SOCIAL MEDIA & INTERNET MARKETING BLOG

Posts Tagged ‘Social Media for Small Businesses’

Know Before You Go: Pinterest for Businesses

April 30th, 2012 by Rainman Web Development No Comments

Unlike many other social media networking sites, Pinterest was started and still operates on an invitation-only basis. In order to establish a profile on Pinterest you can request an invitation directly from Pinterest by clicking here. Once Pinterest has processed your request you will receive an email notification letting you know you can create a Pinterest account. Requesting an invitation from Pinterest directly may take some time, so I suggest asking a friend that already has a Pinterest account to send you an invitation. Invitations sent by friends seem to take less time to process than requests directly from Pinterest, but both options to request an invitation to Pinterest are reliable.

Before establishing your company’s Pinterest account, please take the following information into consideration:

If you are creating a business account on Pinterest, be sure to sign up via your company Twitter profile so you receive full benefit of integrating your company Twitter and company Pinterest.
By integrating your company Twitter and Pinterest, you can easily share any new pins with your Twitter audience.
As we discussed in our previous blog post, Pinterest still doesn’t allow Facebook business pages to integrate with business profiles on Pinterest, but rest assured that integration is likely on the way as Pinterest continues to grow and expand their service offerings.

Once you have activated your new business Pinterest account, it is important to begin optimizing your profile with a company description, logo, link to your website and other descriptive information. Pinterest has a very informative activation process that makes it easy to optimize new accounts by following prompts provided during the set up process.

When exploring Pinterest settings and privacy, it is important to make sure you leave all visibility options on to make your Pinterest boards accessible to the public and search engines. One of the main goals of social media is to share content and increase brand recognition which is much more difficult if your Pinterest boards are not visible to search engines.

Pinterest discourages blatant self-promotion stating “Pinterest is designed to curate and share things you love. If there is a photo or project you’re proud of, pin away! However, try not to use Pinterest purely as a tool for self-promotion.” Like any social media network, you can’t just self-promote your business, you have to interact with your online community to use Pinterest as an effective marketing tool.

Pinterest 101

April 20th, 2012 by Rainman Web Development No Comments

Pinterest is an up-and-coming social networking community that allows users to visually share interests with others. Users share things on Pinterest by uploading images or sharing things found online.

An important aspect to Pinterest is understanding Pinterest Lingo. Here we break down a few of the most common Pinterest terms:

“Pin”- an image added to Pinterest (often times with embedded content)

“Pinboard”- the organization system used by pinterest in which you classify pins by theme

“Pinning”- adding something to Pinterest, or sharing content

“Pinner”- the person doing the Pinning, the user

“Repin”- reposting someone else’s pin

“Pin It Button”- button that can be placed on websites (via code) that allows sharing on Pinterest

Now that you are up on the lingo, what can you do with a pin anyway? Similar to other social networking sites like Facebook, Pinterest allows users to like, repin (share), or comment on pins. Pinterest encourages Pinners to communicate and interact by commenting and repinning things they find interesting.

There are a few important items to keep in mind when creating your business profile on Pinterest. Most importantly, you can’t connect your Facebook business page to your company Pinterest. You should instead set up your business using your company Twitter account. Although integration of Facebook business pages and Pinterest profiles is not available at this time, it is likely on the horizon.

Another important aspect to keep in mind when pinning is to always use pin etiquette. Pin etiquette is a collective group of best practices for Pinterest featured on the Pinterest website. Pinterest recommends following their guidelines to ensure Pinterest stays a positive form of social media. Click Here to view Pinterest’s Pin Etiquette suggestions.

Still not sure if Pinterest is right for you? Check out the Rainman Pin Board and take a look around, or email us your Pinterest questions at social@rainman.com.

Pinterest Copyright FAQs

April 16th, 2012 by Rainman Web Development No Comments

Similar to copyright concerns with other social media sites, Pinterest has been faced with a variety of copyright issues and a great deal of concern about copyright protection has quickly followed.

The social sharing site, Pinterest, is centered on postings of images which are often times linked to blog posts, photo galleries, articles, editorial material, etc., which is an alluring element to most users. In fact, images and graphics are one of the most attractive elements to the human eye so it makes perfect sense that Pinterest has centered itself around photos and graphics.

In this post we will address two common copyright questions about Pinterest.

Does Pinterest own everything I post?

In short, no. Pinterest may have some broad rights to use the content you post in order to share pinned content with other Pinterest users, however Pinterest does not own the content you post.

Pinterest’s “broad license to use” statement is similar to Facebook and many other social media site policies which are essential to allowing content to be shared socially.

It is important to read the fine print when signing up for any account (or agreeing to any document) to ensure that you understand the legal lingo and limitations including how content you generate and your information can be shared in the future.

Can I pin things I didn’t create?

Yes and No. Users are invited to pin ideas and images they have found online as long as they are properly credited to the author or owner, and are not using copyrighted items without permission.

This is a rather broad statement and can have different implications depending on if something is being used for commercial (or business) use, or personal use. Companies that have pinned ideas without properly sourcing them are more likely to be faced with copyright questions because they are more prominent in the public eye and because companies have less protection when using content for commercial use.

As a rule of thumb, commercial businesses should stick to pinning content that they have created unless completely confident they have sourced the original content source correctly. The best way to be sure to properly source is to include information that identifies the original source within the description section of your pin.

As a growing company it goes without saying that Pinterest is experiencing some major growing pains- including the copyright issue.

Pinterest’s copyright and trademark information now includes the pledge that “accounts with usernames, Pin board names, or any other content that misleads others or violates another’s trademark may be updated, transferred or permanently suspended” as well as a trademark complaint form, which leads us to believe that Pinterest really is making an effort to curb copyrighting issues.

Pinterest also now provides HTML code that web page administrators can add to each individual web page containing content they do not wish to share on Pinterest. After this code is installed on your site anyone trying to pin images directly from your page will be greeted with a message stating that the site does not allow pinning to Pinterest. This is yet another way Pinterest is attempting to put content control in the hands of the content creator. To get the code click here.

In my opinion Pinterest has brought to light a common copyright issue that has become more prevalent as online sharing has increased. Pinterest, like many other sites must battle copyright issues with the utmost urgency, and pledge to continue to uphold copyright laws and agreements.

The Pinterest copyright issues also remind many of us in the creative, photography and design industries that whenever publishing work, be it online, by print or even over the airwaves with old fashioned radio- we must work to protect our content by monitoring where it is published, how it is used and reporting any violations.

Hill Country Peaches

August 19th, 2011 by Rainman Web Development No Comments

When first settled by German immigrants in the mid-1800s, the Texas Hill Country became a fertile land with the ideal elevation and soil for large crops of peaches. Naturally, many peach-growing businesses have “cropped up” and become profitable ventures over the past 150 years. This week, we take a look at just a few of those orchards.

One of the oldest orchards in Fredericksburg is the Donald Eckhardt Orchard. Here, they’ve been growing peaches since 1936; that’s 75 years! Not only can you pick up your fresh peach here during the season, but you can also have your pick of plums and tomatoes.

Pedernales Valley Farms has been in the peach game for a while, since 1973. This farm operates The Big Red Barn, where peaches, other produce and wares are sold, including farm-fresh veggies, jams and Texas pecans.

If you are looking to get out in the fields and pick your own fruit, try Marburger Orchard. Here, you can make an appointment to pick your own peaches, strawberries or blackberries whenever they’re in season. We speak from experience, picking your own peaches and/or berries can be a great family day-trip, plus you’ll be able to get the freshest fruit, next to growing it in your own backyard!

These are just three options when it comes to fresh peaches in the Hill Country. For more options, please check out the Hill Country Fruit Council at www.texaspeaches.com.

Did you know Rainman Web Development got it’s start in the Texas Hill Country? As a matter of fact, we’re pretty sweet on peaches too, as the original Rainman Web Development offices were located in Fredericksburg, Texas.

Rainey Threadgill, CEO and Owner of Rainman Web Development also resides in Fredericksburg, Texas as do a few other Rainmen and Rainwomen.

Peach Crops Surviving Texas Drought

August 12th, 2011 by Rainman Web Development No Comments

Part 2 in our 4-part special series for National Peach Month

www.crisisboom.com

The majority of us at Rainman were born and raised here in the heart of Texas, so summer’s heat comes as little surprise to us. This year, however, the oppressive temperatures and astounding lack of rainfall is bringing many Texans to their knees. When it comes to agriculture, rain can be both good and bad. For the cotton industry, the dry weather has been a blessing this year. But here in peach country, the drought of 2011 is definitely taking its toll.

In central Texas, there have been more than 40 days of triple-digit temperatures, with the heat at the Rainman Web Development offices in Boerne regularly hitting around 103. In east Texas, the drought is moving lake levels so low that debris from the 2003 Space Shuttle Columbia crash are finally being recovered. According to the Lower Colorado River Authority, the past ten months (October 2010 to July 2011) has been the driest stretch since we started keeping record of it in 1895, with rainfall totals around central Texas 16 to 20 inches below annual averages.

How is the heat affecting the peach crop this year? Well, the small quantity and diminutive size of the peaches this year is actually not the product of the hot weather. Instead, the extreme cold from last winter is to blame along with an extreme lack of rain. The Hill Country endured last winter did more damage to the peach crops than this summers intense heat. Any peaches that made it through the harsh cold have been left smaller, with more of a tart taste than the regular large, sweet peaches we all know and love.

With no rescue from the drought in sight, farmers are already starting to worry about next year’s crops. We can only hope that this devastating drought can be broken with some sort of weather miracle. Now, if you’ll excuse us…we’re about to start doing a rain dance!

Image: www.crisisboom.com

Sources: Reuters, MSNBC, TXFB, LCRA, & CNN