A few tips for putting Pinterest to work for your brand:

• Add the “Pin It” button to your product pages or blog posts. It’s easy to do and you can add the button along with your other social media sharing buttons.
• Create a Pinterest account for the brand itself and reach out to “visual influencers” on Pinterest for help getting your images re-pinned. Pinterest allows any user to follow any other user without requiring a follow-back. You may also tag other users in your pins, comment on pins and re-pin (the Pinterest version of a retweet) others’ content.
• Create boards beyond your own products and brand, but relevant to your location and industry.
• Utilize the description fields when creating Pins by adding keywords and geo-modifiers. Not only is this SEO 101, but Pinterest addicts often use the search feature to find relevant pins.
• Keep pinning!  The search results and Pin feeds change up-to-the-minute, much like the Twitter feed and Facebook Ticker. Maintain a steady flow of Pins to ensure your products are staying top-of-mind.

For SEO linkbuilding purposes, the benefits of Pinterest are pretty self-evident. Some basic info on Pinterest links:

• Each and every Pin links back to the original source site or the file location (depending on where it was originally pinned from). Unless you’re purposely optimizing for image seach, a product page or site link is probably better.
  

  Standard pins provide links to the source site in two locations.

• A Pin provides do-follow links in multiple places. The image itself acts as a link in addition to the “From:” link in the top right-hand-corner.
• A pin comes with embed code for syndication to other sites like Facebook and Twitter, helping to develop backlinks to the Pin itself.
• Pins are editable! You can edit your own Pins with updated URLs or reach out to Pinners who may have pinned your images from an unfavorable source site. Pins are easy to edit and the new URL you provide does not need to host the image, though I don’t recommend you use a link without the original image.
• Because of the visual nature of Pinterest, it is a great way to promote infographics. Make sure they are Pinned to appropriate boards and contain relevant descriptions to ensure they are shared.
• You can even add a Pin It button to your company’s blog pages by using the WordPress plug-in.

Thanks to the intuitive nature of Pinterest’s interface, I think the best way to get going is to request an invite and just dive in. Remember, sign-up is currently via invitation-only, so ask a friend to invite you or request one from the site (it doesn’t take long). Let me know what you think about these tips in the comments, and if my screenshots piqued your interest, follow me on Pinterest!

Are we not men?

The new kid on the block has opened itself to businesses in two principal ways. Unlike Facebook, which focuses on admin-managed pages, and Twitter, which couldn’t care less if a person, place, or animal is represented in a feed, Google initially maintained its focus on people in its business-level implementation of its social network, not announcing any kind of branded pages. Then Monday’s announcement of Facebook-style business pages opened a new avenue for marketers, if only those in selected niches. Both new tools allow for the implementation of the “authority” metrics hinted at in numerous Google quality documents.

But should a business even have a Google+ presence? Facebook of course is ubiquitous, and Twitter has proven itself to be a direct customer relations tool. Google+, however, has languished as Robert Scoble’s main soapbox and Android users’ photo repository. Google+ isn’t a lead generator, lacking the customization of Facebook tabs, and it isn’t a customer service tool, lacking the plurality userbase (8% of the US) Twitter enjoys.

Applications of Google+ for Business

But it’s not just those on the social network who will benefit from business applications of Google+. Integration with search and the use of the network as an authority metric seem to be major advantages of Google+ for businesses. Once set up correctly, a robust Google+ profile can give authority to local ranking and regular integrated SERP rank depending on page type. Unsurprisingly, this leaves the active maintenance lacking; however, even that aspect can be worthwhile in the right niches.

Internally, Hangouts combined with Google Docs allows decentralized businesses a face-to-face online collaboration tool. Users can avoid the loss of communication from short text comments in edits, enriching group writing and design. This use of Docs can help a variety of businesses, both for internal meetings and for work with clients. The possibilities previously hinted at are relatively endless, and make Google+ a must-have for remote businesses, some design firms, and any company needing to build something in front of a customer or each other without being in the same room.

But most companies don’t need that kind of ability for real-time document editing. For them, Hangouts provide a simple way to start webinars, live shows, and other almost TV-styled content. Something like SEOmoz’s Whiteboard Friday could be live broadcast with question-and-answer, recorded locally, and quickly uploaded to YouTube or another video site, then added to a website for further life out of the content. If live videos would take too much effort, even a simple video exclusive to Google+ can help drive uses both to your Plus Page and create user interaction. This kind of direct, personal, and instant communication with users and the ease of creating something for all visitors is nearly unprecedented in social media.

How Your Employees

Keeping with the focus on both users and non-users of the network, Google+ offers ways to interact with customers outside of the realm of the social network — being the only outlet for rel=”author” and introducing rel=”publisher”, the best way to get your personal face and name ad your company’s image in the SERPs. Reinforcing the authority metrics hinted at in Panda and the related effects, Google+ is the gatekeeper for bridging the gap between semantic and visible authorship in the SERPs, and the exposure and connection of a face and name to a business can humanize and connect with customers in a way that couldn’t be done for someone who isn’t just signed into Facebook. “The face in the SERPs” is perfect for any company with a regularly maintained blog or article section. Similarly, a company might see its logo next to its web site when rel=”publisher” is implemented.

Using Google+ to Put Your Face in the SERPs

Happily, WordPress sites have a relatively simple solution for implementing a multi-person rel=”author”. It does the first step for you, linking to the author page with rel=”author”. Then, add your canonical Plus account url to the Website field in Your Profile under Users:

Place your canonical Google+ url in this field under User > Your profile

Then, you need to edit the theme, adding this to the body of either your main template, or the author template, author.php, omitting the if-statement:

<?php if (is_author()) {
$curauth = (isset($_GET['author_name'])) ? get_user_by('slug', $author_name) :
get_userdata(intval($author));
?>
<a rel="me" href="<?php echo $curauth->user_url; ?>">
Visit me on Google+
</a>
<?php } ?>

This will get the author name if it’s set, then get all of the user data, then display the url from that author in a link with the all-important rel=”me”.

Oops! Not what you'd like to see...

Similarly, to set up rel=”publisher”, just a link tag on all pages without rel=”author” on it will connect your site with your company Google+ Page. Why only on those pages? Because as Search Engine Land’s rich snippet test shows, Google will prioritize author over publisher.

<?php if (!is_single()) { ?>
<link href="https://plus.google.com/113323125805722144061/" rel="publisher" />
<?php } ?>

Once it’s all set up, check your url in that same Rich Snippet Tester tool, making sure it shows your face and name. The wait time on recognition from Google is inconsistent, but such connections are key to establishing authority.

Google+ Establishes Thought Leaders

A secondary effect of individual commercial Google+ profiles is that giving a face to a URL can create a sense of thought leadership, pulling in longer-term researchers with high quality informative articles and blogs. Having one author connected to your name will heavily associate the one person with the site; having multiple writers will strengthen the authority of each writer as an individual source of quality knowledge. A logo, if well-chosen, transforms the SERPs into display ads. Through either, one positions their employees as experts and their company as prominent: certainly an admirable position.

Google+ might not be for every business, even businesses that rely on their current Apps as the underpinning for their online productivity. However, for businesses with the specific needs for which Google+ provides killer apps, Google+ is a perfect addition to the social media profile of your business. Furthermore, it’s ease of setup provides deep support beyond social interaction, leaving much utility even for more straightforward businesses.

…And hey, maybe one of your employees can criticize you while still garnering support for the company in a precarious time…

Image Courtesy Cambodia4KidsOrg.

Google Related Places - AKA The Competition

While looking at the results for one of our clients who has recently opened a new office for his law practice in a New Orleans LA suburb I came across this.

Paginated Google Places Results

Clearly Google is trying to offer some alternative results for “Metairie Divorce” than our guy Will Beaumont at 3814 Veterans Memorial Blvd #302, Metairie, LA 70002 – (504) 834-1117.

You’ll have to click through as I can’t figure out how to link directly.

Beyond going down the page to look at the “Related Places” (AKA “The Competition”) you can now conveniently scroll through them. And, better still, hovering over your searched for phrase at the top of the page gets you this drop-down list.

Select Your Competitor - Google Places Drop-Down List

CityGrid Media (Orange Soda) Form Spam Image

I’m very surprised to see this kind of thing from a company of this stature.

I’m glad to see that the address is in New York and not American Fork Utah as I’m fairly confident the folks I’ve known at Orange Soda wouldn’t condone this behavior.

Full text of email message follows:

Good afternoon, I wanted to reach out to you about your placement in online search. Citygrid is the largest local content and marketing network on the web. I noticed that you are not populating on the major search engines for a few key search terms. Your competition is capitalizing on this and I wanted to discuss how to take some of this market share. We gain placement on Google, Bing, and Yahoo and offer clients 86% of the local web. As part of our SEO, SEM, (Search Engine Optimization, Search Engine Marketing) and content network campaigns we provide phone call tracking, stats, and other comprehensive data to directly track ROI. We will optimize your website to come up on the first page of Google, driving people looking for your services to your business. I’d like to set up a time to speak about this and go over your options to determine if this would be a good fit for your business. Please reach out with your availability. Thank you. Best, x-x-x-x Senior Account Executive P: 212-373-7798 F: 213-351-7011 E: x-x-x-x@CityGridMedia.com www.CityGridMedia.com 555 West 18th St. 5th Floor New York, NY 10011 The largest content and marketing network on the web

This is shameful behavior from a reputable company. I expect better of both CityGrid and Orange Soda.

It was a great excuse to do a little impromptu analysis. We may do a brief series of these.

Hall Piano Company Local Search Analysis using Matt McGee's 7 Questions Businesses should be asking.

Steve Kinchen: Read the article… How does HPC stack up?

Will Scott: Pretty darn good, I’d say.

By @mattmcgee‘s standards you’re pretty well covered

1. How do the search results look for my company name?

- http://www.google.com/search?q=hall+piano – you have the top 1/2 of the page with no negatives.

2. Have I put all my marketing eggs in one basket?

- Definitely not. You do TV / Radio, print, PR and Web / Social thanks to Dee Clubb

3. Have I claimed my local business listings?

- If not, they’re in progress (I know Bing is in the works):

- http://maps.google.com/places/us/la/metairie/david-dr/901/-hall-piano-company?gl=us
- http://local.yahoo.com/info-18122605-hall-piano-company-metairie
- http://www.bing.com/local/details.aspx?lid=YN365x6567331
- and more, of course

4. How do my reviews look on Google Maps? Yahoo? Bing? Yelp?

- We could always use more reviews but those we have are looking great.

5. Am I using social media wisely?

- I would say yes. And in your case that means using it conservatively. You’ve got great presence on Video and are developing on Facebook. You’ve got a nice twitter following. There’s always room for more but, yes, wisely for sure.

6. Am I focusing on metrics that matter?

- Definitely – Brand + Conversions are where one with a product so niche as yours needs to be.

7. Am I earning trust with everything I do online?

- For sure. Online, you and your team represent @hallpiano with the class and professionalism due your product and customers.

http://www.facebook.com/HallPiano
http://twitter.com/hallpiano
http://www.hallpiano.com/

Over the next 2 weeks, leading up to SMX Advanced, we will be polling businesses using Foursquares promotions tools to get the word out about their businesses.

If you are one of the advertisers we’ve contacted, please be assured we are very interested in your feedback and are excited to share the data we compile.

Foursquare is an exciting new media type bringing together local search, couponing and loyalty / retention programs around a game -based location-centric service.

Our partners in this project are:

Dream Systems Media

Dream Systems Media, “DSM”, is a trend setting, full service Internet marketing firm, with locations in Utah and Arizona, and was born when three successful Internet business entrepreneurs decided to join forces to do for others what they had previously done only for themselves.

rYnoweb

rYnoweb provides business website services, specializing in WordPress
development and implementation, local search marketing, and on-site
search engine optimization (SEO). rYnoweb serves clients nationwide
and is run by freelance Web Strategist, Chuck Reynolds out of Phoenix,
Arizona.

Read about: Local Search Marketing using Foursquare

Sterling Market Intelligence

Greg Sterling is the founding principal of Sterling Market Intelligence, a consulting and research firm focused on the Internet’s influence on offline consumer purchase behavior. He also is a Senior Analyst for Internet2Go, an advisory service from Opus Research tracking the evolution of the mobile Internet.

http://screenwerk.com/

—

We were surprised to learn, in our investigation, how few in our industry were aware of this great free (for now) advertising medium.

We’re excited to begin collecting data so we may learn better how effectively this medium is being used.

Once done, we will be publishing these data on the rYnoweb blog and presenting our findings at SMX Advanced (sure to be the must see session of the show).

Some related posts from the Search Influence Blog:

• Local Business Marketing on Foursquare
• Buying Yelp Reviews Is Bad for Business

While in Portland last week presenting on Facebook Marketing at SEMpdx SearchFest I had a couple great dinners with some really smart people. One of those dinners included the aforementioned smart person Luther Lowe who is part of Yelp’s business outreach team.

Luther gave a good explanation in person of the review filter and I think he’s done a good job in the blog post as well. I have to admit, after my personal experience with Luther and his colleagues I’m a lot more positive toward the organization as a whole (I may be influenced by Mat Siltala too).

From what I could discern, that the most critical component of the review filter is one which looks at a users yelpish tendancies to see how active a yelper they are. In other words, if you just created your account, or have a very thin profile you might get filtered.

I can see it. I understand it, but I think the position Yelp takes regarding small businesses requesting reviews is unreasonable. And, their system presumes guilt which is downright un-American.

I’m assured by some of Luther’s colleagues with whom I spoke at SMX West that there are semantic elements too. But, it looks like the biggest factor is how “real” you look by virtue of your history on Yelp.

But, as we learned at SMX, Yelp has 180 in Sales & Marketing as compared to 40 Engineers.

So, I know what you’re asking: “Given all this, how do I spam Yelp”?

It’s easy, be patient and build a quality profile. In other words, if you look real you have a higher likelihood of having your spammy review not filtered. (hint: real doesn’t mean 10 reviews of disparate places within 24 hours)

I’m reminded of the quote with which I start most SEO presentations:

The most important thing in business is sincerity.
If you can FAKE that, you’ve got it made

Seriously though, I appreciate the attempts at outreach. It’s clear that Yelp is cognizant of the PR issues (and their legal issues) and that they’re working to provide a valuable service. I hope they can get their act together on the sales front before they go up in flames.

Amilia's Diner - SEO Invasion

Amazingly, none of these reviewers were filtered (Amilia’s Diner on Yelp).

Related Posts:

• Now Post Reviews Directly to Facebook and Twitter
• Yelp Makes Small Businesses Scream

There are several reasons I recommend e-mail newsletters. Not only do they provide free information, they are also one of the least expensive and most effective tools to draw attention to a site.  Below are some additional advantages to implementing a company e-mail newsletter.

Stay in Touch

Stay in contact – Keep your business top of mind to your customers so that when they need a service you provide, they will contact you.  Newsletters serve as a reminder to customers to come back to your site.

Develop relationships and trust - You become familiar to your subscribers. Familiarity encourages return visits and establishes customer loyalty.

Promotional tool – A great way to communicate new products and announce new services.  Specials or discounts are a way to attract customers back to your site.  Offers entice subscribers who may not necessarily need the service but will be prompted to act during a special.

Increase site traffic – Again, good to send out when launching a new product or service.  Gives subscriber a reason to visit the site, helping drive additional traffic .
Set specific delivery time – Complete control of when information is disseminated.

Trackable – Use the newsletter as a research tool to see what people read about most and what they are most interested in hearing about.  Research will allow you to write a newletter for a specific target audience.

Provides immediate results – Real time statistics and data provide you with the information needed to evaluate the effectiveness of the newsletter.  Tweak future newsletters from that information.

When developing your newsletter consider the following:

• Content has to engage readers.  Articles should be more informative and less like an advertisement.
• Keep articles brief.
• Use images to attract reader’s attention.
• Use links and provide URL’s as additional resources.
• Frequency is key. Stick to a regular schedule. Try to send out same time every month or week.

So if you are looking for a cost efficient way to target and reach a large group of customers or potential customers, consider an e-mail newsletter.

We had a great crowd and I enjoyed the heck out of putting this slide show together. I was trying to position some real tactics in using Twitter for local business.

I’m hopeful that it was tactical versus theoretical and I look forward to your feedback.

Please, please, please ask questions and let me know what more you’d like to know.

At the suggestion of Terri Troncale I want to invite submissions for non-profits as well. Please, please – fans, recommend your favorites! I’m really happy to have the businesses self-submit but I want to get rid of these iTunes cards

Also, my original limitation on location was because of driving distance to http://socialsouth.org. Please submit anyone, anywhere using Social Media to drive sales, membership, contributions, or any trackable outcome.

—

Twitter Bird - Tweet, Tweet, Tweet

Let’s get one thing straight right here: I’m not above buying your love. (Just ask David)

I’m going to be taking part in a couple presentations at Social South in a few weeks and in preparation I’ve been asking: who’s doing it?

The “who” I’m talking about: Small businesses in the Southeast United States (hopefully within a day’s drive of B-Ham (that’s Birmingham Alabama, you dig) and non-profits?

The “it” is – using Social Media to promote their business or organization.

So in other words, do you know a small business or non-profit in your area who is trying to use Twitter for business (or Facebook, or LinkedIn, or Orkut, or YouTube, or Blogging)?

Now, a couple caveats:

• I would prefer local businesses/non-profits: plumbers, lawn guys, doctors, spas, hair salons and organizations trying to promote local causes
• I may feature home-based businesses but I’d rather they have a product sales or membership action component

Cash Register goes Cha Ching

What’s in it for the small businesses? First, I will do an email interview and a follow-up phone call which will be featured as a blog post on the Search Influence blog. Those which represent the best case studies will also be featured on Local Search News (and may appear on Search Engine Land).

And, I will do a half-hour interview follow-up in which I’ll make recommendations and offer ideas for other promotional opportunities. And hopefully we’ll all learn better how to use Twitter for business (and other social platforms).

And, finally, a select few will get an opportunity to join me on-stage at Social South to talk about their experiences.

What’s in it for you? (I know, I know, it’s all about you) I’ve got a stack of $10.00 iTunes cards burning a hole in my pocket, y’hear. I will give a $10.00 iTunes cards to 10 randomly selected participants – in other words, comment below including a link to the business in question and their Twitter account page (e.g. Nancy’s Corner, New Orleans Gift Baskets, Nancy’s Corner on Twitter).

[Ginsu Style] But wait, there’s more – 1 lucky entry will win a $150.00 gift card / certificate to the business of their choice from the entrants listed (small print – I need a minimum of 20 entries to execute on the $150.00).

So, please, let me buy your love – help me find participants for this great panel at Social South, I’ll help you get a little more enjoyment out of life with the gift of music and we’ll both help a local business get a little more exposure online and learn about how to use Twitter for business.

All you have to do to enter is comment below with a link to the business (home page or online profile page is fine) and a link to their Twitter, Facebook, or other social media profile.

Oh, and you should definitely Tweet about it – here’s a good example: RT @w2scott: Know a small biz or non-profit using Social Media? Promote ‘em 2 win great prizes – details: http://bit.ly/vQqTA Please RT

Don’t want to copy and paste, if you’re logged in to twitter just click here to automagically retweet (may not work while Twitter is having issues).

Look, this is serious, I’m trying to help others understand how to use Twitter for business (and Facebook and LinkedIn and the others) and you can help a local small business get a little further down the road with this internet stuff. And, like I said, I am willing to buy your love.

Thanks in advance for your help!