SEO Werkt!

If you’re doing more than a simple search on Google, you probably want those links to open in a new tab instead of the current one, so your original results are always available. Here’s how to make Google open your results in a new tab every time. More »

Are you looking to build a strong Pinterest following?

Did you know that you can integrate your Facebook and Pinterest marketing?

Yes, there’s a way to get Facebook fans to create exposure for you on Pinterest.

Establishing a large audience of followers on Pinterest is one of the most important aspects of a successful Pinterest marketing campaign.

Here’s the skinny: Although during the setup process you can choose to link your Pinterest account to your Facebook personal page, there is currently no way to automatically hook up to your Facebook fan page.

So what’s a business to do?

The truth is most business owners have not figured out a solution. They are failing on Pinterest because they think that they have to build a new following from scratch. Well, that is patently untrue.

Here are five ways to use Facebook to build your Pinterest following.

#1: Get a Pinterest Tab for Your Facebook Fan Page

The easiest thing to do is just go to Woobox and create a Pinterest tab for your Facebook fan page.

It’s very simple to do and requires little to no technical skills. Within minutes, you can have your Pinterest account in front of thousands of your fans! This way, whenever people come to your Facebook page to either check out your latest posts or learn more about you, they can also see that you are on Pinterest.

The Pinterest tab allows fans to view all of your boards and even your pins while staying on the Facebook platform. They will not be transferred over to Pinterest until they try to repin or comment on one of your pins.

#2: Post Pinterest Links as Updates on Your Facebook Page

There are a few different ways to use your Facebook status updates to promote your activity on Pinterest.

One way to build your follower base is to share the direct link to your Pinterest page as a status update and tell your fans WHY they should follow you on Pinterest.

What helpful information or cool contests will they have access to? Are there exclusive promotions? Why should they follow you on Pinterest AND Facebook?

The more specific you can be about the type of value you are creating for your followers on Pinterest, the more likely your fans will join you there too.

#3: Promote Specific Boards on Your Facebook Page

On Pinterest, people can choose to either follow all, or just a few, of your boards.

Because of that feature, you may find success promoting specific Pinterest boards on your Facebook fan page.

I recommend you promote a few different boards throughout the week.

That way, you have the opportunity to showcase your Pinterest account to a wider audience on Facebook, and you can introduce them to the diverse areas of value shared on your Pinterest page.

There are two ways you can promote a specific Pinterest board on Facebook.

• Update your status by uploading an image of a pin to Facebook. Add a description and include a link to the board on which that pin is featured.

This works well if you have a really compelling image, because it will be granted more space on the Facebook newsfeed than a link.

• Post the link to your Pinterest board as part of a status update. An image of one of your pins on that board will be automatically generated.

Posting the link will also automatically include the text in your board description.

Make sure that you add proper descriptions of the content when setting up your boards. I’m always amazed by how few people take advantage of this opportunity.

Look how brilliantly realtor Raj Qsar utilizes this space for his branding purposes.

His board description reads:

“Raj Qsar & Premier Orange County Real Estate – is one of the most dominant Real Estate Teams in the Orange County Real Estate Market. For over 15 years Team Raj Qsar has held the philosophy to give the best service and most qualified advice to both buyers & sellers.

Implementing honesty and integrity at the highest level possible and to enjoy the entire process along the way. We are truly passionate about real estate.”

To add a description to one of your boards, simply click Edit Board and fill in the Description field.

#4: How to Promote a Particular Pin

Sometimes the best way to really serve your Facebook community is to highlight the value that you are providing in one particular pin.

This is a great way to get maximum exposure when pinning your own original content. Remember these posts can and will be shared across Facebook by your fans.

The same two strategies apply here, as they do to promote a specific board above. You can either upload the image of the pin as a status update (or include a link in the image description), or you can just include the direct link to the pin in your status area.

When you post a direct link to a pin as a status on Facebook, the following information will be automatically added and visible:

• The image of your pin
• The name of the board that includes the pin
• The caption that has been added to your pin

So make sure you have fully optimized both your board title and caption for maximum impact. Focus on creating intriguing board titles and including a further explanation of value in the caption.

#5: Promote Your Pinterest Contests on Facebook

Contests and promotions are becoming all the rage on Pinterest. They are a very effective way to quickly add a lot of new followers and drive a ton of traffic to your site.

Unlike Facebook, there are no real restrictions regarding the way contests are promoted and hosted on Pinterest. A great way to leverage both platforms is to promote your Pinterest contest on your Facebook fan page.

Bergdorf Goodman recently promoted their Pinterest contest on their Facebook fan page by posting an image of one of the prizes with a brief explanation. They included a link to their blog within the description of the image where fans could find more details about how to enter.

Hopefully you’ve found these five ways to use Facebook to build your audience on Pinterest helpful. I know from personal experience that introducing your fan base to your presence on Pinterest is an effective way to get more followers.

Despite all the hype surrounding Pinterest, Facebook is still the largest social media network. Why not leverage the audience you have already built there and let them fast-track your success on Pinterest?

So what do you think? Can you see the benefits of using Facebook to get more followers on Pinterest? Leave your questions and comments in the box below.

FCC filings, leaked roadmaps, and comments from RIM’s top brass all pointed to the existence of an LTE-capable BlackBerry PlayBook — the only question left was when the thing would finally launch. The answer, according to a new statement released by RIM, is very soon.

RIM’s LTE PlayBook will launch in Canada on August 9 (with support from a handful of Canadian carriers), where it will remain for the time being. The company hasn’t provided any specifics on when the 4G-capable tab will trickle into other markets, saying only that it will be available in “the coming months from carriers in the US, Europe, South Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean.”

Interestingly enough, there’s very little word on what (if any) changes RIM made to the tablet aside from the inclusion of an LTE radio and a microSD card slot. All that RIM has revealed as far as the refreshed tab’s spec sheet is that it sports 32GB of internal storage — not much of a shock considering that RIM killed the 16GB PlayBook line back in June. Also notably absent from today’s announcement are any specifics when it comes to pricing for the tablet, though that’s probably the sort of detail that’s best left for RIM’s carrier partners to disclose.

While the 4G PlayBook’s existence has been an open secret for months now, it’s sort of heartening to see RIM getting ready to push it out the door. If the roadmap I previously alluded to is accurate, then the refreshed tab looks appears to be the last major bit of hardware RIM was planned before the first BlackBerry 10 devices make their debut in early 2013. Considering how much the company has riding on a successful launch, it’s probably good for them to be able to take one more thing off their already-loaded plate. That said, the market for a RIM tablet appears to be slowly drying up — RIM reported that it shipped 260,000 PlayBooks in its most recent earnings statement, down nearly 50% from the previous quarter — and the inclusion of an LTE radio may not be enough to turn that trend around.

Looks like those free lunches are already starting to pay off. Yahoo has moved its popular email service forward with the addition of a calendar tab and made it possible to reply to calendar invites inside mail, the company announced today in a blog post.

Under new CEO Marissa Mayer, Yahoo hopes to shake off the dust it has accumulated over the years, and it very well could take on a product-focused direction with bigger and better applications. Since email is one of Yahoo’s most popular products, it makes sense that Yahoo wants to make it work better. The company needs to keep people from fleeing to rival services like Google’s Gmail or Microsoft’s new Outlook.com service.

Funny enough, the new integration of Calendar and Mail actually one-ups Google because you can access the Calendar without opening a new tab like you have to in Gmail. Yahoo Senior Product Manager Ashish Parnami, writes:

Currently, users access the Calendar by clicking on the Calendar link under the “Applications” section in the left panel. The Calendar would then open in a new browser window/tab. To simplify the process (who wants more tabs open on their browser!?), we’re now making Calendar a permanent tab within Yahoo! Mail. So, as soon as you login to your Yahoo! Mail account, you will see a ‘Calendar’ tab right next to the ‘Contacts’ tab. This tab will remain there even as you navigate around to other tabs within Yahoo! Mail.

Not only is Calendar now accessible without opening a new tab, but users can search for events inside the “Calendar” tab. Additionally, when you receive a calendar invite from someone, you can respond with “Attending/Not Attending/Maybe,” add comments, or add it directly to your Calendar.

It’s a relatively small step, but it’s still a good sign for the company that’s been beaten down so much. We can’t wait to see what else Mayer does in the next year.

Filed under: cloud

So you want to start using Twitter’s Promoted Tweets, huh? You’ve weighed the pros and cons, and decided that experimenting with Twitter’s PPC advertising feature is a good move for your business.

Alright then — let’s get you started with this simple guide containing everything you need to know to make the most of your Twitter PPC campaign. Whether you’re just looking for more followers or you want to increase leads and customers, Twitter has some great paid options that can help you complement your organic Twitter marketing efforts.

How Do Twitter’s Advertising Options Work?

Promoted Accounts, Promoted Tweets, and Promoted Trends are Twitter’s advertising features, pay-per-click style. Through its various options, Twitter allows you to target the right people so your ads are appearing for Twitter users who are most likely to be interested in your content, products, or services. Your promoted Twitter content will be labeled as ‘Promoted,’ so users are able to distinguish between promoted ads and organic Twitter content. Twitter advertising can also be a less expensive PPC option than major search engines such as Google. In other words, you can generate great results with a smaller budget.

On the other hand, Twitter’s ad interface also leaves something to be desired (remember how we mentioned pros and cons?). It’s not as easy to use as Google AdWords, and you can’t set up automatic rules to change your bids. For example, if you don’t want your tweets to be displayed on weekends or after 10 p.m., you need to manually log in to your account and change your options. That’s why it’s so important to make sure you’re always aware of the activity in your Promoted account and make changes accordingly so you’re not wasting your ad spend.

That being said, setting up a campaign is easy, as long as you know what you are looking for. 

Decide What You Want to Promote

First, you need to decide what you want to do with your campaign. In other words, what is your end goal for using Twitter advertising?

I want to promote my account!

The Promoted Accounts option allows you to promote your brand name and will help you increase the number of followers your account has. You may be asking, “Why would I want to pay for more followers?” Good question!

In a nutshell, having a larger base of Twitter followers is critical for maximizing the benefits of your social media marketing. The more followers you have, the more people will be exposed to your tweets. Furthermore, your followers also have their own followers who will see any of your content your followers retweet. And trust us, the greater your social media reach, the more effective your social media marketing — even if those people never buy from you.

Finally, the more followers you have, the more credibility and authority your account will exude. If potential new followers see that a larger number of people are already following your brand on Twitter, they’ll be that much more likely to follow you, too. Ahh, the power of social proof!

Promoted Accounts are displayed (1) as part of the ‘Who to Follow’ widget on the left side of a user’s logged-in Twitter.com homepage and Connect tab, (2) on the ‘Who to Follow’ page, which users can access by clicking on ‘View all’ on the ‘Who to Follow’ widget or tab, (3) in ‘People’ search results, and (4) on users’ profile pages as part of the ‘Similar to you’ widget. A user may see your Promoted Account as a suggestion if your account is relevant to them.

I want to promote my tweets!

If you want to promote a specific tweet that came from your company’s Twitter account, Twitter gives you have a few options through Promoted Tweets. For example, you might want to get more exposure for a tweet about a specific marketing campaign or offer you’re currently promoting. Or perhaps you’d like to put some additional Twitter muscle behind an upcoming event your hosting.

 

 

Promoted Tweets are visible (1) at the top of relevant search results pages, (2) within search results for a Promoted Trend, (3) in users’ Twitter feeds, when relevant, (4) in pinned tweets for ‘Enhanced’ profile pages, (4) in Twitter’s official desktop and mobile clients (e.g. TweetDeck, Twitter for iPhone, Twitter for Android, etc.), (5) and in some third-party twitter clients, such as HootSuite.

I want to promote a trend!

If you’re interested in promoting a particular trending topic, you can contact Twitter to purchase a Promoted Trend. This is a way to get your name to a lot of Twitter users, but beware — it’s costly! To take advantage of this option, you will need to contact Twitter directly and inquire about your options.

Promoted Trends are visible to all Twitter users at the top of the Trending Topics list on Twitter — as well as on Twitter for iPhone, Twitter for Android, and TweetDeck — and they’re clearly marked as ‘Promoted.’ When a user clicks on a Promoted Trend, they’ll see Twitter search results for that topic accompanied by a related Promoted Tweet from the advertiser at the top.

 

 

Now that you understand your various options, let’s dive into Promoted Accounts and Promoted Tweets individually so you can understand how to leverage each to achieve your specific goals. On Twitter, get started here.

How to Promote an Account

Promoting an account is very simple. Simply indicate the ‘interests’ of users you want to target. In other words, think about the keywords that are relevant to your business and content. Your account will automatically be recommended to people who have those interests. Again, using Promoted Accounts is most beneficial to drive traffic to your Twitter account and increase your follower count.

 

 

You can then set your budget and timing. See “Dates and Budget” below for more details.  

How to Promote a Tweet

You have three separate targeting options for your Promote Tweets: search results, timelines (users’ Twitter homepage feed), and your own Twitter profile.

 

 

Targeting Search Results

When Twitter users search for a particular keyword, the tweet you chose to promote will appear at the top. This is just like Google AdWords — whoever is the highest bidder for a certain term will appear at the top. Here, you can select as many keywords as you wish.

 

 

Targeting Timelines

With this targeting option, your promoted tweet will appear in the timelines of the followers you want to target. You have the option of targeting the timelines of ‘Your followers’ and/or ‘Users like your followers.’ The latter are users with similar interests to your followers. 

 

 

Targeting Your Profile

This option will pin your Promoted Tweet at the top of your account’s profile page, visible to anyone who visits your page. This targeting option is beneficial if you’re trying to drive visitors to your page off of Twitter and onto a page on your website. For example, at HubSpot, we might use this targeting option to promote an upcoming webinar at the top of our profile, which can serve to increase awareness of the event and drive traffic to the landing page on our site where users can register to attend.

 

Choose Your Targeting Preferences 

Once you’ve chosen the type of Promoted Tweets campaign you want to run, you can also change your settings and modify your target audience to get the most out of your campaign.

First, select which geographic location you want to target. You can be as broad as ‘Anywhere in the world’ or as specific as ‘Atlanta Georgia.’

 

 

You can then decide which devices you’d like your Promoted Tweet to appear on. Remember, if you’re promoting on mobile devices, make sure any links in your tweets lead to mobile-optimized web pages. You don’t want to upset potential customers with a difficult-to-use website!