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5 Great Pinterest Marketing Resources

pinterest marketing resourcesIs your brand getting great marketing results from Pinterest?
Check out these handy Pinterest marketing resources to do even better.

Pinterest is a fantastic marketing tool that is under-utilized by countless brands. By now, it’s likely that you at least have a brand account setup on Pinterest for your business, but maybe it’s just sitting there, just a handful of pins on a board or two, quietly waiting for something to happen. But what if you spent just a little more time on Pinterest?

Would you be surprised if I told you that Pinterest can be a huge driver of highly-engaged traffic to your website? Would you be happy to achieve an SEO boost? Would you like to see conversion rates on your site go up?

Pinterest can deliver all those things and more. As a visually-oriented social network, highly focused on lifestyle categories, Pinterest can also have a huge impact on your brand position. There are a lot of reasons to kick up your Pinterest activity, and fortunately, there are also a ton of great Pinterest marketing resources out there you can use to crank up your Pinterest performance in almost no time. Here are some of the best articles and resources I’ve found recently that you can use to leverage this powerful marketing opportunity:

1 – Interesting Pinterest Stats You Should Know About – Business 2 Community

It’s always helpful to understand the current state of a social network if you’re going to get the most out of your time there. This handy list of important stats compiled by the folks at Business 2 Community highlights some of the most current and interesting facts about Pinterest. Check out this article.

2 – How to Drive Traffic to Your Website With Pinterest – Social Media Examiner

Social Media Examiner is a wealth of information, and this podcast definitely delivers some extremely valuable tips. Pinterest is a massive driver of website traffic, and this podcast/article covers a selection of great tips on how to structure your pins for maximum engagement. Check out this article.

3 – How to Drive Traffic and Reach New Users with Pinterest – AddThis

If your website doesn’t have a functional and effective social media sharing tool on it, check out AddThis. They have several valuable articles in their knowledge base, such as this one that features a bunch of tips for setting up your Pinterest profile, setting up ‘rich pins’, and properly integrating ‘Pin It’ buttons throughout your website. Check out this article.

4 – How Pinterest Drives Online Commerce [Infographic] – Shopify

Not only does Pinterest drive a ton of traffic, but that traffic is extremely engaged and much more likely to convert on ecommerce sites. Shopify has crafted a beautiful and informative infographic detailing some significant points for marketers managing ecommerce sites. Check out this article.

5 – How To Drive 3x More Traffic To Your Blog With Pinterest – Blogging Wizard

Just because you may not be selling a physical product or marketing a lifestyle brand doesn’t mean you can’t capitalize on Pinterest. Bloggers can, too. Elna Cain produced this great article at Blogging Wizard highlighting some great tips for generating traffic to your blog using Pinterest. Check out this article.

In addition to these great Pinterest marketing resources, why not check out this episode of the Marketing Doubleshot podcast where we talk about how Pinterest often functions more as a search engine than what we would consider a pure social media site. – Listen to Ep.11 – Pinterest the Search Engine & Agencies Making Software

So don’t wait. Pinterest is ready and waiting to start pouring traffic in to your website. Just be sure to follow solid tips like these and you’ll be reaping the benefits soon enough. If you’re already seeing gains from using Pinterest for your brand, why not jump in to the comments here and let me know your best Pinterest tips. I’d love to hear them!

The Best Money You’ll Ever Spend on SEO, Social, and Content

You may have all the technology and expertise in the world at your disposal, but do you have this crucial element to SEO, content and social media success?

the best money you'll ever spend on seo, social and contentDo you have a fantastic SEO platform? Or you do have an amazing agency like PPC agency in Austin, to help you with your SEO? A beautiful piece of software, with all the data dots connected, and all the keyword bells and social media whistles that you could ever ask for? If your brand has a culture that is forward-thinking enough to recognize how crucial a tool like this is to the success of your digital marketing, then I hope the answer is yes.

But that’s not the only thing that demands your precious marketing dollars. Are you promoting your posts to precision-targeted audiences on Facebook? Gaining a following on Twitter by advertising your best stuff to key influencers? Utilizing all the many paid search tools to drive traffic to your brilliant content? Does your site position you as a leader in your industry? Looking for a team of skillfull web designers? Go to https://sandcastle-web.com/services/website-design/ for more details.

All these magnificent things are not cheap, but they are certainly worth it . . . IF you’ve also made another important little investment. An investment in great people.

Don’t underestimate what it takes to win in SEO, Social, & Content Marketing

It’s no secret that the biggest bottleneck in content marketing (and by extension, SEO and social) is TIME. It takes a huge amount of time to develop truly great content that delivers value, ranks in search, and resonates throughout social media. This is one of the biggest stumbling blocks that brands hit when developing their content marketing strategies and social plans. Most brands just don’t have enough people to actually execute what is needed to outpace competition and gain more ground in their markets and to achieve Sustainability In Marketing.

I mean, on their own each thing you do for digital content doesn’t seem very daunting, and this is part of the perception that makes content ‘seem’ easier than it actually is. Seriously, how long does it take to write a 500 word blog post? But what about 4 or 5 of them? Maybe add a whitepaper in there, too? Throw together a handful of tweets every day? A few Facebook posts? Couple of things for LinkedIn? Pic for Instagram? And let’s not forget the time needed to crush it on YouTube. It adds up fast. Best software for posting to Google My Business automatically will allow you to share photos, announce sales or specials, showcase new products, and list upcoming events.

But that’s just reality, isn’t it? I mean, you can’t just ‘buy’ time, can you?

clock-1274699_640Yeah, actually, you can buy time.

What if I told you for the low, low price of a single person’s salary, you could flat-out BUY dozens more hours every week? Because that’s exactly what you’re doing when you hire people. Every person you bring on is paying your brand back with their time. All of it. Every day.

Hiring great people gives you their time, their expertise, and their knowledge to execute your strategies and tactics. Without great people to action those ideas and plans, they’re nothing more than decorations on Powerpoint slides.

1+1 = 2, mostly. Sometimes it’s 3. Possibly 4?

This is really basic math. When you go from one content writer to two, that’s instantly doubling the amount of content you can churn out. That’s two times the amount of original, fresh, relevant and valuable content for your brand to rank in search and share in social.

Yeah, it’s that simple, and it scales in huge ways. Once those two writers begin to develop synergies, sharing valuable research, conducting brainstorming sessions, etc, you’ll find that your content team becomes more than just the sum of its parts. They now have the support they need to do more than they could on their own.

Investing in people pays the biggest dividends of any dollar you spend in SEO, social, and content. People give you the ability to action what you’ve been told by all the data that you have in your analytics tools and platforms, and put in motion all the advice coming from your agencies and consultants. Great people and their time are the best things you can buy for your brand.

Marketing Doubleshot Podcast – Ep.11 – Pinterest the Search Engine & Agencies Making Software

In this episode, Jonathan Barrick and Josh Muirhead discuss how Pinterest and its search mechanics combine with other key aspects of the platform to bring power to digital marketers, and a recent article about how marketing agencies should be taking a good hard look at software as a competitive differentiator.

Links and resources mentioned in this episode:

Pinterest – pinterest.com

25 Pinterest Stats, Facts & PR Best Practices – www.cision.com/us/2015/01/25-pin…r-best-practices/

Jim Dougherty – twitter.com/leaderswest

Why ad agencies need to become software companies – www.businessesgrow.com/2015/10/13/ad…re-companies/

Mark Schaefer’s {grow} blog – www.businessesgrow.com/blog/

Marketing Doubleshot Podcast – Ep.10 – Ad Blocking & Missing out on the Mobile Moment

In this episode, Jonathan Barrick and Josh Muirhead discuss the latest in digital ad blocking developments, and the ‘mobile moment’ that many brands and marketers are approaching from the wrong angle.

Links and resources mentioned in this episode:

The Verge – Welcome to hell: Apple vs. Google vs. Facebook and the slow death of the web – www.theverge.com/2015/9/17/933896…death-of-the-web

Mark Schaefer’s {grow} blog – www.businessesgrow.com/blog/

Luke Wroblewski – Product Director at Google – twitter.com/lukewwww.lukew.com/

Hotel Tonight – http://hoteltonight.com

Marketing Doubleshot Podcast – Ep.9 – Content Calendar Strategy & Being Adaptable in the Gig Economy

In this episode, Jonathan Barrick and Josh Muirhead discuss ways to be more strategic when planning your content calendar, and how important it is to be adaptable in the current digital marketing career economy.

Links and resources mentioned in this episode:

Content Marketing Institute

CMI Content Calendar Template -> How to Put Together an Editorial Calendar for Content Marketing

Gary Vaynerchuk – Gary on Twitter @garyvee

Marketing Doubleshot Podcast – Ep.8 – Digital Marketing Career Trends & Online Engagement Driving Offline Action

In this episode, Jonathan Barrick and Josh Muirhead discuss three recent trends in digital marketing careers and an initiative by Google to more effectively measure the effects of online engagement (specifically SEM) on retail store visits.


Links and resources mentioned in this episode:

Fast Company -> www.fastcompany.com/

Search Engine Land -> Google Launches “Store Visits” Metric In AdWords, To Help Prove Online-To-Offline Impact – searchengineland.com/google-store-v…adwords-211254

Search Engine Land -> AdWords Brand CPCs Rising? Here’s Why And What You Can Do About It –searchengineland.com/adwords-brand-…res-can-225648

 

Marketing Doubleshot Podcast – Ep.7 – SEM Reporting with Causation & Some Brands “Going Dark” on Social Media

In this episode, Jonathan Barrick and Josh Muirhead discuss how marketers can get better understanding of their SEM efforts by mapping actions and events in their reporting and finding true correlation and causation, and explore why some brands have made the puzzling decision to ‘go dark’ on social media and shift to an advertising-only model.


Links and resources mentioned in this episode:

3-Part Introductory Guide to Adwords & SEM by Sean Clark:

  1. http://seanclark.com/pay-per-click/a-guide-to-adwords-making-ppc-work-for-your-business/
  2. http://seanclark.com/google/a-guide-to-adwords-creating-your-first-adwords-campaign/
  3. http://seanclark.com/google/a-guide-to-adwords-launching-your-first-adwords-campaign/

Sean Clark’s website: http://seanclark.com and on Twitter: http://twitter.com/seanclark

Digital Marketing & Analytics: Five Deadly Myths De-mythified! on Occam’s Razor Blog by Avinash Kaushik: http://www.kaushik.net/avinash/digital-marketing-analytics-deadly-myths-de-mythified/

Avinash on Twitter: http://twitter.com/avinash

3 Questions Great Websites Always Answer

website19Great websites that convert visitors to customers answer these three questions.

Creating a great website requires much more than the latest widgets or a shiny new set of graphics. Truly great websites are those that not only deliver an impressive user experience, but also clear and concise answers to the top questions your visitors will have. The ability for your visitors to clearly understand the answers to their key questions directly affects their impressions of your brand and their view of the value you provide. Clarity, as you will see, is a key element of a great website.

The specific needs that your visitors have will definitely vary significantly from person to person, as everyone will have a unique set of circumstances that drove them to find you. However, before you are able to deliver solutions for their unique situation, your website must deliver clear and direct answers to these three overarching questions:

WHO

WHAT

WHY

WHO are you? – This is all about the identity of your brand. In essence, do they already know you? If they do, will they recognize you apart from your competitors? The importance of first impressions on your website cannot be emphasized enough. It can be something as simple as a unique and identifiable logo, tagline, or colour scheme. Whatever it is that makes your brand unique and identifiable, you must ensure that your website conveys this in a clear and effective way.

WHAT do you do? – This is all about what it is you actually do. Does your visitor know at a glance that you make product X, or deliver service Y? What’s the basic, core function of your brand? There are countless brands out there that have instantly recognizable logos or taglines, but are victim to the lack of clarity around what it is they actually do. Your website should answer this immediately, and with perfect clarity.

WHY should I care? – This is arguably the toughest of the three main questions you need to answer. Most brands have a clear idea of who they are, and what they do. All too often, however, they do not have the clarity they need to effectively convey WHY they do what they do, and WHY visitors should care. If your brand doesn’t have a definitive reason for being, a purpose, a mission, a core difference or driving passion, then to your visitors you might just be viewed as simply ‘another option’.

Go take a look at your website. Right now. Look at the home page and ask yourself those three main questions. Better yet, find someone else to do it and see what they say. Wanna bet their answers are different from yours? If they are, take a good long look at what the answers SHOULD be, and start tweaking.

list59Also, don’t forget to do the same kind of test to other pages that serve as entry points to your site. It’s crucial to always remember that search engines drive your traffic to the most relevant pages, and this is not always your home page. Check your Google Analytics to identify other top entry pages and work on refining those, too.

The name of the game is ‘optimization’, and that means continually tweaking and adjusting for best performance, so be sure to do this regularly. Your visitors, and your bottom line, will appreciate the effort!

Step-by-Step Social Media Presence Guide

The smart folks over at Intuit put together this brilliant easy-to-follow infographic for businesses that are either new at social communications, or are looking to boost the effectiveness of their social presence in 2013.

Any business struggling to wrap their head around ‘where to start’ in social will undoubtedly find this month-by-month plan extremely helpful in making a social media action plan less daunting and more achievable.

Link to Intuit Small Business Blog -> http://blog.intuit.com/marketing/manage-social-media-the-easy-way-in-2013-infographic/attachment/intuit_2013_socialroadmap/

Twitter is Stupid. (until you realize…)

by Jonathan Barrickimage

Twitter is one of the world’s most popular social networks, but many still see it as pointless, inane and trite. (Yes, even today there are TONS of people who believe this to be true) They’re looking at it all wrong.

Here’s why: In a recent discussion I had with a group of tech-savvy  young adults, I posed the question “How many of you have Twitter accounts?” – Only two hands raised.

Next question: “How many of you think Twitter is the stupidest thing ever?” – Nearly everyone’s hand thrust in to the air. Reasons like ‘I don’t care what people have for lunch, the Kardashians are awful, etc’ were not uncommon to hear from this group in response to this particular query.

Ok, let’s talk about something else: “How many of you watch TV?” – Everyone’s hand up.

“Anyone hear of a show called ‘Toddlers & Tiaras’?” – Laughter from the group.

“How many of you think that is the dumbest show on TV right now?” – Virtually every hand raises in agreement.

“So, I guess that everything on TV is stupid, then?” – As I scanned the crowd, I saw several faces change as they realized what I was saying.

Saying Twitter is ‘stupid’ is like saying all of TV is stupid. All newspapers, all magazines, all radio, all movies. EVERYTHING is stupid if that’s how we think.

The truth of the matter is that if all you’re tuning in to is the worst, most annoying things you can find on TV or on the radio, then EVERY kind of media will provide a horrible experience. Every person on Twitter is like their own TV channel, or radio station, and every tweet is it’s own show. Tune in to the channels that have the best shows, and your Twitter experience be awesome. Tune in to people that post junk, and you’ll hate it. It’s not the channel that’s stupid; it’s the content we choose to see. Ultimately, if your Twitter experience sucks, it’s your fault, not Twitters.

This is where the awesomeness of Twitter really comes from: CONTROL. Control to tune in to the things you like, and tune out of the things you don’t. You wouldn’t judge all of TV based on 2 minutes of Real Housewives. It’d be far more sensible to watch some Mythbusters, Big Bang Theory, Grey’s Anatomy, Property Brothers, and So You Think You Can Dance before casting your final judgment on the entire media.

image

A Twitter experience isn’t made in 2 minutes. It’s crafted over time. It occurs as you discover awesome people you’ve never heard of. It occurs when you begin to see the world differently because you’re exposed to the lives of interesting people from all over the globe. It occurs when you interact with them. It occurs when you inspire them, and are inspired by them.

So, if you’ve never tried Twitter because of stereotypical reasons relating to Hollywood gossip or updates about people’s food, then you need to at least give it a chance. Talk to someone you trust about who they follow and try out a handful of their top recommended “channels”. Really test things out, then make up your mind whether it’s for you or not.

If you’ve tried Twitter and left because all your friends were posting updates from the bar or sharing the latest and greatest cat meme pictures, maybe your friends aren’t who you should be following. Try business contacts. Try the top leaders in your profession. Try your favourite comedians. Try your favourite musicians. Try your favourite brands. Change channels until you find shows that you find interesting. With more than 140 million channels out there, you’re bound to find SOMETHING that delivers the goods.

Find something great, tune in, and enjoy the show!

This article originally written for http://crowdshifter.com