Think of a cork board that has notes, products you want to buy, or inspiration. This is the online version. People post pictures or video of things they love (called pins). Other people can follow them and add them to virtual pinboards (pinning).

The genius of Pinterest is that you can click on a pin and follow it to the source – including your web site or blog post.

Pinterest is one of the fastest growing web sites in the world with over 7 million visits a month.  According to research Pinterest is sending more traffic than Facebook, YouTube and LinkedIn combined.

The majority of people on Pinterest are women between the ages of 25 and 44. These are the perfect demographic to reach. Women tend to be “social extroverts” who like to talk about brands online. Together they represent incredible buying power (many are moms who make buying decision for their families).  They have special enthusiasm for arts, recipes and crafts.

Pinterest is simple to figure out and can get you from the home page. It’s addicting. Because of this Pinterest is reaching a new demographic of people who may not spend much time on social networking web sites. Even your mom who can’t figure out how to use Facebook is on Pinterest.

Unlike a lot of social networks, Pinterest doesn’t require a lot of extra time or the upkeep of say, your Facebook page.

How can a small business profit from Pinterest? 3 Ways: traffic, branding and business.

1. Add your products to the site.

There is a section called “gifts” http://pinterest.com/gifts/ where you can add a price with a picture and link to your buy page for that product. Be aware that if you have an affiliate program, Pinterest may become an affiliate and therefore keep a cut of the sales they send you.

2. Start pin boards of things your audience will resonate with.

General Electric posts images of their present (machinery), past (historic photographs) and future (including new technologies). Online clothing company ModCloth pins fabric and dress ideas for their audience to give feedback on.

3. Ask your audience to participate.

Create a board with fun pictures of your staff. If you host an event, you can have participants (or speakers) send in pictures of themselves and links to their other social networking profiles. You can also host contests where people create a board and pin things they want. The winner wins a gift certificate or everything on their board.

4. Get content from your other social networks.

The best pins are funny, creative/unique, informative or gorgeous. Many times your fans on Facebook are already sharing pictures or video of themselves interacting with your business or products. Some of them may be perfect for pinning on Pinterest. Twitpics on Twitter could also be repinned. it can also be the other way around. You can also use content found on Pinterest on your blog, Facebook or Twitter profile.

5. Pimp (or pin) your own content.

While blantant self-promotion is discouraged, there’s nothing against starting a board featuring your own top blog posts, infographics or other content. If you have media mention, pin those in a newsroom board.

Here at OrangeSoda we walk our talk. We drank the Kool Aid (or soda). Follow OrangeSoda on Pinterest. And watch for my new book about Pinterest for business coming this Spring.

Is Pinterest is helping your business? Tell us about it in the comments.

Example #1—United Airlines and the viral YouTube video.

Back in 2009, David Carroll created a music video on YouTube with his fellow band members detailing the story of his unsuccessful attempt to get compensated by United Airlines for his pricey guitar that was broken by baggage handlers. After nine months of failed attempts, Carroll turned to social media to tell everyone else about his story—and it definitely worked. Within the first day, his video “United Breaks Guitars” got more than 150,000 views and today it has more than 10 million views.

United Airlines contacted Carroll within the first day of the video’s release to try and make things right; however, it did little to dissipate the major PR crises caused by this video. United Airlines learned a lot from this situation, and other businesses can too. Go the extra mile to provide customers with the service they are asking for or they will find another way to get your attention—potentially involving millions of other people in the process. Whether they use YouTube, blogs, Facebook, or Twitter to blast the information, one way or another, it could end up producing more negative perceptions of your business than you would ever want. So don’t take the chance—doing the right thing in the first place is always a better move than trying to repair the damage after it’s too late.

Example #2 – Southwest Airlines and the Weight Loss Blogger

While Southwest Airlines responded much faster in this situation than United Airlines did in the previous example, it still shows how even one negative situation can be brought to the attention of millions of people with the use of social media. Popular weight loss blogger, Kenlie Tiggeman, was about to board a return flight on Southwest Airlines when gate agents caused a scene in front of dozens of people about their weight making them unfit to fly. When asked about specific weight policies, the airline employees couldn’t give a straight answer that would back up their claims. Just like any clever blogger would do, Tiggeman started recording the incident on her cell phone and subsequently wrote about the incident on her blog. Soon after, the story was picked up by the mainstream media and was spread through CNN, MSNBC, CBS News New York, and others. Southwest did provide her with free flight vouchers soon after the incident, however, the airline still did get a bad wrap for the way their employees acted towards their customers.

So what can we learn from these two examples? Don’t ever assume that ignoring customers or treating them with less than they expect will make the problem go away. As we can see from both of these situations, the problem escalated to something bigger than these Airline companies every though they would. However, if an incident happens to arise, act quickly to make amends. One way or another, frustrated customers will find a way to get the service they’re looking for. So instead of letting social media become your business’s worst enemy with viral news, use it as a proactive tool to keep your customers satisfied in the first place.

Make It Valuable

Don’t just write content for the sake of getting a link. Write content that people will want to share with others in their social circle because it provides valuable information of some sort.  Don’t hesitate to ask the opinions of friends or colleagues to get ideas about what readers would be interested in hearing about.

Make It Relevant

Even if you have created potentially valuable content, it won’t mean much if it’s not relevant to the target audience you’re writing to. Before you reach out to bloggers for guest posts, make sure your topics are interesting and relevant to what their readers want to see. Don’t reach out to just any blog just because a lot of people follow it—do some research about some of their most popular topics to see if it fits with what you want to write about.

Use Authority

If there’s one thing you want to avoid when creating content for guest posts, it’s discrediting yourself. Whether writing in first person or not, be sure that your content always carries an authoritative voice for the topic you’re writing about. Don’t give readers a reason to ignore what you are writing about right off the bat. Always choose a topic that you have a broad knowledge base in and are confident in writing about.

Utilizing guest blog posting as a link building strategy can take some time to develop. It may take longer than you think to reach out to and build relationships with bloggers that are willing to use your guest post. However, persistence typically pays off in this arena, and you could end up with several high-quality, useful links.

Don’t jump on the bandwagon just because everyone else is.

I’m not saying you should rule out social media all together. But what I am saying is that before you join every social media outlet available, you have to consider your target audience. Instead of spreading your efforts across 10 different social media sites, chose a small number you can really monitor well. You also want to consider if your key audience is more likely to use one form of social media than the other. Because every business is so different, there’s really no right or wrong answer to which sites you choose as long as it’s an informed decision.

Don’t leave your social media sites abandoned.

Results from social media don’t just come by setting up a profile. It takes time, strategy, and effort to create social media campaigns that really make a difference for your business. If you know you don’t have the time or capacity to keep up with your social media sites, either hire someone who can or rethink your strategy. Consider this: If someone follows your site’s Twitter button to your profile and sees that you have two followers and no recent posts, they won’t have a very good first impression of your business. Contrast that with if they were to see that you had several hundred followers and had already tweeted several times that day. Updated and current profiles show your viewers that you care about customer interaction. Don’t make the mistake of detracting from your business’s credibility by leaving your social media sites untouched.

Don’t forget that social media should be a conversation tool

Social media isn’t just about one-way communication. It’s about interacting with the people that like or follow your profile. Create content that encourages comments or feedback.  Make sure this interaction is mutually beneficial—give your viewers something in return for following you on social media. Whether it’s in the form of exclusive deals, promotions, or valuable content, your followers are more likely to share with their friends and followers if they find that content valuable themselves.

These are only a few tips that can help to jumpstart your social media presence. If you’re new to Social Media, don’t let it intimidate you. While any social media campaign takes time and effort to do well, the “return on engagement” will oftentimes turn out to be more beneficial to your business than you thought.

I did a little research and found that the exact percentage ranges anywhere from 5 to 9%, and I’m sure it varies among businesses as well. However, knowing that there is any type of loss involved, it definitely doesn’t hurt to be proactive about keeping your customers happy so as to not lose them, which would cost your business even more in the long run.

Use Social Media

Social media is a great tool that facilitates customer communication with a business. A highly monitored Facebook page or Twitter feed eliminates much of the need of customers to call into a busy customer service line. With social media, they have direct communication to the company for feedback, whether positive or negative. However, if you open this social media communication channel up to customers, make sure you don’t ignore them. The last thing you want to do is end up being the next “United Breaks Guitars” YouTube video (the lesson learned from that situation could take up an entire post by itself). If customers have a complaint, address it. If customers praise your business or product, respond. Show them you want to be connected.

Get Customer Feedback

Another great tool that encourages customer communication is feedback surveys. Whether in the form of an email, phone call, or online submission form, asking customers for feedback about your product or experience with your business is a great way to be proactive about ensuring their satisfaction. I see surveys like this from companies like Amazon and eBay to Wal-Mart and chain restaurants. Bigger companies seem to be catching the drift about how valuable this customer feedback is to improving their services, but it’s just as valuable for small business. While smaller businesses may not be able to offer entries into cash prize drawings for responding customers like bigger companies often do, they are still likely to get feedback. From personal experience, I’m typically the most willing to respond to these surveys when I’ve been really satisfied or really dissatisfied with my product or experience. But from a company’s perspective, either form of feedback is valuable in showing what they are doing right or what they are doing wrong. It tells the company what the customers really want, not just leaving them to guess what they think customers are looking for.

I don’t think I’ll ever find out if Michael Scott took Ryan’s advice about proactively keeping customers satisfied, but hopefully you will. While there are so many other things that go in to running a business, when it comes down to the bare basics, customers are what keeps any business going. Keeping your loyal customers happy should be one of your first priorities.

Never graduating from a formal university himself, his advice on company management and choosing a career path is based on life experience and successful entrepreneurship. The words of wisdom I took away from his interview with US Senator Orrin Hatch all funneled into two basic principles: advice for creating a successful company, and the second is a necessary characteristic to become a happy and successful employee.

Less is more.

Zuckerberg said that Facebook works hard to keep the company as small as possible. The success they are seeing is a direct result of focusing on the strength of the team, rather than that of the individual management. They ensure that every person added to the team is exceptional, and the result is retention of efficiency with an innovative team. A Facebook company motto: the individual developer should be able to do something better than a division of a company.

Be passionate about it.

Whatever you are doing, be passionate about it. You have to really love and believe in what you are doing as an entrepreneur, or the rational thing to do is–stop. The most profound answer from Zuckerberg to potential entrepreneurs was, “People don’t get put into roles; they create them.” If every employee has that mindset and motivation to excel, your company can expect incredible results. By having passion about what you want to define yourself as, and what you want to create, success is obtainable.

Peter is best known for founding HelpAReporter.com (or HARO), a site where  journalists and bloggers put up queries describing what they’re writing about. If you answer and it’s a fit, you could be interviewed and mentioned in their story. It’s a great way to get free publicity for your business.

Over 200 small business owners came to hear Peter (here’s a blog post with video clips). He’s really funny!

This video introduced Peter Shankman and the idea that with social media, the best way to learn is by immersion — just jump in.

Here are three social media tips for your small business

If you prefer to listen to these tips, go to this wrapup I did for the Web Marketing Weekly Show.

1. Everyone has ADD online, so be brief.

Your customer has a short attention span. It went from about five minutes in the 80s (about the length of an MTV video) to 2.6 seconds today. On Twitter, it’s 140 characters. That means you must get to the point, and fast.

2. Use social media to stick in your customer’s mind.

No one can be your customer if they forget (or don’t know) that you exist. Social media makes it easier to stay in the mind of your customers. For example, Facebook tells you when it’s someone’s birthday. Peter wishes people a happy birthday as a way to connect. You don’t just reach existing fans when you reach out. If people like you, they tell their friends. Peter  got at least $150k in consulting jobs last year because his fans recommend his services to their friends.

3. Plan for success, not just failure.

First, realize that anything you post on a social networking site is not yours. It can go away, or go down.

“What would happen if Facebook decided you did something wrong? Or Twitter went down, or pulled your account?

Do you have a backup plan? Do you know who your fans, followers, readers, or subscribers are, and have an alternate way to contact them?

Don’t you think you should?”

Source: Peter Shankman’s blog

Don’t just plan for the worst, think about what to do with wild success.

Thanks for everyone who came.  Special thanks to Peter Shankman, our team, and cosponsors Cowboy Leaders.

What questions do you have about social media? Tell us in the comments.

You’d figure that, in 2010, the number one marketing tool for these guys would be social media and the Internet but alas, it’s still the radio. Here’s some quick ideas of what haunt peddlers could do to take advantage of social media.

Take frightened pictures of your guests

Take patrons’ pictures when they’re screaming because that headless-zombie-Jason-look-alike-with-the-limp-and-baby-arms just jumped out and everyone screamed like they were at a Justin Bieber concert. But then give these pictures out for free. If it were me, I would have a kiosk setup outside where guests could claim their pictures by posting them straight to Facebook.

Use the power of video and scary pranks

In a brilliant move, a movie recently used Chatroulette to scare people by with a cute girl that goes all crazy demon possessed.  Haunt peddlers should rinse and repeat, record the reactions, and shared the love. Showing people that you can scare through the Internet will convince them that you can scare in person.

Use your theme to the Nth degree

If your haunted attraction has a theme like The Ring, tease it up by releasing your own 7-days till death video before the opening. Try to extend whatever themes you’re working with. For another example, across the street from the office I’m sitting in is a “Haunted Forest.” Why not go and haunt a popular forest spot to promote what you’re doing? Go hang Blair Witch symbols in the park everyone frequents and set up some clues that point back to what you’re doing. Then tease it up with videos, cryptic tweets, or whatever.

Okay, those are all the ones I could think of off the top of my head. Submit your ideas below or just checkout our infographic!

We hate change because our brains make us

It’s because we have brains! There is a part of our brain (name escapes me, help) that is responsible for remembering how to do every day tasks that at one time we had to think about and learn how to do. We take for granted now, that we had to work hard to learn these tasks. Tasks like riding a bike, speaking, typing, dribbling a basketball, playing an instrument, driving a car and other similar activities.

The thinker part of the brain (I know, I know that’s not a very scientific name) is very protective of its bandwidth, so devoting resources to learning a new task, interface or system is aggressively resisted. Understanding this brain economy is important to help us manage our world of constant change.

Review changes objectively

So if we can force ourselves to step back and objectively review a change, most of the time the change will be for the better. The new Twitter, for example, is vastly superior, in my opinion, to the previous interface, though I had to figure a few things out. The changes Digg made really put off a large portion of their user base. For me, I think the new Digg is better, but I’m a relatively new Digg’er.

So be objective and ask, “how will this new tool or this change make my life easier” — if you can’t objectively answer, then give yourself a few weeks for your brain to adjust. The more ingrained the task, the more difficult it will be to change.