Pinterest has been a major player in the marketplace for the past few months, and with good reason. Pinterest is a social site that calls themselves a virtual pinboard. It allows you to organize and share all of the beautiful things you find on the web. People use pinboards to plan their weddings, decorate their homes, organize their wardrobe/closet, and find favorite recipes. They use it to find interesting ideas and to share different things they love, for both home and office use.

Yet Pinterest is more than sharing information – its about sharing things in a visual way. The image attracts attention and makes people want to share. The more they share, the more exposure you will receive.

If you haven’t had a chance to check out Pinterest yet, now is the time. Use these ideas to set up and draw attention to your business.

Dedicate time

One of the key ways to make Pinterest work for you is to dedicate the time to make it work. If you’re active, others will notice and share what you pin. Its not like Facebook where newsfeeds can quickly get overwhelmed. You can dedicate even just a day or two with a few minutes each and quickly find a following. Start by following a few movers and shakers to see what they do. Then build contact and let the fun begin.

Keep it simple

Pinterest is attracting a heavy female audience. Its easy to use and because its visual in nature, you can quickly scan things and find something to share. Every board is set up in the same way, giving it a clean, uncluttered look. And every pinned photo includes a link back to your site, which can help boost the page views and attract attention to any specific post or content you desire.

Share the love

People have preferences for where they spend their time. If they love Facebook, they probably won’t dedicate a lot of time to your Twitter feed. Yet when they recognize a site and learn you have an account as well, they will quickly look you up and follow. Create Pinterest logo links from your blog and let people know where you are active.

Understand your demographics

Is Pinterest a place for you to attract potential business? Do a little research before you begin spending time developing your pin boards. Pinterest is very visual and highly concentrated in the female marketplace. If you have things to share visually – photography, art, weddings, fashion, decorating, crafts and more – it may be a place to explore. Make sure you understand what you will be promoting and what your overall goals and plans are for developing boards.

Its not about you

I’ve been to great profiles that have amazing boards. Most are themed in precise ways so people understand immediately what they will be looking at. Some things are about their businesses, yet most things are linked all over the web. What makes them great is they realize people want tips, resources and ideas related to your concept, yet don’t want to be overwhelmed with a sales pitch, no matter how subtle it is. If you have great advice, they will be back again and again.

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If your client is corporate, it may involve LinkedIn. While LinkedIn hasn’t zoomed to the top like Facebook in recent months, its still a platform used my millions of business people all over the world. Its set up exclusively to connect with other business owners, and provides you with everything you need to find connections, prospects and clients.

If you haven’t looked at LinkedIn in a while, head back over and give it a try using these five steps.

Step One: Build A Dynamic Profile

If you’ve ever created a resume, it’s easy to assume your LinkedIn profile should resemble your resume. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Take a moment and think about how people would search for you. Would they search for President of ABC Company? Or would they search for your type of business or niche: product photographer or retail marketing expert for instance? Keywords are important in the online world because people search by keyword, not by business name. You can also be found in a variety of ways, including on LinkedIn and on sites like Google.

Make sure you fill out a complete profile, and make it as detailed as possible. Put in a professional portrait of yourself – not your business logo or a photo of your dog. People want to connect with you as a person, and build a relationship before they take the next step. A professional photo gives you more credibility, and helps people visualize doing business with you.

Step Two: Add Contacts

Start by searching the database for people you know. If you have more than one person in your company, start with your employees or teammates. Then branch out and look for people you work with in your community. Vendors, clients, networking connections, power partners, friends through work or school – anyone you’ve connected with in the past that may help you connect and grow in the future.

Remember, this isn’t like Facebook. You don’t have to have thousands of friends to build a successful strategy. Instead, focus on finding people that can help you grow along the way.

Step Three: Add Recommendations

Once you connect with people, pick out clients and vendors you’ve worked with in the past, and ask for recommendations. People will generally give you a testimonial on your profile if you ask. And if you know them well enough, ask them a couple times if they “forget”. Because we all get buried in email and “chores”, it’s easy to forget to carry through on an email request. If you don’t hear from someone in a couple of months, try it again. Try to get 5 to 10 to start, and keep it proportional to the amount of friends you have. 50 testimonials with 50 friends may seem a little too good to be true.

Step Four: Join Groups

The only way to make connections is to get active. LinkedIn has created a variety of groups and associations that you can join with a click of the mouse. Search for groups based around your line or work and your interests. Don’t forget to look for places your target market hangs out, and connect to people in a variety of ways. Then get involved in discussions.

Just like with any social media site, never jump on and promote. Social networking is not about promoting. Instead its about connecting and proving your expertise – the selling will come after you’ve built strong relationships.

Step Five: Answer Questions

The Answer section is my favorite area. Every day people head over and ask a variety of questions in a variety of areas. Search for areas where you can showcase your expertise, and start answering. Don’t give quick bullet points; instead give knowledge and answers like you are communicating with a prospect on the phone. Not only are you showcasing your knowledge for all to see, but you’re also connecting with potential customers. And if your answers are selected as the best, you’ll have added depth on your profile showcasing your knowledge. A win win for everyone.

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Just like any other marketing tool, Twitter will only work if that’s where your prospective clients are.

Today I was reading through a new report put out by Edison Research and Arbitron, The Infinite Dial 2011: Navigating Digital Platforms, and noticed some interesting things.

Right now, Facebook has reached majority, meaning that more than half of the US population now uses Facebook on a regular basis. In less than 3 years, it has grown from an 8 percent to a 51 percent usage. So if you are trying to reach the average consumer here in America, its pretty safe to say that you can do so through Facebook.

One in five Americans report that they have visited social networking sites several times per day. And one in four users state that they are following brands or companies in addition to their online friends.

It’s hard to ignore those facts. And it’s hard to run a company, and not know Facebook is the place to be to reach out to target marketplaces.

But what about Twitter?

This same report states that while 92 percent of Americans have heard of Twitter, only 8 percent say they have ever used it.

One of the biggest reasons I think the gap between those who have heard it and those who have actually used it is so high is because Twitter takes a bit more to understand.

When I mention Twitter to a room full of people, I will undoubtedly get the question “Why do people care what I eat for lunch?” The common misnomer about Twitter is you report what you are doing. Twitter is more than that; it’s about communicating, building relationships, and building your expertise.

But if your client base doesn’t get it, no matter how much you Tweet, you’ll never reach them.

1. Start by finding out where your clients are.

2. Look towards the future. If statistics show on social platform growing, put your time into that platform.

3. Watch your results. If you see action, keep it up.

4. Try new things. Just because statistics show something is falling off doesn’t mean its not right for you. If you have the time, try it. Then monitor your results, and continue doing what works for you.

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FourSquare is a mobile application that lets you checkin anywhere around you. From your local gym, to a movie theater, to a restaurant – even the Apple store, you can checkin just about anywhere.

And if you checkin enough, you can unlock badges, specials, and even become the mayor of your favorite place.

Why FourSquare? It originally started out as a way of finding cool places to go in an area that may be unfamiliar to you. Co-founder Dennis Crowley was planning a trip to Scandanavia in 2008, and grew frustrated after a Google search gave him random and non-useful results. He reached out to friends to ask for travel tips and recommendations, and received some amazing tips. So an idea for an application that would allow users to share facts about locations in a gamelike format was born.

Sounds great. But is it really something that can make the long haul? Is this an application that will be here a year from now?

Maybe so. You just have to think outside the box for a while.

Let’s say you are in the travel business. Why not build up your own channel of tips to locations you feature? When someone checks in, they will receive your tips?

That’s what the History Channel started up as a way to promote sites they use in their programming. Instead of random tips, you’ll actually receive historic tips put out by their historians. The more you uncover, the closer you’ll get to unlocking the Historian badge. And you can learn a variety of interesting facts along the way.

Or how about if you host an event? SXSW may be off the charts compared with your event, but it’s a great way to come up with ideas for your own. What if you used the app to bring people together? Provide tips about the local area, what to see and where to go.

I think we’re going to be seeing a lot more of FourSquare in the future.

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Things have changed. The sites we are using and the way we are using them have changed. Does that mean social bookmarking has changed too? And does it still work enough that you should pursue it as a means of generating traffic?

One of the things that made these sites so powerful was for SEO purposes. When a site was listed on Digg, which was high up on the PageRank scale, your site could expect to receive some of that love through the link listing. In 2009, Digg and other social bookmarking sites began to use nofollow links, meaning Google would no longer track them or rank them, thus reducing the power of the connection.

And if there is no connection, why use the system? Which is why we’ve seen a heavy fall off from using these more traditional sites.

Unless they have more to offer.

A site like StumbleUpon is technically a social bookmarking site, yet offers its users more than just bookmarking – it’s become an experience. Have someone StumbleUpon your site, and you could instantly receive more traffic.

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If you fall in the small business category, and provide news and tips that appeal to other small businesses, give BizSugar a try. BizSugar is a small business focused social bookmarking site that provides categories in the marketing, finance, franchises, global business, legal, management, technology and startup categories. The top voted stories receive front page status, and can usually wind up on the front page with 20 to 30 votes, or sugars. Readers also have the ability to send a post to Twitter, Stumble Upon, Delicious, Facebook, Google Buzz or Blogger, or email it to a friend.

Like other social bookmarking sites, you have the ability to create a profile, including photographs, links to your website, RSS to your blog, and links to other social networking sites. Once your profile is built, you can begin sharing news, adding friends, commenting and voting on other stories, and building relationships with other BizSugar members.

The best way to see if you are a match for the BizSugar community is to head over and take a look around. Start by looking at today’s top stories on the home page. You can click to top stories yesterday, over a 7 day period, 30 days, and past year. Also take a look at the hot topics to see what’s trending now.

Once you have a good idea what’s being submitted, and what people enjoy, start submitting.

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Some key highlights this year:

• 25 percent of all bloggers are engaged in mobile blogging, with 40 percent saying it has changed the way they currently blogged
• 48 percent of bloggers believe that more people will be getting their news and entertainment from blogs in the next five years than from the traditional media
• 64 percent of all bloggers remain hobbyists, and blog mainly to express their own personal views
• 81 percent of bloggers have been blogging for more than 2 years, and have on average 3.5 blogs
• 11 percent are now saying that blogging is their primary income source
• 56 percent of bloggers use Twitter, and 87 percent have a Facebook account. The most common reason to have one of these accounts is to promote their blogs.
• 75 percent of mommy bloggers use Twitter. 56 percent of mommy bloggers say Facebook is more effective traffic driver than it was a year ago.
• WordPress is the most popular blog platform
• 90 percent of bloggers use some form of multimedia on their blogs, with photos being the most popular form
• 48 percent of bloggers receive fewer than 1,000 unique visitors per month, and 2 percent receive more than 100,000 visitors per month

What are my takeaways, and what should you be looking for in blogging?

Mobile devices will be the new way of blogging and looking for information in the future. While the numbers are low today, people predict blogs to be the major source of news and entertainment within five years, which also means they will be accessing it from the tools they use the most – which is their mobile devices.

From the rest of the data, I still see blogging as a relatively new and untapped marketplace. Very few are deriving much traffic from it, and fewer still are deriving income from it. This will change. As more people learn to use these tools in effective ways, we’ll see greater numbers of people catapulting in both areas.

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Firesheep is a new free Firefox extension that demonstrates exactly how easy it is to hijack any computer, and shows you how much at risk you can be.

After installing Firesheep, you can begin capturing information of everyone using the network with an insecure website connection. So if someone is logging in to their Facebook account, you can simply click on their icon, and you’ll soon be accessing their Facebook account, and have rights to do anything you please within that account.

Sound dangerous? You bet. Especially if you have a ton of contacts. The last thing your “friends” want or need is to be spammed by you within your own account. And you also run the risk of having your account terminated if too much damage is done.

So how do you protect yourself? Start by securing your web sessions, and secure your computer laptop from anyone at wifi hotspots.

One potential protection software is Hotspot Shield, a free software program that is downloadable, and will protect your IP address and protect you from online identity theft. Know of any other software you recommend? Leave a comment here.

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For those of you that use it, you love it. But if you are still new to the concept, you may be asking yourself “why would anyone want to use this technology?” It opens up a variety of new problems to your already complicated life. GeoLocation sites have their purpose. And as many case studies have show, businesses can do quite well with this technology. But if you decide to use it, you should focus on security first.

1. Never use geolocation features at home. Logging in from home not only tells people when you are at home, it also tells people where your home is. With the huge impact of social over the past few years, if a person wants your home address, nothing can stand in the way of them finding it. But do you really want to broadcast it out to everyone?

2. Never use geolocation at a friend or family member’s home. Same rules apply. If you wouldn’t want to put yourself at risk by broadcasting your personal life, why would you do it to your family and friends?

3. Be careful what and who you are following. With social sites, your friends, followers and fans are open for the world to see. Anyone can easily browse a follower list to see who is on the list. It may be damaging or even unethical is some situations for links to be made. For instance, if a political journalist is on the followers list of a conservative Republican, do they support that person? While the journalist may be doing it just to stay in the loop, looks can be deceiving.

4. Avoid developing patterns. Checking in regularly from locations can develop patters, and can lead to as much safety concerns as releasing your home address. Never check in at your child’s school in the morning as you are dropping them off. Never check in at the coffee shop where you stop in every morning at 9. Think before you reveal your location – would you want someone waiting for you when you arrive?

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Guess what? You can’t control that anyway.

There are so many reasons to use social media, and the longer you sit on the fence, the further the rest of your competition will pull away from you.  I know you’ll enjoy this video, and it might give you a little more power the next time you visit with the CEO.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=ypmfs3z8esI

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