a time.

Learn to focus on learning one thing at a time. Once you master that one thing, then you can take on something else.

Tip #9: Use Tools to Condense Your Sessions

It’s nearly impossible to focus on your work if you have to log into Twitter, Facebook and other social networks many times throughout the day. But many audiences do expect you to post updates throughout the day.

That’s why it’s absolutely crucial that you use tools like HootSuite (shown below) and TweetDeck to schedule posts and updates. These tools allow you to communicate at the frequency that your followers expect, without having to distract yourself from your workday all the time.

Tip #10: Be Metric Driven

When you’re accountable for delivering metrics and you use your social media time in a goal driven manner, you’re going to be much more productive. It’s when you’re just “doing social media” for the sake of doing it, without a goal, that tends to detract from focus.

If you don’t have clear metrics, you’ll have a hard time staying driven. After all, you won’t know when you’re doing things right and when you’re doing things wrong, so it really doesn’t matter what you do. But when you have clear metrics, you’ll know exactly when you’re on track and when you’re not.

What you track improved. Track your social media progress.

These ten tips will help you stay focused on your social media activities, so you progress quickly in the social sphere and so your social media activities don’t detract from the rest of your workday.

All-in-One Social Media Checklist

by Nicole Munoz

Though the term “social media” groups social networks like LinkedIn, Google+ and Facebook all in one bucket, in reality they’re all quite different. Each one has a different kind of communication style and each one has different tools you can use to promote your business.

Here’s a list of the various different kinds of activities you can do on each site.

Facebook Activity List

Post a Photo – Whenever you have an in person event, post a photo. If you’re launching a new product, you can also post photos of the product. Photos are inherently more eye catching than text.

Add a Milestone – Your timeline plays a big role in how people view your overall Facebook presence. Use milestones to make important things in your timeline stand out.

Create a Group – Facebook groups are powerful community building tools. You can create a very vibrant community of people who share ideas with one another using a Facebook group.

Create a Page – A Facebook page is a great place to host your brand’s social media presence. It’s the ideal way to relate to social media fans as a brand. Unlike a personal account that has a cap on the number of friends you can have, with a page you have no such cap.

Invite People to Your Page – You can “suggest” a page to your entire network of contacts. If your friends like what you’re up to, there’s a good chance they’ll join your page.

Google+ Activity List

Have a Quality Profile Photo – This is more important than on any other social network, because your profile photo will actually show up in Google searches. People will see the picture you put up actually displayed on the search results page for your name when they Google you.

Check Your Description – Your Google+ profile shows up in search engines as a combination of your tagline, your occupation, your employment information and your introduction, in that order. Make sure you have a stellar tagline and complete job information filled out to maximize your brand impact.

Separate People into Circles – One of Google+’s most important features is the ability to separate people into different circles. Take advantage of this feature to group your followers into categories that make sense. Tailor your updates to different groups of people according to their interests.

Encourage Google +1s – Google +1s influence your search rankings more than any other social media vote. It’s more influential than Facebook likes or Twitter retweets. Get as many +1s as you can by actively asking readers and followers to +1 you.

Get Your Account Verified – Once you have 1,000 followers, get your account verified. You’ll get a “Verified” badge on your Google+ page, which helps build credibility.

Twitter Activity List

Setup Your Bio – Setup your bio or tagline to catch people’s attention to moment they land on your Twitter page.

Customize Your Background – Having a strong background can really change the first impression of your Twitter page. A well crafted custom background that matches your brand can really “wow” your audience.

Tweet Often – Twitter has a culture of high frequency posts. Use tools like Seesmic or TweetDeck to schedule your tweets.

Post Your #FFs –Follow Fridays is your chance to recommend people to follow. If you think there’s an expert people in your space should really know about, recommend them on Follow Fridays with the #FF hashtag.

Use @Mentions wisely – When someone says something you’re interested in, @reply them. If someone @mentions you, @mention them back. Build communication loops.

LinkedIn Activity List

Add Keywords to Your LinkedIn Profile – Potential employers and partners will often look for contacts by doing keyword searches. Look at other people in your industry and see what kind of keywords they’re using and make sure you’ve got the same keywords in your profile.

Join and Participate in Groups – Groups are a fantastic place to meet other people who’re in the same field as you. Join groups and be an active participant. Offer advice where you can and network.

Complete Your Work History – The more comprehensive you are with your work experience, the easier you make it for other people to get a sense for who you are. Many employers won’t even consider candidates who don’t have their career information fully filled out.

Get as Many Recommendations as Possible – Comb through your network and look for people who harbor goodwill towards you. Ask them to give you a recommendation.

Actively Seek Out Connections – Look for people who’re one degree of separation away from you whom you want to meet. Don’t be shy about asking people in your network for connections. As long as you make it clear that you’re someone who gives valuable advice, people will generally be more than happy to make a referral for you.

As you can tell, each social network works a bit differently than other networks. Each network has participants interact with one another in slightly different ways. Tailor your daily activity lists to the specific social network you’re working on.

What to Include in Your Social Media Plan

by Nicole Munoz

Your social media plan is like the rails that your social media train runs on. Without the rails, the train could still move quickly – But it would just run everywhere, and quite possibly be dangerous. The same goes for social media.

You can spend a lot of time on social media without actually getting much done. You can even damage your brand by spending too much frivolous time on social media. On the flip side, with a strong social media plan, social media can be an incredibly powerful tool for building your brand and your following.

So what should you include in your social media plan?

Core Goals and Metrics to Track

To start with, you should have your core goals and your core metrics figured out right at the very beginning.

Begin with your goals. What do you want to use social media for? Are you trying to meet JV partners? Are you trying to land speaking engagements? Are you trying to expose your brand to more people? Are you trying to build up your follower count? Are you trying to drive traffic to your site and get actual buyers?

The metrics you’d track stem directly from your goals. For example, if you’re trying to build up your follower count, you might track virality and new followers per day as your core metrics. On the other hand, if you’re trying to make sales, visitors to your website might be your most important metric.

You can’t have a good social media plan without clear goals. Start your planning by figuring out what your goals are, then pick your core metrics to track.

What Social Media Sites You Plan to Cover

Your plan should cover exactly which social networks you plan to be on. The networks you use depend mostly on who you’re trying to reach.

Let’s say you’re trying to land more speaking gigs. In this case, being on Facebook might not be the best way to reach your target audience. Instead, getting on LinkedIn is probably your best avenue, followed by Twitter.

Don’t neglect smaller social networks either. For reaching an early adopter crowd, Google+ could be a very viable option. Smaller communities might have their own social networks setup on Ning (as shown below).

The long and short of it is this: Go where your audience is.

Breakdown of How to Spend Your Time

Your plan should have a detailed outline of how you plan to spend your time. For example, your plan might look something like this:

Monday: 30 Minutes Scheduling Facebook Posts, 30 Minutes Scheduling Twitter Tweets
Tuesday: 30 Minutes Replying to Messages, 30 Minutes Posting on LinkedIn Q&A
Wednesday: 60 Minutes Post on Forums, Comment on Blogs
Thursday: Repeat Monday
Friday: Repeat Tuesday

Try to segment your activities into different “buckets.” When your time in one bucket runs out, move on. Don’t let yourself get sucked into one thing for too long.

List of Essential Actions

What are the most important things you have to get done every week?

If you’re trying to land speaking gigs, then an essential action should be to respond to any conference organizer within 3 business hours. It doesn’t matter what else you’re doing, this takes precedence.

If you’re trying to build a social media following, your essential action might be not missing a post. You have a schedule and you stick to it rigidly. If something might detract you from hitting your posting deadline, those things have to wait.

Having a list of your essential actions can help you prioritize tasks in a busy work environment.

A Plan for Outreach & Connection Building

Two things you should have as part of your plan are building your audience and deepening your connection with your community.

Your outreach strategy should be, again, tailored to your goals. If you’re trying to reach influencers, you might comment on their blogs for several weeks before shooting them a direct Twitter message. If you’re trying to build a Facebook audience, your strategy might involve putting out innovative content every month.

As for building connections, the most important thing to realize on social media is the value of a single person. It’s easy to get lost in the statistics and the crowd of a thousand likes. But often time’s your biggest breakthroughs – PR7 links, JV opportunities, speaking gigs, etc – Will come from the most unexpected places.

Whenever you can, reach out and get in touch with people one on one. Acknowledge your fans and build real connections.

Adjust Your Plan When Needed

Don’t treat your plan as something that’s set in stone. Treat it as something that’s organic. Your plan should grow as you grow and as your audience grows.

Figure out what’s working and what isn’t about your social media plan, then adjust your plan accordingly. Treat your plan as a living document. Use it as a tool to keep yourself and your company on track as you head towards your goals.

How to Plan an Event Using Pinterest

by Nicole Munoz

Planning an event involves juggling many different balls and handling a lot of different people. If you happen to be a visual person, one of the most creative ways to help you manage this whole process is Pinterest.

Pinterest is an online photo sharing tool that works a lot like a virtual corkboard. Just “pin” up pictures of what you want to organize on this virtual corkboard and share it with other people, who may also want to pin up ideas for your event.

Here are some suggestions on how to plan an event using Pinterest.

Step 1: Create a Board

To create a board, click “Add” in the upper right corner.

Click “Create a Board.”

Enter your board’s details. If you are planning a public event and want to build interest for your event, choose a name that is very descriptive and something interested parties would be interested in. For example, if you’re organizing a business seminar, use seminar’s name and planned date for the event. Or if you’re planning your wedding and want to build up excitement, use the name of the bride and groom.

Step 2: Install the Pin It Button

Throughout the process of planning an event, you’re going to have to pin a lot of images. While you can pin each image individually by uploading it or pointing to a web address, the fastest method by far is by installing the Pin It button.

To install the Pin It button, click “About” then “Pin It Button.”

Drag your Pin It Button to your bookmarks.

This will allow you to use the “Pin It” at the top of your browser to pin photos from whatever page you happen to be visiting.

Step 3: Create Boards for Each Category

What are some of the most important things you need to organize and share in your event?

For a party, you might want to have:

Entertainment
Food
Music

For planning a business seminar, you might want to have:

Guest speakers
Location (hotels, conference halls, etc)
Food
Equipment (microphones, projectors, etc)

Before you begin, brainstorm a list of categories that you will need to plan and then proceed to create boards for all those categories. That will make it easier to pin as you start getting into the groove of researching ideas. All you have to do is pin and keep going.

Step 4: Add Pins to Your Board

To add pins to your board, simply navigate to a relevant webpage and click “Pin It.” Choose the image you want to pin, then select its board and give it a description. If you plan to collaborate on your panning, make sure to list some pros/cons or reasons for wanting to consider the particular item.

Rinse and repeat until you’ve pinned up all kinds of interesting or useful photographs on your various boards.

Step 5: Invite Collaborators

Few events are organized by single individuals. Instead, most events are organized by people brainstorming. One of the best ways to use Pinterest is to have other people also add photos and ideas to your Pinterest boards.

To invite others, click “Edit” under the board in which you want collaborators.

Select “Me and Contributors” under “Who can pin?” Then add the names of the people who you want to participate.

Step 6: More Ways to Use Pinterest for Planning Your Event

There are so many ways you can use Pinterest to help plan your event. You can …

Help brainstorm ideas. For example, if you’re picking flowers, you can pin 30 different kinds of flowers that you might consider. Take a vote or simply get some feedback if the end decision belongs to you.
Create a photo guestbook. Pin a picture of everyone who is attending or who you want to attend.
Create to-do lists. For example, you could create a Pinterest board that has only photos of things that you need to buy before the event.
Activities. Use the Pinterest board to show people what kind of activities they might expect.
Brainstorm. Use a Pinterest board just for sharing wacky ideas.
Share photos after. After the event, have everyone pin up their photos. It’s much more efficient than hoping everyone will tag everyone in their Facebook uploads.

Pinterest is a powerful tool for planning, managing and hosting an event. Use it to help make the whole process smoother, easier and more creative.

10 Creative Ways to use Pinterest for Business

by Nicole Munoz

Pinterest_for_Business Pinterest is the fastest website in history to hit more than 10 million unique monthly visitor – Faster than Facebook, faster than Twitter and faster than Google. It went from 4.8 million unique in November 2011 to 11 million in January 2012, a mere three months.

While many business people consider Pinterest to be a small site, it’s really not. Its user base is already huge and it’s growing at an astoundingly fast face. Business owners simply can’t afford to ignore Pinterest anymore.

Over 80% of Pinterest users are women. Pinterest is a powerful tool for interacting with female buyers and decision makers online. Here are ten creative ways to use Pinterest for your business.

1 – Buzz for Your Product with a Photo Contest

Pinterest is a great platform for contests. You can use it in conjunction with another tool like Facebook to organize the details of the contest.

Host a contest for the best pin of pictures of your product or wearing your logo gear being used in the real world. People from all over the world will pin photos of your product in action or sharing your brand, bringing in more traffic and free branding.

2 – Become an Authority on Pinterest

Much like on Twitter, Facebook and the blogosphere, one of the best ways to get attention is by providing high quality content.

If there’s an industry you know like the back of your hand, create content-based boards that give other people ideas and help solve problems. Keep doing this until people see you as an authority on Pinterest.

3 – Shopping Lists

Create helpful shopping lists. For example, let’s say you run a party supply company.

You might create a Pinterest board for each different kind of party: Kids’ party, surprise party, office party, etc.

For each party, create pins as shopping lists. For example, a kid’s party would need a cake, party hats, noise blowers, confetti and so on.

Provide real value with your pins and if it’s appropriate you can slip your own products in there.

4 – Add the Price Tag to Suggest a Gift

Have you noticed how some items on Pinterest have a price tag on them? You can do this just by adding the price in the description while using the $ symbol.

For example, if you say “This bowl only $9.99” the price tag $9.99 will appear on the image and it will also appear in the “Gifts” category.

5 – Market Research

Use Pinterest as a market research tool.

What are your customers thinking? What do they want to buy? What are their hopes and dreams? What products are trending?

Figuring out the answers to these questions has traditionally been quite tough.

With Pinterest however, you have a live feed of exactly what everyone in your target market is thinking about and cares about right now.

6 – Product Bundles

Use Pinterest to create product bundles. Group several different items together and promote the whole package as a bundle.

You can even put out product bundles on a regular basis. For example, if every week people know that you’ll have four product bundles out, they’ll subscribe to your feed to see if you release a bundle that they’ll be interested in.

7 – Future Product Ideas

What kind of ideas is your company considering?

One way to let your users participate in the decision making process is to just throw up all the possible ideas on a Pinterest board.

If there are ten different products and ten different directions your company could take, just throw them all up there and let your customers decide.

8 – Coupon Pinboard

A coupon pinboard can help you give value to your customers by helping them save money while giving you a chance to promote your own products.

Create a pinboard out of all the coupons and discount codes you can find in your industry. Slip a couple of your own in there as well. Customers who’re looking to cut costs will come, find your pin board and buy from both your recommendations and from your company.

9 – Show the Behind the Scenes

How is your product made? What does your back office look like? Who runs the company? What ingredients or components go into your product?

Believe it or not, consumers are actually very curious about the behind the scenes of the products they purchase. One fun and education pin board you could create is the “making of” photos of your products.

10 – Vision Board

Create a pin board of where you want your company to go in one, five and ten years. Use this to guide your decisions and boost employee moral.

What products do you want to be selling? What customers do you want to be serving? What countries do you want to operate out of? What size do you want your business to scale to? What should your office look like?

How Following on Pinterest Works

One of the core features of Pinterest is the ability to follow other people’s pins. By following them, you cause their pins to appear in your feed. They’ll also see that you’re following them, making it more likely that they’ll follow you in return. Here’s how to find people and boards to follow.

Finding People You Know

If you have already connected your Facebook account to your Pinterest account, it’s easy to find people you know. To find and follow the pins of your existing connections, just hover your mouse over your name in the upper right corner. This causes the drop-down menu to appear. Click “Find Friends.”

You’ll be taken to a page with all your friends’ names displayed. Just click “Follow” to follow them.

NOTE: When you choose to follow a specific person, this will have you follow all their boards and their pins. Alternatively, you can choose to follow specific boards only.

Follow Specific Boards Only

What if you only want to follow a specific board and not all of a person’s pins? You can do that and it’s a feature that’s useful if you only have some interests in common. Just click on their name, which will bring you to their profile page.

On their profile page, choose the specific board you want to follow and click “Follow” at the bottom of that board’s detail.

If, it at some later point, you want to follow all the boards of the individual, just go to their profile and click “Follow” from that page, instead of just on the board.

Finding Boards from People You Don’t Know

One rich source of images and ideas is boards by other people. People you don’t know. To find these boards, just click “Everything” along the top. A drop-down menu will appear with the topics of all the boards you might be interested in. Pick a topic.

A large feed of boards will appear. Click on a specific board to open the board. Click on a name to view that person’s profile. If you see a board or person you like, just follow them by clicking “follow” as shown above.

By selectively following people who pique your interest, you’ll be able to create a diverse, interesting and stimulating feed of pins for you on your home page.

That’s all it takes to start following people and just like it’s easy to follow them, you can remove a board or person from your stream, just as easily.

Pinterest and Potential Copyright Concerns

One of the big concerns that plagues the Pinterest community is the question of copyright. Simply grabbing an image off the web and putting it on a board could be perceived as copyright infringement.

Is Pinterest legal?

At the moment, there is no concrete court ruling that answers one way or the other. These are the most important things you need to know about Pinterest copyright issues before you jump right in and get started.

User Holds All Copyright Risks

Pinterest does not take responsibility for the content on its website.

According to Pinterest’s Terms of Service, the user takes explicit responsibility for any and all images that are posted on their Pinterest account.

By using Pinterest, the user agrees that in the case of a copyright lawsuit they and they alone are responsible.

Here’s an excerpt from the terms:

“[Y]ou either are the sole and exclusive owner of all Member Content that you make available through the Site, Application and Services or you have all rights, licenses, consents and releases that are necessary to grant to Cold Brew Labs the rights in such Member Content, as contemplated under these Terms.”

Furthermore, Pinterest’s Terms of Service agreement say that not only is the user responsible for any damages and legal fees that arise out of a lawsuit, but they’re responsible for Pinterest’s legal fees as well if Pinterest gets sued as a result of a copyright infringement on their account.

Is Pinterest “Fair Use?”

Again, there is no precedent setting case for Pinterest yet. However, the rough consensus by the lawyers who’ve looked at Pinterest say “probably not.”

In order for the use of an image to fall under fair use, the image must be used for parody, journalistic reporting, for commenting, for teaching or for research.

While a case can be made that Pinterest is a means of commenting on an image, it’s a weak argument. Most lawyers agree that Pinterest probably does not fall under the fair use act.

Kelly vs. Arriba Soft Corp – Thumbnails

One case that’s often brought up in relation to Pinterest is Kelly vs. Arriba Soft Corp, where a search engine was sued for using thumbnails of images. The court ruled that the defendant was not guilty of infringement, because they only published thumbnails and not the entire images.

However, this case does not really set a precedent for Pinterest, because Pinterest actually stores the entire image on their servers.

While a loose connection can be made between the Kelly vs. Arriba Soft Corp case and Pinterest, most legal experts also agree that this case doesn’t give Pinterest much protection.

Appropriate Image Credit May Not Be Provided

Pinterest is a thriving community because users can pin images they find and they can also repin images. The ability to provide appropriate credit for images sources relies on the person who originally pinned the content to provide that appropriate credit.

To break it down, here are a couple of examples of potential issues:

Instead of pinning from a website, a user decides to save the image to their computer and upload the pin. The original “pinner” has not provided appropriate credit for the image. Unfortunately, it doesn’t stop there. Once anyone else repins the image will further perpetrate the problem.

Licenses to use specific images are often negotiated through 3^rd parties. For example, if a blogger purchases a license to a stock photo, the blogger is usually only allowed to publish that photo on their own website. They do not have the license to allow others to republish that photo, but through the use of Pinterest, this can happen. So while someone might pin a photo on a blog post and provide appropriate credit to the blog post, the blogger is not the actual source of the image.

There are many other scenarios that can play out and can potentially be problematic. It’s definitely something to think about with your participation in Pinterest.

Site Owners Can Opt Out

To combat copyright issues, Pinterest has recently crafted a special piece of code that allows site owners to prevent their images from being pinned. The code looks like this and should be placed in the header of your HTML.

When someone attempts to pin a photo from a website with this coding on it, they will see message that looks this:

Of course this won’t necessarily stop copyright lawsuits as it requires website owners to be aware of the code. It also doesn’t preclude people from simply going to Google Images and pinning the images from there instead. However, it is one small step in the right direction for website owners who don’t want their content pinned.

So the question remains…is Pinterest legal? Or does it promote copyright infringement? Right now Pinterest lies in a legal grey area that will likely need to get cleared up as the site progresses.

Pinterest is an extremely fast growing website that’s only going to get more and more relevant as time passes. Are you ready to get involved?

Install Application

Connect to Profile & Pages

How it Looks

Choose Your Button and Customize

Recommend People to Follow

Preview & Get Code

LinkedIn Account Signup & Profile

Find Connections & Accept Connection Request on LinkedIn

Posting & Viewing Updates in LinkedIn

Sending Updates/Tweets to and from Twitter and LinkedIn

How To Add Social Networks

How To Add/Schedule Messages

When to Hire a Social Media Manager

What to Look for in a Social Media Manager

Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn – Where to start?

Start Ranking Now will establish your online presence by creating social media profiles with links back to your main sites. We will then proceed to build out your profiles and enter into the conversation by posting updates to your profiles on a regular basis.

Tip #1: Keep Your Business & Personal Accounts Separate

Tip #2: Do Not Multitask

Tip #3: Have a Daily Action Plan

Tip #4: Do Your Social Media When Your Work is Finished

Tip #5: Avoid Chats

Tip #6: Learn to Recognize Seemingly Urgent But Unproductive Behaviors

Tip #7: Don’t Do It Alone

Tip #8: Stay Focused on Learning One Thing at a Time

Tip #9: Use Tools to Condense Your Sessions

Tip #10: Be Metric Driven

Facebook Activity List

Google+ Activity List

Twitter Activity List

LinkedIn Activity List

Core Goals and Metrics to Track

What Social Media Sites You Plan to Cover

Breakdown of How to Spend Your Time

List of Essential Actions

A Plan for Outreach & Connection Building

Adjust Your Plan When Needed

Step 1: Create a Board

Step 2: Install the Pin It Button

Step 3: Create Boards for Each Category

Step 4: Add Pins to Your Board

Step 5: Invite Collaborators

Step 6: More Ways to Use Pinterest for Planning Your Event

1 – Buzz for Your Product with a Photo Contest

2 – Become an Authority on Pinterest

3 – Shopping Lists

4 – Add the Price Tag to Suggest a Gift

5 – Market Research

6 – Product Bundles

7 – Future Product Ideas

8 – Coupon Pinboard

9 – Show the Behind the Scenes

10 – Vision Board

How Following on Pinterest Works

Finding People You Know

Follow Specific Boards Only

Finding Boards from People You Don’t Know

Pinterest and Potential Copyright Concerns

Is Pinterest legal?

User Holds All Copyright Risks

Is Pinterest “Fair Use?”

Kelly vs. Arriba Soft Corp – Thumbnails

Appropriate Image Credit May Not Be Provided

Site Owners Can Opt Out

Follow Nicole’s Pinterest boards for Start Ranking’s Now design portfolio examples or Infusionsoft tips.