Pinterest isn’t complicated to use, and even my self-professed “non-techie” clients are able to start pinning in minutes including from their smartphones. Like with any new communications or marketing tool, we work hard to make sure business strategy leads the adoption and use of Pinterest.

So far, my clients love Pinterest – both the use of it and the results they’re seeing, most of which are tied directly to their business or organizational goals, but some of which are surprising and unexpected. I’ll post some Pinterest case studies here over the next few months. In the meanwhile, I wanted to point out three things that brands should consider as they begin using Pinterest.

1. Make sure your website is “Pinterest-Ready.”

Using a lot of Flash? Chances are, Pinterest will not be able to find an image or video to pin on that page. If you are hoping people will come to your site to pin your images (which can then drive traffic back to your site), they’ll get frustrated when they come up empty on pinable images. Of course, they can also do a Google search and find a related pinable image to use (although it may not lead people to your website), but why make them work to promote their love of your brand? If you feel your target audience fits the Pinterest demographic and that you have pin-worthy images, you may want to rethink your site for ways to provide pinable images.

2. Rearrange Your Boards

Many brands are out there with big blank spaces on their main Pinterest page. Did you know you can rearrange the boards? Log into Pinterest and go to your brand page, then click the Rearrange Board button. Drag and drop boards into the positions you feel works best for what you’re hoping to convey and achieve.

Blanks in boards look…sloppy:

At the moment, I’m helping my clients prioritize their boards from a strategic standpoint (they were also conceptualized strategically although, in some cases, are modified over time) and making sure the most important boards are “full” meaning that at least nine images are added to it so they show up as a complete board on their Pinterest account page. You want people to arrive at your brand’s Pinterest page that looks and feels like there is care and attention put into it.

3. Follow Just the Relevant Boards

If you’re wondering who to follow via your brand’s Pinterest account, my advice again is to think strategically: what industries, companies, organizations and brands are complementary? Look for your vendors, partners, colleagues and customers, too. Follow competitors? Maybe – but you might end up repinning their pins and sending more traffic their way. That is kind and generous of you, but perhaps just keeping an eye on their accounts is a better way to go.

Then when you go to follow other accounts, stop a moment and ask yourself “Do I need to follow all of their boards?” If so, click the Follow All button below their photo or logo (left side toward the top). If not, just click the Follow button under the boards you specifically want to follow.

These are just a few tips and ideas for brands looking to use Pinterest effectively. You’re going to start seeing a lot of advice about Pinterest from many different sources. Whatever you choose to do, always make sure it is rooted in sound business strategy and practices while keeping an open mind to the way Pinterest – and other social mobile technologies – are changing the very way we communicate with our customers.

How are you using Pinterest as a marketing tool?

You can add or take away words or phrases in a search or include hashtags. You can select language or list accounts you want to include that have either tweeted, were the recipients of tweets or were simply mentioned in a tweet.

The part I find really interesting is the Location field where you can specify within a 1000 mile radius of a particularly geographic location but also down to one mile. For those of you looking for geo-targeted data, this can be helpful.

There are also variables for sentiment (positive or negative) or a checkbox to just search for questions asked and the option to include retweets. The questions asked feature could be handy if you provide advice on certain topics and want to see if anyone is asking questions related to your expertise.

You can find Advanced Search after you’ve conducted a preliminary search. Just click the settings gear to the right side of the Search button, and you’ll see the option. Or you can go to https://twitter.com/#!/search-advanced and bookmark the search page.

Here’s an example of standard results when I searched for Alaska:

And then a refined search where I zeroed in on people within a 100 mile radius of Fairbanks, Alaska who were asking a question:

The results aren’t perfect, but with a little practice, you can begin to refine your searches even further.

If I were in tourism in Fairbanks, for example, I could find out who recently asked a question about Alaska and potentially find people who are planning a trip. I could then thoughtfully tweet out a response in a timely and appropriate manner to start a dialogue and potentially help them with their travel plans.

That’s just one of many possibilities that an advanced search on Twitter can open up for you as you look to use Twitter more strategically.

How are you using Advanced Twitter Search?

Here’s where I mean. Note below how I’m sharing a post and the link preview has some errant code at the beginning:

If you click on the Title or the body text of the Preview, you are able to edit it. If body text does not appear, you will only be able to edit the title and will be limited in terms of character count.

Once you Share the Link or post the update, you’ll see that the edited version of the Preview text shows up.

I don’t know about for you, but for me, being able to clean up the preview title and text in links I post and share on Facebook is very helpful. Hope you enjoyed the tip!

Got any questions or tips to share about hidden features on social networks? Feel free to share them here.

Aliza Sherman

I’m finding that there are QR code evangelists and also the naysayers, and everyone is scrambling to say the “right and wrong” ways of using QR codes. I will cover sensible ways to use them to get you started.

Katy and I will dive immediately into explanations and examples of QR codes for your small business. I promise this won’t be about pitching you or selling you on something else. I’ve been on several teleseminars and webinars lately that spent the first 35 minutes pitching or selling or beating around the bush with a lot of vague statements. I definitely don’t want you to come up empty on this call!

At the end of the call, I’ll send you the link to a basic QR code handbook I put together that is chock-full of information and ideas.

Here’s the gist of what you’ll learn on the call next week:

Katy Tafoya

• Find out what a QR code is and how it can impact the way you market your business.
• Discover creative yet practical ways to integrate QR codes into your marketing mix.
• Learn how to get QR codes in different colors and file formats as well as custom designed codes.
• Transform the way you market to your customers through their mobile devices.

QR codes don’t have to be complicated or confusing. You just want to make sure you use them to provide value and to get value in return, right?

Join Us!

This call is part of the Tech for Humans series to help make technology more sensible, practical and manageable for your life and your work. Signing up for the call also means you’ll receive my weekly tech tip. It’s free!

Here’s a quick rundown of 4.5 of them.

1. Delicious – A first mover and once the darling of bookmarking sites (anyone remember delicio.us?), Delicious let you store links to pages and sites using their handy bookmarklet that you could then tag with keywords to help you find them later on a search.

After some ownership woes (Yahoo bought them, dumped them, then they were acquired by AVOS Systems), they’ve rebounded with the help of a very loyal user base and some new features including “Stacks” which let you categorize your bookmarks and view them in a magazine-style format which seems to mirror Scoop.it. (View my Delicious profile.)

2. Scoop.it - One of the early “curation” sites, Scoop.it lets you “bookmark” articles and posts under Topics, then presents them in a magazine-style format.

You can manage as many Topics as you’d like and use the Scoop.it bookmarklet to easily save content to each topic, usually with an image and description, both of which you can modify before posting. Scoop.it also feeds you articles and posts from a variety of news and content sources that you can choose to add to your Topics, i.e. curate. (View my Scoop.it profile)

3. Pearltrees – In a word: Elegant. I have yet to find another web-based service that moves and reacts like Pearltress while still being useful. Each post, article or page is a “pearl” and the “pearler” is the Pearltrees bookmarklet.

You can move your pearls around, drag and drop, nest, expand, and the service also “intervenes” to better organize and present your pearls (you can revert to your original structure at any time). If you are extremely visual, this is the site for you, but it does take some getting used to and some diligence to stay organized. (View my Pearltree profile.)

4. Evernote – Evernote is less about sharing (although you can still share from it) and more about capturing, storing and finding later. People rave about Evernote which lets you save text, image and audio notes. But like any archiving tool, it is only as good as you are meaning if you use it consistently and keep things organized, it is amazing. Evernote’s search is pretty powerful, and I’m still blown away by how the service recognizes text within images which is helpful when you photograph a business card, sign or whiteboard. I am still barely scratching the surface of Evernote but it offers more ways to “bookmark” than the others and even recommends additional tools to enhance the Evernote experience.

4.5 Pinboard – Functional and popular amongst self-proclaimed geeks, this service charges a one-time fee of $9.63 and lets you organize and cache pages on the Web. I have been meaning to try it but haven’t yet. Still, I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention it because it gets great reviews and is another viable option for bookmarking.

So many tools, so little time… I will get around to trying it sometime. And who knows…it might change my bookmarking habits forever! Remember: even if you find the best tool for bookmarking, you still have to make it a habit.

How do you bookmark the pages and sites you find and manage those bookmarks?

But what is Pinterest, exactly? I recently defined it for a friend like this:

Pinterest is a social network around images – like Instagram  -but where Instagram has developed into more of a “life image stream,” Pinterest tends to be more “aspirational” 

You can create “boards” which are topic-based and categorized, and you can add to those boards either via a bookmarklet that you can add to your Web browser or via the free Pinterest iPhone app. But why would you want to get a Pinterest account (at the moment, you need to ask for an invitation to get in – if you need one, let me know)?

Here are 3 straight-forward ways you can use Pinterest…

1. To “bookmark” things you like

While there are a number of more clear-cut bookmarketing sites for links to content such as Delicious, you can use Pinterest to save images for a variety of uses. Whether you’re decorating your home or redesigning a website, as you browse websites researching your project, you can “pin” images and designs that catch your eye. Then you can refer back to what you’ve saved to Pinterest for inspiration.

Beth Kanter has a rich Pinterest profile and includes a variety of images covering a range of topics from Social Media Tips and Best Practices…

To African fabrics…

2. To define your personal brand

Beth Kanter’s Boards above illustrate her diverse tastes and interests. Another example of a Pinterest profile that showcases a personality and sensibility is that of Mariel Hemingway. When you view her boards, you get an instant first impression. With boards like Nature, A New Earth, and Simplicity, you begin to get a sense of the image Mariel wants to project.

3. To promote what you do

From artists and photographers to crafters and hobbyists, Pinterest can be used to visually promote what someone does.

For example, Rachel Durik, a photographer and mom, showcases her work and her inspiration on Pinterest. She even wrote this great post about How to Use Pinterest for Photographers.

Brands are getting into the action as well. Here is the Pinterest for Whole Foods. You immediately see their brand attributes coming through as they pin images related to healthy living, food, home, lifestyle and recycling.

One of my clients, Wine Sisterhood, is using Pinterest in a variety of ways including creating Boards to showcase the cities where they’ll be attending food and wine events.

Because they are a lifestyle brand, pinning images of food, travel, entertainment and wine accessories makes sense. They can also promote their products by including interesting shots of their products in use or in relevant environments rather than just product glamour shots. Then they can leverage these pinned images beyond Pinterest, feeding it into their website or posting select ones to their Facebook Page.

Pinterest gives you the ability to curate eye candy. Turning that into something useful isn’t a big stretch as thousands of people are discovering.

How are you using Pinterest? (You can find me on Pinterest, too!)

Additional reading:

7 Creative Ways Your Brand Can Use Pinterest (SearchEngineWatch.com)

First, my weekly email went out, and I received a response from a subscriber about all the broken links. Mortified, I went back and checked the version I received, and everything worked. I suspect it was something on the recipient’s end as I didn’t hear any other questions or complaints, but a mistake like that could trigger a rash of unsubscribes. Thankfully, this one did not.

Second, a gal I know who puts out frequent email newsletters and messages sent an email about her upcoming webinar. I clicked to attend and arrived at a page about purchasing a product, not a registration for the free webinar. A little while later, the corrected email came through. Again I was reminded of the risks of errors in our emails.

Finally, I received this email from a company called Fetchnotes:

Talk about an error in an email! I can only imagine how mortified the company must have been. A few minutes later, this email apology arrived:

Within the hour, this apology arrived:

While the response wasn’t perfect – sending two more emails after an offending one isn’t ideal – it was swift. And the second email did offer further details.

What the company did absolutely right in the second apology was fully owning up to the error (the first apology took a more light-hearted, joking tone which wasn’t as effective).

We are all moving so quickly, toggling between our emails, our social networks, our work. Before hitting send, we need to take a breath and re-read. Better yet, have someone else read it or at least step away for a moment and come back with fresh eyes.

Other tips to avoid an email faux pas?

• Test links.
• Don’t use foul language, even in test emails.

How do you think Fetchnotes handled this error? Would you have done anything different?

The best way to describe ifttt is to give you concrete examples. You could program the following:

“If I post a photo to Instagram using the tag #travel, trigger the action of posting that photo to my Facebook Page.”

“If I save a link to Delicious using the tag #social, trigger the action of posting that photo to my Facebook Page.”

Okay, those are actually two tasks I created:

I’m definitely not a fan of automating everything. If you’re going to participate and be part of the communities in your social channels, then by all means be present and interact. But to trigger a few ancillary postings from your social actions feels like acceptable flavor and color to me.

Here is the result from the first action above – a photo posted through Instagram appeared on my author fan page, particularly handy since you cannot yet post directly from Instagram to your company’s Facebook Page.

Some say that you should post directly and manually to Facebook for better rankings, but I’m one for mixing things up and not being so caught up in the numbers all the time.

You can create links and actions between a number of channels including the usual suspects like Twitter, Facebook profiles, Facebook Pages, and LinkedIn but also Dropbox, Evernote, YouTube, GTalk, email and even a phone call.

I can’t wait to figure out more uses for ifttt, and I promise to share them if they work well for me.

Are you using ifttt? If so, what are some tasks you’ve created?

Summify Joins the Flock at Twitter (Summify blog)

Twitter to Acquire News Aggregator Summify (SearchEngineWatch.com)

Social Summary Site Creator Summify Acquired by Twitter (Marketingland.com)

There are many ways to filter a stream, and we’re all desperately seeking the “Perfect Filter” to bring us only what we really want or need from the firehose of socially-shared information. I’m starting to use – and like – Summify.

As you connect your social and news accounts (Twitter, Facebook, Google Reader) to Summify, their algorithms prioritize the text-linked news stories shared by your connections. Stories with more retweets, likes and more shares get higher priority as do your friends and fans who are being shared most often. Over time, the system learns your preferences, too.

Here’s a sample of what I see in my email daily from Summify – an easy to digest list of top news stories that doesn’t overwhelming me.

If I click over to my Summify account page on the web, this is what I see:

When I click over to a story of interest to me, there’s a Summify bar across the top that gives me some stats about the article like who of my friends shared it along with a Share button and Favorite button (the heart). I personally close this bar and tend not to share from it but that’s just a personal preference and habit I got into a long time ago when I started seeing those pervasive bars.

On the web, you can peruse your followers and who is following you as well as see who you’re influenced by and who you are influencing. I’m much more interested, however, in the Summary feature and how it presents a smart selection of news items for me to review.

In a world of overload, it is a relief to find a tool that eases some of the stress of “too much.”

Summify is also available for iOS devices.

What are you using to filter, prioritize or summarize your news? How’s it working for you?

you may want to check out:
Summify’s Social Sharing Infographic
Summify’s video explaining how their algorithms work

1. You can target your Page status updates by Location or Language.

How many times have you wanted to send a status update pertinent to a particularly region but were worried that fans who were not in that area would get annoyed by the message? Next time, when composing an update for a location (or for fans who speak a particular language), click the upside down triangle under the status field.

A dialog box will appear with the choice of choosing a Location or Language target.

For Location, you can enter a Country or drill down to State…

Or even City…

2. You can specify the Pages that show up under your own Page’s Likes.

If you didn’t already know this, you can display icons for Pages that you favorite on your Page. Just visit the Page you want to favorite, scroll down to see the text links on the left side of that Page (midway down the Page) and click “Add to My Page’s Favorites.” (If you are an admin for more than one Facebook Page, you’ll be able to choose the Page where you’re adding the favorite link.)

If you have favorited more than five Pages, the different Page icons will rotate but only five will be visible at one time. To lock in the ones that are visible without having to click “See All,” you’ll want to Feature them. To do this, go into the Admin section of your Page (Edit Page), and choose “Featured” from the left-hand menu.

Then click the “Edit Featured Likes” button…

And you’ll see a menu of all the Pages you’ve Favorited.

Click five of them to lock them in on your Page, or if you click more, only those will rotate onto the Page while the others won’t be seen unless someone clicks “See All.” Note that the Page icons you feature will still change order on the Page.

3. You can feature admins on your Page.

There was a time when we thought it was best to remain anonymous when we managed brand Pages on Facebook or worried about our identities being revealed. But over time, it became a best practice to be transparent and let people know who was behind a Facebook Page.

While you’re in the Featured section of the admin area of your Page, you’ll see an “Add Featured Page Owners” button.

When you click it, you’ll see a list of anyone with admin privileges for your Page. Check the box next to the admins to be Featured on the left side of the Page.

The Featured Page Owners will show up under the Page Likes.

4. You can use Facebook as a Page and see a news feed of the Pages you’ve favorited.

Toward the top right side of your Facebook Page is a list of text links. Click “Use Facebook as (Name of Your Page).”

When you do, you’ll see a dialog box that explains how you can interact on Facebook as your page (you can check a box to no longer see this message):

The notifications you receive as a Page are like the ones you receive on your personal Facebook profile, however, they are about other people’s interactions on your Facebook Page. You can then go to another Page, like it, and comment on it as your Page instead of as you personally. When you click Home to view the news feed, you’ll see updates from the Pages you’ve liked.

Click the upside down triangle on the upper right side of the Page, and you’ll get a drop down menu that includes your personal Facebook account plus other Pages you manage so you can toggle between them.

Be careful that you’re fully aware of which identity you’re using while you’re in Facebook.

5. You can promote your Facebook Page with an ad based on a status update from your Page.

When you’re creating an ad through Facebook, you can choose a Page Post Ad.

When you click on “Page Post Ad,” you’ll get the option to select from a drop down menu of recent status updates you’ve published or the “Most Recent Eligible Post.”

Once you choose a post, you’ll see the ad appear with whatever image you used in the post and 129 characters worth of the update content.

Also included in the ad will icons for likes and comments on that particular update. If someone clicks on them in the ad, they are taken to a page with the original “story” i.e. post. The “Share” link is also clickable and allows people to share the post directly from the ad.

As you can see, there are many features on your Facebook Page that can be handy if you know about them or know how to find them.

What are some of your favorite Facebook Page features?