Pinterest for Business? Only If You Love Pinning.

 

Yesterday I read this article which mentioned that Pinterest is one of the fastest growing social networks online. It can drive more traffic to your site than Google +, YouTube and LinkedIn combined! This kind of information has the potential to corrupt the beauty of Pinterest with people pinning images of their eBooks, affiliate links and other business garbage as well.

I think that Pinterest is only useful for business if it's in alignment with your brand. 

Etsy.com is clever by adding 'pin it' links to each creation listed.  I can see that for artisans, creative souls + designers that Pinterest is an excellent way to generate more buzz about their work. But for the internet marketing dudes that think they'll try Pinterest just in case it's not 'JUST FOR CHICKS" (bleh,bleh,bleh) in the hope of driving more traffic to their sites/blogs then it's probably going to end in brand damage and is a waste of their time. 

I love Pinterest. I’ve been playing on there for at least the last year and it’s awesome. And yes, I’ve had a teeny spike in traffic because of being an active pinner. But the reason I adore this site is because it’s a way to collect things that visually light me up. I am very easily excited by colours and eye-candy - so Pinterest is the perfect playground to share + bask in inspiration.

It’s not for people that want to cash in on the buzz. If you do, more than likely you’ll stcik out like dog balls and it will damage your brand. Only pin if you love it. 

I made these fake no-no boards in PhotoShop

These are some of my boards on Pinterest

Pinterest is great for people that LOVE beautiful imagery, inspiration, online design curation, vision boards + creativity. 

Pinterest is not so good for people that think they can attract attention with things they're not really passionate about in the hope of getting more website hits. 

I know this is a bit cut and dry, but I think we've learnt our lessons about disingenuous behaviour with the evolution of Facebook and Twitter over the years. 

Have you tried Pinterest yet? Let's talk about this on Facebook. 

With LOVE + Gratitude, 

Sarah xo

Pretty + Productive: 5 Web Tools for a Beautiful Blog

A screen-cap of my photos on INSTAGRID.ME

Here are the top 5 web tools that I'm in LOVE with at the moment. 

1. Hello Bar

See the cool pink bar at the top of this page? It's called the Hello Bar. You can create a FREE account to place this amazing little bar at the top of your website to drive more attention to your awesome content. 

Benefits: Great stats, insights, reasonable price, cool conversion rate and fully customisable. 

2. Pinterest

I adore Pinterest. It's the best visual playground to source images, inspiration and eye-candy to fuel your creative ideas. It's also a great way to connect with people. 

Benefits: it's FREE, it's a fabulous way to share inspiration, collect images (as long as you attribute them).

3. Wunderlist

Wunderlist is the most brilliant list writing productivity tool I have ever found online. I only discovered it a few days ago, but it has changed the way I do things. You need to try this one if you LOVE to write lists. 

Benefits: It's 100% FREE which is amazing considering how awesome it is. It's available as an iPhone app as well as a web app too. Even if you have an Android phone you can use it. Plus, it's super-easy to sync it with your computer (either PC or MAC).

4. Instagrid.me - not to be confused with the app. INSTAGR.AM

It's A Clean Web Gallery For Your Instagram Photos

Instagram is a popular photo-sharing app on the iPhone, INSTAGRID publish a nice gallery so you can view and share your photos on the web. You can even invite people who don't use Instagram to subscribe to your feed via email. For example here's mine: http://instagrid.me/sarahprout/ (as depicted above).

Benefits: You get your own URL which Instagram doesn't offer yet, you can see all of your photos at once and they are shareable via Tweet and Like buttons. 

5. MailChimp

I recently started using MailChimp as our business migrates officially to InfusionSoft. MailChimp is perfect for my needs here at SarahProut.com. The interface has been beautifully designed. It's so easy + simple to use, plus they inject lots of awesome personality into their branding which I LOVE.

Benefits: It's FREE for up to 2,000 subscribers, the templates are beautiful, they have excellent social media integration, every list has it's own QR code (this is cool) + MailChimp has the best analytics to break down your stats, demographics and conversion rates. 

What web apps do you LOVE? Please use the Facebook comments below! They're new and I'd like you to try them out if you don't mind. 

With LOVE, 

Sarah xx

7 Tweet Secrets for Greater Flow

Beautiful Flowing Rainbow Hair via Pinterest

I met my boyfriend on Twitter...

Twitter is a magical place with unlimited possibilities. I've been active on Twitter for 3 years, 5 months and 28 days (to be precise). I've met so many amazing and inspiring people. Since then, I have seen some massive changes. Three years ago it was a much smaller community. There was a much more supportive atmosphere where people concentrated on quality of followers and not quantity. I wrote a lot more about this topic in The Power of Influence. In fact, Twitter was the reason that Wiley came to me to write a book on social media in the first place. I unleashed my tweet flow and landed a book deal, a boyfriend and a blossoming business all thanks to the Twitterverse!

Early on I cracked a code to attracting a targeted list of followers to maintain influence and authentic audience retention. It's called Tweet Adder and I run the software daily searching for people and targeted key words. If you're looking for a cost effective way to manage your Twitter promotion and management then this will be a great tool to collect for your business. 

**Please note: Software like TweetAdder can only really work when used in conjunction with an authentic social media strategy. No one likes a spammer, a bot or emotionless automated messages or tweets. It is, however, a cool tool to find like-minded people. 

Today I thought I'd suggest 7 Tweet Secrets for Greater Flow so you can start to make magic happen in your own tweet stream...

1. The key is connection. Remember that there are real people out there that are looking to make authentic friendships with you. Ensure that your attitude is open to the possibility of forming real friendships. When I first tweeted with @VPSEAN I had no idea that this guy on the other side of the planet would end up being the love of my life. 

2. Be yourself.  Just be you. Share your interests, your dreams, your observations and your view on life. Being you is a true gift that you can share with the world with your own authentic voice. Tweet from your heart.

3. Ask questions. Asking questions is the best way to strike up a conversation with someone. Imagine you were standing by yourself in a crowded room at a party. Joining the party is about asking questions to break the ice and start the conversation flowing. 

4. Don't be paranoid. Only a small percentage of people out there are perverts, stalkers, identity thieves or serial killers. Don't allow yourself to live in fear that your tweets might attract the attention of weirdos. They're out there, but fear only attracts fear... so live fearlessly! Note: Do be sensible about information about your children. Don't ever give out their real names, schools etc. 

5. Keep a list of your favourite people. If you have a lot of followers or are following a lot of people then make lists of people you are interested in keeping up to date with. Twitter allows you to make the lists private so you can create a hot girls list or cute boys list without them knowing. Or you could become a celebrity stalker. 

6. You can't please everyone. Being a people pleaser is a pain in the butt. If I answered every single time a person tweeted me then I'd go bananas. Seriously bananas. Realise that you can't please everyone. However, try to respond as much as you can to the people you do know. Never feel bad if you miss the appropriate window of time to respond. If the tweet is older than three days...forget it. Our attention spans have evolved to be shorter for a reason. It's time to be more present and surrendered! 

7. Celebrate and share awesome content. When you read something cool then re-tweet it, share the love or link to it in your blog. Supporting the work of others is so important. True success is celebrating the success of others when them. 

8. (BONUS) Follow Friday or #FF or #FollowFriday is annoying. This is seriously outdated and cluttering the tweet stream. Ensure that you give compliments or express appreciation to others, but a tweet with 8 twitter handles saying 'Follow Friday' is not effective what-so-ever. Thanks, The Management.

I hope this helps inspire your tweet flow!

Until next time,

Love Sarah xox