How to Add a Custom Pinterest Tab to Your Facebook Page?

There are three main ways to add a Pinterst tab to your organizations Facebook fan page; via iFrame, via Facebook developer apps, and Woobox. All of these have different looks, advantages, and downsides. Examining characteristics of each can help in deciding on which application to use to install your Pinterest tab.

First, you have to have a Pinterest account. If you are not familiar with Pinterest here is a primer on what Pinterest is and how to use it. In order to install any Facebook Pinterest tab, you have to be using Facebook as yourself as you navigate to the application, so make sure you’re on your own profile, not the page you want to add the tab(s) to.

How to Add a Pinterest Tab via Iframe Host

1. To add a Pinterest tab to your Facebook page using an iFrame host, first go to https://apps.facebook.com/iframehost and locate the “Install Page Tab” button.
2. After you locate the button, chose the Facebook fan page(s) on which you’d like your Pinterest Tab to appear.
3. Once the tab is downloaded, you can go to the top right of the welcome bar and click “allow,” which will fully authorize the application and let you edit your Pinterest Tab.
4. Next, You can change the name of your tab (if you wish) and customize the graphic, and the basic installation will be complete.

NOTE: if you only want to show one or two boards, you have to separate the links from the link to the entire Pinterest account. If you don’t adjust the height of the pixels, you will have a scroll bar to the right and it won’t display all of your Pinboards at first glance.

Advantages of adding a Pinterest Tab via iFrame Host

To the computer-savvy, this application is attractive because it is free and you can customize the size, Pinterest application “display” photo, and what you name your tab/button.

Disadvantages of adding a Pinterest Tab via iFrame Host

The advantages and the disadvantages are one in the same- as customizable as iFrame is, it’s not user-friendly and difficult to master for the basic computer-users out there. Also the iFrame does not automatically adjust the height, so you’ll have a scrolling option until you go in and change the pixel height to allow for a bigger initial “window” or “display” of your Pinterest boards.

How to Add a Pinterest Tab via Facebook Developer Application

1. Go to the Facebook Developer Application installation tool.
2. Click “Create new App,” which is located at the top right of the page. If you want the Pinterest button to actually show up, you have to go through every single step.
3. Fill in all of the fields and then it takes you to a download of the iFrame host version of the Pinterest application- albeit via a bit of a different route.
4. After you locate the button, chose the Facebook fan page(s) on which you’d like your Pinterest Tab to appear.
5. Once the tab is downloaded, you can go to the top right of the welcome bar and click “allow,” which will fully authorize the application and let you edit your Pinterest Tab.
6. Next, You can change the name of your tab (if you wish) and customize the graphic, and the basic installation will be complete.

NOTE: if you only want to show one or two boards, you have to separate the links from the link to the entire Pinterest account. If you don’t adjust the height of the pixels, you will have a scroll bar to the right and it won’t display all of your Pinboards at first glance.

Advantages of adding a Pinterest Tab via Facebook Developer Application

This method simplifies the idea of adding a tab via iFrame host by creating more steps to walk you through the process. It is another free option and you can customize the pixel height, pictures and graphics.

Disadvantages of adding a Pinterest Tab via Facebook Developer Application

Too many steps to reach the same exact result as simply installing the iFrame application.

How to Add a Pinterest Tab via Woobox

Woobox is the #1 provider of page apps on Facebook. Woobox apps have 40 million monthly active users, and logs 150 million monthly visits. Their most popular app/service is the Static HTML app, and the Sweepstakes app is also highly popular. Woobox is a Facebook Preferred Marketing Developer.

1. Last way to add a Pinterest tab to your Facebook fan page is Woobox, which you can enter into the search bar on Facebook and click on, taking you right to the application (or click this link:https://apps.facebook.com/mywoobox/?fb_source=search&ref=ts)
2. Once you are at the woobox application, click “add to page” under the Pinterest icon for the fan page you’d like to add a tab to.
3. Afterwards, your Pinterest tab is installed! You can go to your Pinterest profile and arrange the boards however you wish, and then scroll down to the bottom of the Pinterest Facebook application and hit “refresh cache,” so that all changes you create are reflected in the Facebook app. You must refresh the cache every time you make a change.

Advantages of adding a Pinterest Tab via Woobox

Woobox is another free option that is visually appealing, easy to use, simplified and clean.

Disadvantages of adding a Pinterest Tab via Woobox

Woobox does not let you add multiple, individual pin boards. It just let’s you choose which to show and which not to show. It can only be used ONCE per fan page.

Best Option for Adding a Pinterest Tab

In iFrame, there’s no side-to-side scrolling within the iFrame to see all the Pinterest boards. It’s easier to see all of the boards because you don’t have to guess at the pixel height to avoid top-to-bottom scrolling- and it’s user-friendly, able to be completed in three easy steps without too much customization. You even get a Pinterest logo tab thumbnail.

The Woobox application is free, visually, appealing, and easy to use. It’s simplified and clean, whereas iFrame and the developer app method are more complicated and not quite as user-friendly, though can be more visually appealing depending on your level of computer savvy. Both applications have multiple tutorials on the Internet for installation if needed, and they both have the option of showing one, a few, or all pinboards to followers.

Choose the option best for you based on your tech skills.

Facebook Launches Periscope Challenger for iPhone Users Nationwide

Facebook’s livestreaming video feature, Live, is now available to everyone with an iPhone in the U.S. The Periscope-like service launched last August, but was previously only available for public figures and verified Pages.  

“We plan to start rolling this out to the rest of the world over the coming weeks,” wrote product manager Vadim Lavrusik in a blog post. Android compatibility is also presumably coming soon.

Broadcasters can initiate a stream from their Update Status bars by clicking on a new Live Video icon that will prompt users to write a description of the event. They can also invite fellow Facebookers to come and watch. Streams can last a maximum of 30 minutes.

As streams transpire, broadcasters will be able to see the names of friends who are watching in real time. Viewers can also offer comments or subscribe to be notified when their favorite broadcasters go live again. After broadcasts are completed, says Facebook, they will live on users’ Timelines like any other video post.

Given Facebook’s growing dominance in the video realm, the rollout of Live could portend a serious threat to fellow streaming platforms such as Periscope and Meerkat. On an earnings call Wednesday, Facebook said that 500 million users now watch 100 million hours of video every day.

These 5 Comedy Principles Can Improve Your Social Media Marketing

Okay, so maybe comedy about social media marketing isn’t a great idea. But comedy and social media have a lot in common. They’re both fast-paced, harder than they look, and unpredictable. And at the heart of it, both are about telling a compelling story and making a human connection.

I’m somewhat new to marketing, but have been in comedy—improv, standup, and storytelling—for over a decade. Much of what I learned entertaining audiences makes perfect sense for social media marketing. Here are five comedic principles you can apply to make sure your marketing efforts leave your audience wanting more.

#1 – Yes, And…

The most basic tenet of improv comedy is the “Yes, and” rule. It means you acknowledge your teammates’ suggestions and build on them. For example, if someone holds up two fingers and says, “I have a gun!” you don’t reply, “That’s not a gun; that’s just your hand.” You might get a laugh, but the scene falls apart.

Instead, you would say, for example, “Hey, that gun was a gift from my grandmother!” To which your teammate replies, “She may be your grandmother, but she was my secret lover!” And the scene keeps building from there.

Like improv, social media is a collaborative space where the lines between audience and performer are blurry. If your brand tries to control the conversation, your audience may tune out. You can engage more successfully by joining in on the conversation around your brand, acknowledging others’ contributions and building on them.

#2 – Callbacks

If you analyze a really hilarious stand-up routine (I’m not saying I do that. Who would do that? That’s crazy talk), you’ll notice they have a structure built in. The comedian introduces a joke at the beginning, then refers back to it just when you had forgotten it, which prompts fresh laughter. The greats can do it multiple times during a set, to where the fact that he keeps calling back to the initial joke is just as funny as the joke itself.

Callbacks work because they create a sense of community. The callback becomes an inside joke that only the comedian and the audience know. Even if it’s only been twenty minutes, that shared experience creates a bond. They also make the audience feel smart—one of my favorite comedians, Eddie Izzard, will say, “Well remembered!” when the audience laughs at a callback.

To make your brand seem more human on social, make sure it has a memory. This summer, call back to a successful post from last summer. Take a customer reply with high engagement and turn it into an in-joke for those in the know. Remind your audience of your shared history, and you can foster a stronger sense of community.

#3 – Heckler Management

Heckling is an unfortunate reality for standup comedians. The smart move is to ignore the occasional shout from the audience—all the heckler wants is attention, and once you give it to them, they’ll only want more. If a heckler is insistent, though the other option is to directly engage, in a way that entertains the audience and shuts the heckler down.

In social media, we have our fair share of hecklers, or “trolls.” They have nothing to bring to the conversation, but demand our attention. As in comedy, the best way to deal with a troll incursion is to ignore them. Most trolls will see there’s no attention to be had and go elsewhere. But for the persistent troll, firm and direct engagement (in a brand-consistent manner) can work, and can be entertaining for your audience, too. Just make sure to keep cool and take the high road, as the Washington Post did in this Twitter exchange:

#4 – Rule of Three

“I only need three things before I take up running: good shoes, a workout playlist, and a full frontal lobotomy.”

The rule of three is a classic structure for a joke. The first item in your list establishes a theme, the second leads the audience further into your theme, then the third has a subversion that provokes a response. “I only need one thing before I take up running: a full frontal lobotomy!” is a little bit funny, but the joke plays better once you have the audience engaged.

At Djinn Web Solution, we have a rule of three for messaging. The first message attracts attention, the second fosters engagement, and the third inspires a conversion. If we went all in on the first message, far fewer people would be willing to make the journey with us. But once you attract and engage, you have earned the right to ask your reader to take action.

#5 – Don’t Ask for the Laugh

Nothing is more uncomfortable than watching a comedian who is desperate for the audience’s approval. They repeat the punchline, only louder. They say, “Is this an audience or an oil painting?” or “These are the jokes, folks.” If they manage to elicit a few chuckles, the audience is laughing at them, not with them. Great comedians have the confidence to let their act stand on its own merits, and know the audience well enough to change it up if a joke isn’t working.

Asking for audience approval is just as cringe-inducing on social media. If a post fails to get the level of engagement you were looking for, pointing out the lack of engagement comes across as desperate. It’s better to move on: analyze why the post failed, research your audience, and try a different approach. Your audience won’t like your brand because you beg them to; they will like your brand when you deliver content that resonates.

Good Social Media Marketing Is No Laughing Matter

Good comedians know that comedy is more than standing up and telling jokes. If it were that easy, everyone would do it. In the same vein, social media marketers know there’s more to it than writing tweets and watching the engagement roll in. Both disciplines require practice, testing, and some innate skill. So let these comedic principles be the vermouth in your Facebook martini (callback), and you can make sure your audience stays entertained.

Need to up your social media marketing game? We’re happy to help.

5 Social-Media Opportunities Businesses Mostly Overlook

In January 2015, MediaPost reported that CMOs are turning more of their attention toward social media. What was once believed to be a passing fad has turned into one of the most popular ways for brands to cultivate and engage an audience while driving sales.

But in 2016, companies will be wise to do more than just treat their social media accounts as platforms for marketing message dissemination. Five missed opportunities many businesses can still capitalize on include:

1. Social customer service.

According to social media expert Gretchen Fox, “67 percent [of] consumers use social media for customer service and 66 percent stopped doing business with a company due to poor social customer service.”

Increasingly, brands are creating secondary social media accounts that exclusively focus on providing real-time customer support. The numbers speak for themselves. Fox notes, “Social customer care costs around $1 per interaction while phone support costs at least $6.”

By leveraging social media as a channel to deliver customer happiness, brands save money and build deeper relationships with their audience.

2. Employee advocacy.

Large organizations are missing an enormous opportunity to tap their employees and instantly multiply their social media reach. In an ebook by SocialChorus, the company states that, on average, brands that have a firm employee advocacy plan in place earn eight times more shares on social media. While organic reach on Facebook declines, brands cancircumvent Facebook’s algorithms by getting team members to promote their content instead.

3. Real-time surveys.

John Jantsch, founder of Duct Tape Marketing, believes surveys help brands analyze their market, track performance, follow-up with customers, understand customer demographics and crowd source innovative ideas. In the past, it would take days or weeks for businesses to conduct a survey and gather enough responses to generate conclusive data. Now on social media, businesses can gather instant feedback with quick polls that may assist critical decision-making processes.

4. Recruiting high-impact employees.

In a competitive landscape, recruiting quality talent is both expensive and hard. Using social media, businesses can avoid costly headhunter fees by crowdsourcing job applications. Also, firms are more likely to find candidates who are already engaged with their brand.

Joe Budzienski, vice president of product and technology at Monster,lists three tips companies can use to successfully inbound high-quality job applicants:


“Focus on your social talent brand.” By promoting your mission, vision and culture on social media, you attract job candidates that share the same values.


“Enable your employees to evangelize.” Using your employees as a resource can quickly extend your organic reach to find qualified job applicants.


“Cultivate positive exposure across the social web.” Earn free PR by highlighting what life is like at the office, which may get potential employees excited about joining your firm.

5. Coupling organic and paid strategies.

On social media, companies can engage a massive audience without ever having to spend a dime on advertising. But a purely organic strategy forgets that there are often strong synergies when marketers employ a hybrid paid-and-organic approach.

Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest and Reddit have all developed highly sophisticated advertising platforms that allow brands to target consumers they might not otherwise reach to accelerate their marketing efforts. Each ad platform is equipped with features that empower advertisers to retarget audiences that aren’t yet paying customers. This makes it easy for businesses to create multiple touch points with potential customers who may have been reluctant to convert the first time around.

4 Ways to Use Your Blog to Market Your Business on Social Media

These days, a blog isn't optional. It's the core foundation of an effective direct response social media marketing strategy.

To turn marketing into revenue, you must engage your audience with content that's useful before you start to sell. Use your content to build trust, bring attention to a problem, agitate the problem, and then sell your solution. This works much better than agitating first, which more closely describes Thanksgiving dinners with an ex-boyfriend’s family and not how you want to market on social media. Creating a content plan isn't difficult if you first set some goals, stick to a schedule, and commit to it throughout the year.

Let's see how it works.

1. Set goals.

With an integrated content plan, setting goals for what is to be sold requires a specific, detailed approach. It's important to begin with a clear vision of your desired outcome, then create content that supports it.

Do you want to fill a workshop or seminar? Encourage prospects to schedule a sales conversation? Book your catering orders? First decide your overall goal for your content. In this step, also determine the date the sale request will take place and any incentives you'll offer to drive the sale home.

You can use your blog to offer value to your audience, establish yourself as an authority in the marketplace, share case studies to build trust, and get more leads for your business.

After you develop your goals, create a schedule and stick to it. Whether it be once a day or once a week, consistency and commitment are key. Create your schedule based on one you can stick to in order to build your audience and generate those all-important raving fans.

2. Create an effective blog.

To blog in a way that's most effective and will give you the best end result, begin with the end in mind.

First, think of a blog as the editorial in your media channel. This is your owned-media. You control it, and you can use it any way you like no matter how big or small your audience is. This is where you can appropriately express your opinions on a subject as it might affect your target audience. 

Content should focus on your prospects’ interests and pains to zero in on what they find important. 

Be sure to create a blog brand "voice." A blog should have an overall tone or theme, or be presented in one person’s voice. Focus your brand around your Unique Selling Proposition to reinforce why you're different from everyone else and how you can help solve your prospects’ pain.

Don't spend time trying to be everything to everyone -- that won't create raving fans or turn traffic into buyers. Align yourself with a specific message that reaches a specific market.

Create an editorial calendar to plan topics that are complimentary to your overall sales goals and communications strategies. Entice the reader on each blog post with a sneak peak into next week’s blog topic. Make sure to stick to your schedule and post consistently.

After you've established your goal, create a theme related to your sales topic. For example, look at magazines. Each month, many magazines have a certain theme. For example, a sports magazine might have a preview of March Madness in its February issue. And while that February issue has lots of other things in it, it has a whole bunch of material related to college basketball.

In order to achieve your ultimate goal of a sale (or many sales), your role will shift to that of publisher and content provider while your prospect gets to know you.

Your next step is to develop four subtopics that relate back to the overall theme of your monthly topic. Each week will focus on a different aspect of your overall theme, and all will lead toward week four (or day four if you conduct this for four days in a row) when you'll make the offer to your audience with a call to action. This weekly content planning will ensure fresh, relevant content is always being added to keep readers interested and engaged up until the point of sale. Each blog will lead to the finale of the item you're going to sell.

One of the first things to do before writing any content is to make sure you do some research. Take a look at Quora, LinkedIn Answers, Yahoo! Answers, or other similar Q and A networks where you can find lots of people asking questions that relate to your specific industry. Identify their frustrations, objections, and pain points to address in your content creation. Bonus: You get the exact copy that people use when describing their pain points. This is usually quite different than the way those in your industry refer to it. Researching these questions may create some ideas and directions for content Also, take a close look at the links to content within the answers to these questions. Follow these links to see what others in your industry are doing with their content online. (Spying can be fun and profitable! Just keep those dang binoculars hidden.)

You may also want to set up and conduct a survey, or call your existing customers and prospective customers to find out what needs are unmet. When you begin to write your content, keep those unmet needs in mind. Use the information you collect to create a veritable library of remarkable content that's designed to help your customers get what they can’t get anywhere else. Storytelling, testimonials, and providing something of value that meets people’s needs should all be included in your content.

Each post can be anywhere from 350 to 2,000 words. The length should depend on how long it takes to fully get your point across. Test what works best for your specific market, and be very wary of anyone who tries to tell you there's one end-all-be-all for every market.

3. Write social media posts.

Once you have your content written, use this content as the source for your social media posts for the month. Engage your social network in an ongoing conversation focused around your topic theme on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, and other networks. This way, all your content is created with your sales strategy in mind. All your posts and articles are about walking your prospect towards the sale.

A guideline for content/sales online is that your content should be 85 percent PBS and 15 percent QVC, meaning that you shouldn’t self-promote or sell more than 15 percent of the time. If you post one update per day (recommended), then in each month, you should have no more than four self-promotion posts.

4. Automate publication.

On-time and consistent delivery is an essential part of making this plan work. To ensure this, schedule all content in advance. The last thing you want is to have a blog post or social media deadline sneak up on you with no idea of what content to use. Use a service like TweetDeck or HootSuite to pre-program all your content on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn. Schedule your blog posts and emails ahead of time in your application as well.

For blogs, you should post new, relevant content at least once or twice a week. Your readers should also know the day you typically post and keep to that schedule. Alert readers via email about any new posts on your blog and promote these posts in your social media network.

Facebook Is Making it Easier for Businesses to Chat Privately With Customers

The social media megaloth Facebook today announced a new suite of features to make it easier for businesses to use its internal, private chat to talk to customers.
As a business owner, if a customer leaves a comment on your Facebook page, you now have the option to pick up the conversation in the privacy of a personal chat window. Before today, businesses could only respond to a customer through Facebook in the same window from which the customer initiated the communication.
If you have an unhappy customer who is complaining on your business Facebook wall (and who hasn’t!), this new feature is a big time public relations relief. It’s better for you to be able to complete the conversation with that salty customer in private, off of the main stage of your business Facebook Page. When a company replies privately to a comment, the comment displays a note that the business responded privately, so visitors to your page know you addressed it.
Facebook is also rolling out a feature that allows customers to message a business directly from an ad in their News Feed. With the embedded “Send Message” button, a customer can seamlessly go from seeing an advertisement to chatting with the business owner online.
To encourage business owners to use the tool, Facebook is giving digital badges to businesses that respond to 90 percent of private messages and have an average response time of less than five minutes. The badge will notify customers that the business in question is “very responsive to messages.” Business owners can access real-time measurement of their response rate from a private analytics dashboard connected to their Facebook page.
The new communication tools come at a time when more and more people are using chat or instant message to communicate. Within the year, people will use instant messaging more than they do email, according to a recent report by tech analysis firm Juniper Research. The report estimates that 43 trillion instant messages will be sent this year.

Best Getting More People To Like Your Facebook Page Is 99% Worthless Tips You Will Read This Year

Someday, I will have the opportunity to prove to a client or prospect beyond any reasonable doubt that this is true. In the meantime, I will continue to write about it in hopes that the facts will win out.

To prove it beyond a reasonable doubt, I would have to take a page that has zero fans and send massive engagement and traffic with a small budget. Then, we’d need to look at the statistics to show that a page that starts off with zero likes can have more than just paid reach. It can have more organic reach than pages that have tons of likes.

We do have examples, not to the extreme of having zero fans, but by demonstrating that through strong content and proper use of advertising we can get strong organic reach. Here’s a quick one that’s pretty clear:

As you can see, this page has 2,458 people liking it. However, you’ll see that the small budget, in this case around $15, was able to get it good paid exposure. More importantly, it generated more organic reach than the number of people who like the page.

Now, let’s look at a different page. It has nearly 8 times as many likes, but the reach is minimal.

The gap is crystal clear. Facebook has been pulling back on organic reach for some time. While many will say that it’s all about greed and the bottom line to force pages to use money to get exposure, it’s more likely about what the users want. When they see page posts on their news feeds, they are much less likely to engage with those posts than the posts of their friends and family. Still, they’re a business, so the reduction of organic reach and the rise of sponsoring posts is the end result.

You’ll notice that I said that page likes are 99% worthless. There’s one minor benefit. Some would call it credibility. Others would call it ego. Either way, having a page that people are liking gives a psychological boost to the page to let people demonstrate how popular their page really is. While likes are infinitesimal in importance compared to reach, it’s still a benefit.

Focus on content. Put a budget behind it. Give your page real reach rather than the artificial benefits associated with page popularity.

How to Maximize Your Facebook Reach — Without Paying for It

Has the organic reach of your Facebook page dropped to nearly zero? It seems an unavoidable phenomenon in the evolution of Facebook.

According to Brian Boland from the ads product marketing team at Facebook, the decreased organic reach is related to the supply and demand theory. Since there’s a fixed amount of space in the user’s News Feed (demand), and innumerable posts (supply), not every post will make it into a user’s News Feed.

The News Feed is designed to show content that is relevant to the audience, rather than showing all possible content out there. Boland suggests, “it is important to publish content that teaches people something valuable, entertains them and makes them think creatively.” This is the reason Boland says that Facebook’s organic reach is more effective when you take advantage of paid media to meet your goal.

Many users have questioned the importance of having more people like their page. Boland explains that the value of more Facebook “likes” is that it makes your ads more effective. The process generates better auction prices for ads and increases your business’s credibility. Users respond more positively to ads from brands, especially those their friends have liked.

The good news is, Facebook is modifying its content ranking algorithm to position the best posts higher in News Feeds. Although Boland points out these algorithm changes are another reason for declined organic reach. Many have found this change improves user experience and enhances the quality of ads on Facebook. In a nutshell, Boland predicts that, as Facebook continues to grow, organic reach may continue to fall.

But that doesn’t spell the end of everything. There are still ways to maximize your reach on Facebook organically and make your posts more visible. Here are  some suggestions about how to maximize your Facebook exposure — without paying for it

Create Engaging Content

Create good, quality content that people actually want to see and increase engagement with your fans. Re-share old content that is highly beneficial to reach different audiences within a short span of time. Make sure the content is relevant to your audience.

Share Up-to-Date News and Trends

Facebook ‘likes’ are the most popular forms of user engagement. Comments and shares are also an important aspect of social engagement. It has been observed that comments and shares of post engagement increase by 16 percent year over year and 40 percent quarter over quarter. However, this is only possible when viewers see the latest news or content based on current trends. So experiment with new styles of content for your audience.

Dig Deep Into Data

It is possible that status updates might work best for one business while videos and links may be the most effective for another. Dig into Google Analytics to see your Facebook website conversion for insights into what works best for you and determine the best time to post your content on Facebook. The Facebook Insights tab is the best place to see when your fans are online under the section “when your fans are online?” This gives you a clear picture of how many of your fans are online each hour or during specific days of the week. Ideally, when you have the most fans online, that’s the best time to post your content.

Increase the Frequency of Posting

Once you review your Facebook Insights, you will most likely notice that there’s really never a time when none of your fans are using Facebook. People tend to remain on Facebook for an average of 30-60 minutes. So if you post content only once a day, you can only reach fans who were on within that time frame. To reach more people, post content multiple times a day. Focus on the quality of your content and the preferences of your audience.

Understand the Facebook Algorithm

It’s necessary to understand the Facebook algorithm to understand what drives users, so you can determine how well you can affect engagement. EdgeRank does a constant calculation between users. To know what goes into the calculation you need to know the basics.

• The freshness of interaction: the more recently a customer has interacted with your page, the more likely your page will show up in their feed. More frequent posting with varying subjects gives users more chances to engage with your post.
• Type of interaction: there are different actions a user takes to affect EdgeRank. They can like your post, share your post, comment, click links and follow your page. Different kinds of content attract different forms of engagement.

Utilize Facebook Insights

With Facebook Insights, you are better equipped to see who your posts are reaching. Look at age, gender and location to make sure you are reaching the people you want to reach. Facebook Insights can reveal which content is working for the audience you are trying to target.

Story Bumping

Through story bumping, Facebook ensures that your audience sees content that is highly relevant, even if it’s a little bit older. For instance, when your friends like or comment on an old photo, it tends to rise to the top of your News Feed. With story bumping engaging content will be pushed to the top of a user’s News Feed. The more people engage with your content, the more people will see that engagement in their News Feed.

There is a feature related to story bumping called Last Actor. Facebook favors any page or person you interacted with you during your last 50 interactions.

Create a Fan Base

Creating good quality content frequently and consistently helps you create a fan base. The best way to hit the right target is to use Custom Audiences to target people who are not your current fans. Use Lookalike Audiences and Graph Search to find people who are similar to your fans and like specific pages and interests relevant to your niche.

Use the tactics above to maximize your Facebook reach and organically create your fan base.

Contact Us if you want to start Social Media Campaign for your Business.

You Can Still Get Free Website Traffic — Here’s How!

These days we are witnessing quite a logical trend – traffic is getting more expensive. The concept of free website traffic is slowly going away for a few reasons:

• SEO, the major source of free reliable traffic, is getting riskier and less reliable. PPC is becoming a preferred, safer and quicker traffic source.
• Social media monsters, building themselves for a few years now, are now looking for more and more aggressive ways to monetize that past effort.
• The Web itself is growing up. Web business ventures are consolidating into large corporations with solid income which is hard to compete with for free.
• Free website traffic is harder and harder to scale. It requires continuous effort unlike, for example, PPC, which when set-up and tested well, doesn’t consume too much time (apart from regular monitoring and optimization.)

But is free website traffic dead or going away? Of course not. It’s just changing. It’s getting harder and requires a more creative approach, but you can still get exposure for free.

One (by far the most important) thing to note here is that you don’t need lots of traffic. When creating a traffic-driving strategy, keep in mind:

• Relevant and targeted traffic is a much wiser time investment (even if it’s often harder).
• You don’t need thousands visits a day. Create smart and realistic goals. Two hundred to three hundred targeted visits a day may be a great start. Apart from traffic driving, think hard about your conversions, lead generation, relationship building, etc. Traffic needs to convert to make a difference, even if it’s low traffic.

Here are some methods that startups and small businesses are using to improve their earning potential, build relevant traffic and bring in the dollars, even when they have no money to dedicate to the task.

Social Media

Social media traffic can be free. It can be awesome as well — if you have a good loyal following you keep interacting with. It does take lots of effort and time to build it up. In most cases, it also requires continuous effort to maintain it.

A lot has been written on building up your social media following for exposure, branding and traffic. First Site Guide provides a very concise, yet comprehensive guide on building traffic to your site. It’s awesome background information you’ll be able to build upon.

On the other hand, being prepared for your article going viral on social media is also essential. I’ve seen lots of unfortunate cases when a well-seeded article brought a site’s servers down. Here’s an old but good article on how uptime affects your marketing and Site Geek offers some reliable uptime statistics on each listed host.

Narrowing Target Audiences

Casting too wide a net is easy to do, even unintentionally. Rather than trying to attract everyone within a niche, narrow it down further and slowly expand as you nail that particular part of the market. That will help you with exponential growth over time, rather than trying to gather different elements of a market that might have different needs.

For example, cloud-based freelancing software Motiv didn’t initially target all freelancers in the creative field. Their most aggressive marketing was aimed at Web and graphic designers, who they knew would most benefit from their software. Other freelancers could use the service, as well. But marketing was not directed at anyone but the most narrow audience for a more rapid growth.

Again, choosing between low targeted traffic and huge irrelevant traffic – what would you choose?

Utilize Market Influencers

There isn’t much to say about this one. If you can find just one person with a heavy social or blog following, and you can get them to try and review your product/service, you will see a major jump in traffic. But even better, you will see a serious jump in conversions.

Start building a relationship with these people, commenting regularly on their work and profiles so they recognize you. Then, once they know who you are, invite them to try you out for free. If they like what you have to offer, they will tell people about it without you having to ask.

You can get even more subtle and invite those influencers to get interviewed on your site. This often leads to a stronger relationship. Plus you’ll get free traffic from the featured expert sharing his/her interview all over the Web.

In the same way influencers can be beneficial, so can large websites that have a big following. Most of them will welcome a regular contributor (provided you have good advice to share.)

Go with (or Create) the Trend

This is one of my favorites. Tweeting a trendy hashtag may drive a boost in interaction but creating timely and trendy content can actually bring your site to a whole new level.

There are two ways you can build traffic from a trend:

1. Follow online trends to provide timely coverage. Tools like Hashtagify, Twitter trends and Google Explore will be perfect for that. Another good idea is to monitor unofficial holidays and build your content strategy around them.
2. Create your own trend. My favorite example is a free shipping day. Or you can get away with a less time-consuming initiative. Simply a “hot” section on your site may help in driving time-sensitive traffic. This site has it implemented very well.

Getting free website traffic is possible, but you have to be prepared to spend the one thing you might not feel you have – time. Remember, it is an investment and it is worth it.

25 Actionable Tips on How To Start Using Pinterest For Business

Pinterest For Business

There are 53 million unique monthly Pinterest users in the United States, andForbes reports that is about 22% of all Americans, ahead of Twitter at 19% and about equal to LinkedIn.

When it comes to marketing on Pinterest, many businesses are stuck and don’t know where to start. Here are a few quick tips that can get you started on using Pinterest for business and take the intimidation out of Pinterest marketing, for almost any business.

Cover Image

Choose a cohesive cover image for all your boards, with the board title on the image.

Pins

You can pin gifs and videos, as well as regular images. Be sure to do all three for a good variety. Pin and repin regularly (at least 1-2 times per week).

Titles

Be really specific with your boards and include clear titles. For instance, boards like “Delicious Desserts” and “Easy Supper Ideas” will usually do better than one board called “Recipes.”

Categories

Make sure all your board and pin categories are correct so they can be found easily when users are browsing.

Hashtags

You can use hashtags on Pinterest. Make sure you only use 2-3 max per pin and keep to keywords, not made up words, like #reallygoodideaforsummer.

Analytics

Take advantage of the free Pinterest analytics once you’ve verified your website: http://www.pinterest.com/source/YOURSITE.com/analytics/

Verification

Verify your website and add your Twitter account to add authenticity.

Collaboration

Invite your power users or community to a shared board for collaboration or creative brainstorming.

Display Your Company Culture

Have a board that shares images from your office or company events to humanize your business and its employees.

Pin It Button

Install the Pin It button on all your eCommerce pages to make sharing as easy as possible.

Use Alt Tags

Make sure all the images on your website have alt tags so they can be pinned easily (the alt tag auto-populates the description field for the pin).

Pin Your Articles/Newsletters

Automatically pin all your blog posts or newsletters on a specific board for each, OR in their applicable category.

Place Titles Over Images

Pins that have blog post titles on them may be more likely to be shared, since they explain what they are linking to. Create a featured image for your blog posts with the title on it using a tool like PicMonkey or Canva. You could also add your company or blog logo in the corner, on a transparent background. Here’s an example from Buzzfeed:

Pin Infographics and Charts

Studies have shown that the more space a pin takes up the more likely it is to get pinned. So look for infographics or useful (and colorful) charts you can pin.

Repin

Follow your customers’ Pinterest boards and make it a point to regularly repin their pins to show you like what they do, in an authentic way.

Display Pinterest on Your Website

Add a Pinterest follow button and profile widget to your website, either in the sidebar or footer.

Respond and Engage

Make sure you respond to comments and questions on your pins. You can @ tag usernames in comments, like Twitter and Facebook.

Fill New Boards

When making new boards, make sure you pin at least 10 images at once so it looks filled up on your profile. 5 is the absolute minimum.

Use the “Follow Boards You Love” Tool

Use the “Follow boards you love” tool to find boards and users to follow. Hopefully, like Twitter, they will follow you back.

Use the “Everything” Search

Use the “Everything” search to find pins outside your followed boards (like Twitter, the home feed is pins just from users that you follow). This can help get you more visibility because users are notified when someone repins their pin or follows them.

Search Hashtags

Search via hashtags of popular industry terms to find more users to follow, pin from, or connect with.

Step Outside the Box

Because Pinterest is about being creative, think outside your industry box. For instance, an ergonomic pillow manufacturer likely has a target audience who is also into healthy living, so health recipes or exercises would be good pins for them.

Host Contests

Hold a contest for creative DIYs with your products. Turn them into blog posts with lots of pin-worthy how-to photos.

Use PinAlerts

Use PinAlerts to receive an email whenever someone pins something from your website, so you can thank them via the comments or follow their boards.

Complete Your Profile

Make sure you fill out your profile bio and photo. Change it to reflect new promotions or branding campaigns.

When it comes down to it, any company’s strategy (no matter what industry they are in), should be based on presenting a creative and fun side, without trying to be too pushy or salesy with their own products. Think of creative ways to feature your products and services in tutorials or other content, and it will work much better than simply pinning your latest advertisement.

Additionally, not all businesses will find that Pinterest is a good fit for them. As with any social network, don’t try to force it! Remember, users can tell when a company isn’t passionate or authentic about what they are doing online.