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.

However, marketing is only this simple with one key piece in play: you have to know what you really do and why a prospective customer should come to you.  Knowing what you REALLY do can lead to simple and easy marketing messages and will help dictate what types of marketing you do.  Here are a couple of questions to ask.

What makes my business different? – What do you do differently than your competition?  Often times, it is what you do different, unique, or above and beyond that is the best indicator of “what you do”.

What line of business am I the best at? – Often times, one company can have many lines of business.  For instance, a plumber could provide plumbing repair, plumbing maintenance, emergency plumbing services, plumbing for new homes, etc.  What this plumber does best may be the message that he/she should share.

What would my loyal customers say about me? – It has been said that your brand is no longer what you say it is, it is what your customers say it is.  In terms of marketing, I would say that the same thought applies to “what you do”.  Ask your most loyal customers what they think about your business.  They’re loyal for a reason.  Find out why.

Simple marketing can lead to better decisions, allocation of funds and results.  Invest a little time in determining what it is that you do, and start telling people.  Once you start telling them, do it over and over again.

Make sure your website rocks.

On these amazing interwebs, people don’t look at you to see what kind of person you are, and it’s rare that they will come into your store and be impressed by how clean it is.  All they have to judge you on is your website.  Is it professional?  Is it impressive?  Is it user-friendly?  If you have a lame website but an awesome company, no one will know how awesome your company is because all they see is the lame website.

Offer outstanding customer service.

You can offer just as many products as larger corporations do, but as a small business, what sets you apart from the bigger companies is your ability to offer better and more personalized customer experience.

Answer emails right away.

Even if all you can say is “More information is coming soon; thanks for your email,” your customers deserve some sort of acknowledgement immediately to let them know they reached you and you’re working on whatever they need you to be working on.  You can automate this if necessary or train your employees to provide these responses, but as a small business, immediate, polite responses can show just how professional you are (whether or not your baby brother is your only employee).

With a little careful planning, any small business can look as big and professional as it wants to.

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.

The takeaway here (beside making me want some bubble gum) is that how much you charge depends on what you want. Does the price you charge make any difference?  Well, if you consider whether you make money and stay in business a difference, then, yes.  The right price can lead to booming business, and the wrong price can put you out of business.  So what’s the trick?

These four considerations might help:

Determine your break-even point

Sure, the pack of gum cost 50 cents.  But did it cost you anything to go to the store to get it?  What about your time? Do you need to mail it to anybody?  What about the “Buy your gum today!” signs you put up around school?  The posters?  The smelly markers?  Your time? Take all your costs into consideration before you determine your break-even point.  Could you sell the packs of gum for 25 cents?  Not if you want to make money…and I have the sneaky feeling you want to make money.

Get a handle on your target audience

Are your customers high-rollers?  Are you aiming to be seen as a bargain or is quality more important?  Do you want to build the VIP recess brand that only a few kids can afford (and therefore charge $1) or do you want to monopolize the playground and keep other kids from selling gum (and therefore charge, say, 55 cents)?  Figure out who you want to sell to and build your price and brand around it.

What’s everyone else up to?

Look around and see what the competition is doing.  Is there a third grader selling gum that lasts longer and tastes even better?  If the kids are used to paying $2 for a pack of gum, they might think $1.75 is a bargain.

Try, try, again

If no one bought any gum when you charged $1, try again the next day for 75 cents.  You’ll have to tinker with prices for a while, so keep trying to find the best sustainable price that allows you to make a healthy profit, grow your business, and please your target audience.  Trial and error is your best friend in small business (and in life), and pricing is no exception.

Whether you sell bubble gum or army jets or anything in between, applying these tips will help your price problems disappear.

But there is a revolutionary way of getting things done and solving problems brought to us, courtesy of the new wave of social media and commerce that has swept the Internet world. And yet I have only seen a very small minority of folks actually begin to leverage the power of social media to succeed in their business endeavors. That old way of bumping into Bill and going to lunch with Bob may be comfortable and easy to do, but compared to what you could be doing, it is incredibly inefficient and unlikely to have a significant impact on your future business. Instead of seeking the advice of a single individual to solve your problem, seek the knowledge of the masses to quickly and efficiently help you further your success in business.

People wonder all the time at my capacity to get so many things done seemingly simultaneously. Let me tell you my dirty, dark secret: I don’t have just one or two friends helping me solve my business issues, I have thousands of them!

One of the beauties of this fact is that I am able to quickly and efficiently uncover the people who have specific expertise on any issue I may be confronting. I don’t have to rely on being “lucky” that my colleague in the adjacent office will have a solution. If I am looking for a Senior VP of Marketing that has a specific skill set in, say, digital media, I frame my question to my thousands of Internet connections and try to obtain the best possible result. So I will post a Facebook message to my 5,000 Facebook friends that reads simply: “Who is the best Marketing guy you know in matters related to digital media?”

Another Facebook tool I have is this: I have categorized all 5,000 Facebook friends into roughly 50 categories. One of the categories is “Marketing and PR.” Approximately 350 of my Facebook friends have backgrounds in this area. How do I know? Whenever I add a new Facebook friend, I religiously and almost obsessively study that person’s background and interests. It takes me just 30 seconds to a minute to peruse their profile. I then place that person into the appropriate list or category. Many go into three or more of my groups. Categorization of one’s social network can be a killer tool and getting to deploy the power of the masses in solving business problems.

The companies without websites can really benefit from this free product by accessing a phenomenal 97% of customers searching for local businesses like theirs online. This, in a lot of cases, can make it or break it for some startup companies who are working to get an online presence and don’t have a lot to spend.

Google Places is a great tool to get for a couple of reasons.  First, it is free. Second, 97% of customers search for local businesses online[i]. Third, Place pages provides very useful information about who is visiting the Place page, what part of town they are searching from, and other information that can be used to make smart strategic business decisions. Fourth, it gives the searcher a quick snapshot of a business including the company’s physical address, reviews, specific products and services provided, hours, photos of the business, and other unique things a customer might want to know about a business[ii]. The Place page also gives the advertiser the capability of providing a coupon or promotion to attract more customers to their business.

Multi-location or large companies like Walmart, Little Caesars or Taco Bell benefit from Google Place pages by showing a potential customer the closest physical location of their store or place of business, store hours, and promotional deals they are having.

Success stories

• Pet groomer increased business by 30%, with just a Place page
• S.T.A.R.S Horsemanship increased business by tenfold in six months
• Storage company increased its site traffic from 400 visitors a month to an average of 2,500 per month

[ii] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TpZan96KHOM

Planning:

Although making money on the internet isn’t as easy as some people would like to make you think, it is much better when you have a plan. Going to the gym without a plan will leave you floundering with minimal results. Likewise launching an online marketing campaign without a plan will yield minimal results, but it likely costs more money. You could be left broke and slightly depressed, wondering how others have found success.

Commitment:

Once you have a plan its important that you stick with it. Just like exercising its not easy at first but you will catch on and find success. Login to you AdWords or Analytics account to monitor the campaign. Run reports regularly to help you make wise decisions and you will eventually see success. If you need a “trainer” I know of a company that has the expertise to help you out.

Knowledge:

Online marketing and exercise share something that I call the “everyone-has-a-better-way” principle. No matter how dialed in your workout routine is there is always someone with an “proven” better way. There is no difference when it comes to marketing, someone is always happy to tell you they can do it better, cheaper or more efficiently. To combat this its important that you stay current on your industry and up on the new search trends and tools. There are several blogs, books and people that you can learn from but do it with your specific goal in mind.

So, although marketing and exercise aren’t directly related following some of the same basic principles will help you find success. Remember that its not always easy but the pay off is going to be huge. I think its okay to make modifications to your plan of attack as your knowledge grows. But, be careful not to lose sight of your goal.

When looking to improve your online presence, you need to ask yourself a couple of important questions in order to focus on a goal. Do I want to increase my brand awareness, generate more leads, increase sales, or do I want to do a combination of all three?

Content is important

After figuring out a goal, there is a need for content. If content has already been created, there is a need to reanalyze it because content is king! Creating relevant, quality content might be obvious to some, but not to everyone. This is probably the single most important and basic thing to first focus on when looking to start or improve an online presence. Content is so important to Google  that they recently updated their algorithm, code named “Panda,” to combat content farms and low-quality content in general. Content farms are sites that produce low-quality articles for clients with the goal of obtaining a better organic search rank. The result of having poor quality content, identified by Panda’s algorithm, will be a drop in organic search rankings. The Panda update has also had a negative effect on websites which have copied or duplicated content from the original source. An example of this is found in a NPR article about a furniture company who used to have a high search rank, but quickly found out, after Panda launched, that its duplicate furniture descriptions were categorized as low-quality, causing its rankings to drop dramatically.

According to Google’s Blog, their goal is “to give people the most relevant answers to their queries as quickly as possible.” Panda is one of the many steps Google has taken and will continue to take to make search fast and relevant to users’ search queries.

Matt Cutts, Google’s lead engineer on the Panda update, gives some helpful advice, “The sites that do put a little bit more individual care and attention and work into the content of their site — whether it be a product description, or a blog post,” says Cutts, “those are the ones that users tend to prefer a little bit more and appreciate.”

Because Cutts provides some vital insight of what Panda is doing, the importance of creating quality content that is relevant to the goal of the site’s purpose is key. Remember: quality, original, and relevant content is paramount and will increase your online presence.

Stay Up-To-Date

The internet is such a fluid environment and is always changing. Because of this environment, it is very important to stay up-to-date with the changes and always look to become more educated. A couple of good sources to start with are:

• Adwords Help Center
  • Contains study material for the Google Fundamentals Advertising Exam
  • It also contains help material for Google Analytics
  • Google’s blog
    • Contains updates and good general happenings

Remember, content is KING! And education and staying up-to-date are both very important.

NPR News about “Panda”

1. http://www.npr.org/2011/05/03/135809341/googles-search-tweak-puts-a-company-at-risk

Google Blog about content

2. http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2011/02/finding-more-high-quality-sites-in.html

Want a free copy of the best selling book The Orange Revolution? Read to the end.

For the past few years I’ve been studying what makes the best teams different. Why do some work groups create breakthrough results—even in the midst of this great recession—and others, well, don’t. And in 2008 and 2009 we conducted a 350,000-person survey and wrote The Orange Revolution.

In our work, a common question we heard from teams trying to breakthrough was this: “We didn’t have a say in our team goal, it came from corporate. And given our resources, time, and budget, it seems impossible.”

One thing is certain—telling management what you can’t do is not going to fly. But that doesn’t mean your team is destined to become a real-life Dilbert cartoon, either. Instead we suggest taking to management a strong proposal of how—through a creative approach and willingness to stretch—you can meet the most critical and time-sensitive deliverables on your list. It’s a “can-do” statement instead of a “can’t-do” statement that is certain to get you nowhere. Couple this with a strong case for a second phase, where lower-priority items are completed after the initial deadline. This proves that your team knows where to focus and prioritize.

The success of your proposal to extend some projects into a second phase hinges on demonstrating a revolutionary approach to achieving key items during Phase 1. Great teams are creative and innovative; they stretch themselves. So work your network, call in favors, and find a way. One national sales team we studied had a corporate goal to grow and an order to trim travel expenses by a third. Although it seemed impossible, the group found creative ways to couple delivery visits with sales calls, miraculously meeting both goals.

With initiative and hard work, you can turn this potential train wreck into a feather in your team’s cap. Remember, “A small group of people can change the world. In fact it is the only things that ever has.” Margaret Mead

Want a free book? We have three prize packs to give away, each with the book The Orange Revolution and some other goodies. Winners will be chosen at random, just leave a comment to enter. Easy.

Update: All books have been given away, thanks for participating!