You’ve been invited!

Pinterest has officially invited businesses to join its growing pinning craze. You can join as a business or convert your existing account.  The new tools available for businesses include verification of your website, new buttons and widgets to connect your website, and upcoming features notification.

Once you sign up, you select a few people, businesses, and boards to follow. From these, you can easily re-pin the pins that appeal to you onto your own boards. With Pinterest there are no friend requests, lists, circles, or conversations to worry about.

“Pinterest is like your own museum; you are the curator and you need to gather interesting content,”

Wayne Moran, Oxrun.com

The next step is creating your own eye-catching pins. This is an opportunity to create links back to your website. When your pin gets re-pinned, more people will have access to your pin and your website. When you create a board for your pins, you have the opportunity to choose a category, ranging from animals to women’s fashion, that is searchable within Pinterest by other pinners.

The top boards and pins continue to fall into edibles, home, and women’s fashion and beauty, although the “remaining categories” is the largest overall. To help increase searchability, include relevant hashtags (yes, like Twitter) and text in the pin’s description field.

Your pins and boards become the online visual content searched for and discovered by its users, and even those who search on Google.

When you join Pinterest, you are adding valuable visual interface to your website.

“Social networks like Pinterest act as the connective tissue between a person’s social media experience and the brand’s “home base,” the website. It drives people from its platform back to the brand site – to more information, products, service and purchase. As a result, the website has never been more important.” (engauge.com)

To get you started pinning your own pins, here are some fun tools. With a few pinning resources, a new way to connect and share on the internet is now yours.

Tools to Get You Pinning

1. Pinstamatic

• Take a website snapshot.
• No background? Choose from six text styles and coordinating backgrounds and type in a quote.
• Write a caption on your favorite photo.
• Make sticky notes in your choice of four colors.
• Choose a favorite song for a pin – and an instant Spotify connection.
• Add a Twitter profile pin – yours or a follower’s – with a link to the Twitter page.
• Include a calendar date of an upcoming event or highlight another important date.
• Pin a map with your location/address for followers to click on for a Google Map link.

2. Pinwords

For super-simple yet amazing results, give Pinwords a try. First, upload an image from your computer or the web, or use one of their four background choices. Then choose from one of six text designs and type in your quote.

It’s that easy.

For free photos which don’t require attribution or a link back, check out morguefile.com.

Source: pinwords.com via Web Savvy Marketers on Pinterest

3. Share as Image

An online pinning tool for your most basic needs. If you want anything else, you need to purchase the pro version for $6.99. It’s handy bookmark tool makes creating quotable pins easier than ever.

Once you’ve dragged the link into your bookmarks toolbar, all you have to do is highlight the text you want quoted, then click on the Share as Image button. This can be done from anywhere you are on the internet.

4. Video

Videos are growing in their numbers on Pinterest. Brands can use this to pin short, informative videos of a production process, an entertaining musical skit to honor or celebrate something, like several Connecticut manufacturers did, or create a time-lapse video highlighting a creative process.

There are many YouTube opportunities, including free time-lapse video apps to implement into a workday, capturing a sequence of motion to tell a story.

Imagery evokes a powerful emotional response.

Pinterest is all about the visual content. Brands that connect visually with their consumers are better equipped to inspire and influence their choices.

Make the connection on Pinterest. Let us know what you found.

Want to get your website running at its peak SEO form, without data-loss worries, and suited up for social media sharing?Read on for the best WordPress plugins for data backup, search engine optimization, and social media sharing buttons.

WordPress Backups

Your WordPress plugin repertory wouldn’t be complete without a plugin that gives your website a safety net backup. Because your WordPress database holds every post, page, media, comment, and link you have on your website, a solid system for restoring things in the event of uncontrollable loss is prudent.

With WordPress backup plugins, you can schedule automatic backups and store your backups in a remote location. In the event of a hardware or disk failure, the digital graveyard does not have to be the final resting place for your website.

Many free WordPress Backup options are available. Here are the top mentions: WordPress Backup to Dropbox, BackWPup, BackupWordPress, and Online Backup for WordPress. They are all very similar and are worth a quick comparison in description. Remember to note the rating, number of downloads, and the compatibility with your version of WordPress when comparing.

The top premium choices include Backup Buddy for a minimum of $75/year (covers two sites) and Vaultpress for $15/month basic service. If your budget permits, these are among the most recommended backup systems available.

Search Engine Optimization

All-in-One SEO

When you use SEO (search engine optimization), you’re improving your website’s visibility in search engines such as Google and Safari by customizing your posts and pages with a few clicks.

With All-in-One SEO, you can optimize your keywords, titles, descriptions, and meta tags for all posts and pages. WordPress creates default title tags and snippets – the preview of each post as seen by users when searching – but these aren’t always going to increase your visibility in search engines, which is why you need an SEO plugin.

WordPress SEO by Yoast

Another plugin option for easy SEO help is WordPress SEO by Yoast. The features include writing specific, targeted keywords and descriptions as well as many other SEO enhancements (even more than All-in-One SEO).

You’re improving your content for SEO when you take a few extra minutes to choose a focus keyword and apply it to the various areas Yoast guides you through. After you’ve finished with the general tab, click on the page analysis tab for more tips on how to improve your content for search engines.

The debate continues on which is better, Yoast or All-in-One. So far, Yoast is the winner. If you already have All-in-One SEO and wish to change to Yoast, go here.

Social Media Plugins

Share Buttons by Lockerz

There are a number of ways to create media sharing on your website, and Share Buttons by Lockerz is one of the best. You can share, bookmark, and email your posts and pages using over 100 social media sites.

The newest addition is the Pinterest Pin It Button, adding to the Facebook Like Button, Twitter Tweet Button, Google+ Share Button, and Google +1 Button. The customizable Smart Menu even puts the services most used at the top of the menu, depending on the browsing history of each user.

If you go to the bottom of this post and hover your cursor over the Lockerz Share/Save box, a drop-down menu appears with the other services Web Savvy Marketers has for sharing, including the handy email tab. Check out the Share Button Demo on Lockerz to see what else this plugin can do.

Social Media Widget

Another popular media sharing plugin with icons for all the notable services, as well as an option to create six of your own media links. The added bonus is its icons come in three sizes, four styles, and four animations.

This is extremely easy to use and allows you to add a colorful and personal touch to your social media sharing. The Twitter icon doesn’t show as updated, because the screenshot still shows the old Twitter version.

Slick Social Share Buttons

Your choice for a social sharing plugin that takes up little website space and looks super-slick with its optional floating effect. The social media buttons are limited to the most-used services, includes the Pinterest Pin It Button, and has a useful social statistics admin page, showing the summaries of all your social metrics.

The most critical plugins you will use on your WordPress site involve backup security, SEO, and social media sharing. Take the time now to choose the plugins which best suit your website needs.

Flickr photo courtesy of angel n.

Have you checked out the more than 23,000 WordPress plugins available, designed to enhance your website? If not, then it’s like you’re sitting at a playground and refusing to play.

The plugin rules of use do advocate that you download on an as-needed basis. But who says you can’t explore? You might discover some amazing plugins that your website simply can’t live without.

Here are some of the best plugins to help your website perform, and give you some plugin playtime. You know you don’t want to be left out of the fun.

(If you’re a Web Savvy client, then your WordPress site came with a host of amazing plugins already. But don’t let that stop you from getting even more plugin pleasure.)

WordPress Plugins for Serious Fun

1.  Wordfence

A security plugin that has firewall, anti-virus scanning, malicious URL scanning and live traffic. It can verify and repair your core, theme, and plugin files, even if you don’t have backups. Scans occur hourly instead of daily, has login security including checks for user and admin password strength, and a real-time view of all traffic.

Founder Mark Maunder is on top of his game in remedying any security holes, making the reliability top-notch. He claims complete transparency with his users (see comment on 6-26-12 on this blog), and seems thoroughly committed to Wordfence’s efficacy.

2.  Bad Behavior

The good-guy counterpart that you want to be sure and add to your spam-preventative arsenal. This plugin stops the spam before it even gets through to your website doorstep.

Every time a user – or software system – requests a website URL, it has to greet the server. Bad Behavior intervenes at the doorstep, checking the details of the requesting device, and slams the door in the face of spamming intruders.

3.  Jetpack

Great website stats tool for all computer newbs and those way up the scale. The site stats feature alone is worth a download of this plugin. You get a list of the sites that referred traffic (i.e. Facebook), search engine keyword terms used to find you, top posts and pages visited, and any links clicked on.

That’s not all. Other features include a Twitter widget that lets you display your Twitter feed, a shortcode embed for easy and safe embedding of media (i.e. YouTube, Flickr), an easy-to-insert contact form, and much more.

4.  Akismet

Comes with your WordPress installation as a standard plugin, checking your comments against their web service for spam look-alikes, and letting you review any spam caught red-handed in the “comments” admin screen.

In order to activate it, you need to enter an API key. There’s a handy link on the Akismet WordPress plugin page that will take you to the Akismet.com API key page, where you can enter your API key, if you haven’t already done so. All you need to do is register an account with WordPress.com, where your key can be obtained. (There are paid options to choose from for business accounts.)

5.  WPtouch

Make your WordPress website mobile-device ready, even customizing different aspects of its appearance, without having to change any code. This plugin won’t affect your regular desktop appearance while it automatically transforms your theme for all popular browsing devices (iPhone, iPod touch, Android, BlackBerry, and more).

Viewers can even switch between the mobile-ready WPtouch screen and the regular theme. All the while, WPtouch actually helps your site to remain fast-loading by optimizing content for your mobile visitors.

While You’re Out Playing

Be sure to check out the source of any plugin you’re thinking about installing. Look for these key points:

• What is the most recent plugin update? It should have been recently updated to be compatible with the latest WordPress version.
• What is its rating? A good plugin will have at least 3.8 stars from the WordPress community.
• Are there any mentions of decreased performance or security issues?
• Is the plugin author’s website current? Is there support available?

Next week check back for more WordPress plugin fun.

Flickr photo courtesy of aturkus.

The new year is underway and your recently wrought resolutions are being fervently pursued with the tenacity of a she-lion.

Or maybe not.

For those who could use a bit of inspiration for the new year, here’s some encouragement. Just be yourself.

The new Les Misérables movie’s characters played by Russell Crowe and Hugh Jackman teach us how to do just that, and still be likable. More on that soon.

The internet, like post-French Revolution Paris, has a dark underside. And within its underbelly lies the cheaters, stealers, and liars. Their deception will eventually cause people to distrust and abandon them.

You might’ve discovered the truth of Sir Walter Scott’s words, “Oh what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive,” the hard way. Sticking to the truth, however, requires little effort.

There’s a core sense of ethics which we all have and we deny them to the peril of our self-preservation. Getting caught lying might seem like the worst thing that can happen, but what about having to endure the loss of integrity and self-respect?

Assuming you’re not willing to compromise yourself, your business, or your customers’ faith in you, you’re safe to forfeit a mask and show your authentic self. Keeping an authentic connection with your audience is essential to your success.

Being “you,” however, poses one risk as a marketer.

The internet allows us to communicate in a rich variety of ways; we can blog, tweet, and share on Facebook, Google+, and a host of other social media. These communication outlets are happening in real time, and the temptation and pressure increases to break the cardinal rule:

Focus on the needs of your audience.

Being authentic works only when your online persona genuinely puts the needs of others first. Your mom probably told you this when you were growing up.

It’s never too late to listen to your mother.

It’s not just what you say, but how you say it, another thing your mother probably told you. Sharing your own story on social media becomes the loophole through which many a marketer might slip and be tempted to forget whose story is most important. Social media can make egocentric personalities out of the most humble of us.

Yes, even you.

If you’ve seen Les Misérables, then you can guess which character is not only authentic, but also manages to stay true to the cardinal rule. Jackman’s Jean Valjean learns the secret to success is putting other’s needs first, whereas Crowe’s Javert is so threatened by this belated revelation that he is unable to live with it.

Inspector Javert is absolutely transparent, while ex-convict Jean Valjean is forced into living a facade to survive. It is both men’s plight to be authentic. In the end, only one man’s authenticity is likable.

You get to choose. Be real and still be likable, however challenging it can be, or find another talent, one where you’re able to tell your own story all day long.

As Seth Godin said, “the best stories don’t teach people anything new. Instead, the best stories agree with what the audience already believes and makes the members of the audience feel smart and secure when reminded how right they were in the first place.”

Flickr photo credit Shannon Kringden

What better time to check out Google Hangouts than when you’re home for the holidays, perhaps with an errant family member looking to be included in the festivities from afar? As a Gmail video chat replacement, Google+ Hangouts’ improved features include corny effects for your holiday gathering or professional meeting (try reindeer antlers with requisite bulbous red nose) and a full cohort of up to nine invites (Rudolph can now chat with all his reindeer friends).

Why Use Google+ Hangouts?

It’s convenient, collaborative, and free.

Because Google+ Hangouts is integrated into your online browsing experience, starting a Hangout from your Gmail, Google+, or a Google+ app on your mobile device is seamless.

The collaboration functionality is boosted through its many features. You can access and edit your Google Drive/Docs together, screen share, chat by text, and view YouTube videos together.

Hangouts Takes the Edge Over Facebook

When doing a test run on Google+ Hangouts with my college-aged son, he immediately exclaimed, “This is way better than Facebook!”

There is an immediate interface in the level of connection. This is why Google+ Hangouts is a potential deal breaker.

My son lost no time in uploading and sharing a document he wanted me to edit, which I easily saved into my Google Drive for later. The toolbar on the left of your Hangout page gives you touch-of-the-button access to all the features.

Useful apps in addition to Google Docs and screen share that help you present your ideas in video include Slideshare, which allows you to view and use the presentations you have stored in Slideshare, and Cacoo, which lets you collaborate in drawings on a wide variety of templates (e.g., flowcharts, sitemaps, Venn diagrams, database designs, etc.).

Should you require some entertainment, Scoot & Doodle will let your Hangout group draw together, playing games and doodling on faces. Additional apps offer more games, including a host of Sporcle diversions, all to be done together on your Hangout.

Make a Video of Your Meeting

The latest piece de resistance is Hangouts on Air (HOA). This means your Google+ Hangouts can now be shared live onto your YouTube channel. You can post them on your website as well as publicly broadcast to YouTube and your Google+ stream.

It’s like having your own live video show on the web, viewable to everyone.

The ten people maximum has already been increased to fifteen for schools that use Google Apps for Education. Faculty and staff can use Hangouts to facilitate class experience and connect with each other through Google+ Hangouts.

Start your own Hangout this holiday season and see what you think.

A last bit of free holiday fun: Play with the elves at this link.

The easiest way to capture a screenshot and instantly have editing and saving options is with Google’s latest version of Webpage Screenshot. It’s free, includes a handy icon in your Chrome address bar, and works with Google Drive.

Want to save an entire page and not just the visible screen image? How about a quick resizing of the window before you take the photo? Do you need to make a quick edit or annotation to the captured image? You can do all these things and more.

After downloading the free Chrome extension, you will see the camera icon in the top right of your screen. Depending on what other extensions you have, you might also see in your toolbar Google Mailchecker or RSS Feed Reader, both free and easy web tools designed to make your Google experience effortless.

By clicking on the camera icon, you will get a drop down menu displaying your options. If you want to edit the page before capturing the image, just click “edit content.” It’s a rather roguish feeling to hit the delete button over a web page’s content. Try it and see.

Once you are ready, click on “visible screenshot” or “all page screenshot,” and a new browser window automatically opens. This new tab contains your captured screen image. Now you can do the following:

• Add text
• Crop image
• Play with drawing tools: line, ellipsis, rectangle, arrow
• Share with Facebook, Twitter, Gmail, Hotmail, and Myspace
• Send to printer
• Change color of text and drawing tools
• Save directly to Google Drive
• Save as PNG or JPG
• Capture horizontal websites
• Auto undo and redo
• Save as HTML

To save as a PNG or JPG, or to change the image or header, click “options” in the top right corner of your captured image. A new browser window with these choices will open.

Tip: Once you change anything in this option window, all future saved images will reflect these changes until you make further modifications.

I found this extension preferable to Google Screen Capture for several reasons:

• Alas, Screen Capture’s drop down menus for editing tools didn’t work for me.
• It was unclear how to capture a full page screenshot. (Call me a newb.)
• Gasp! No auto undo and redo buttons.
• What, no cropping tool?
• Okay, one plus. Screen Capture’s saving function offered an autosave to bypass the editing function, and a default save location.

With Google as your go-to browser, give the latest version of Webpage and Webcam Screenshot a try and see what applications you find it useful for.

Note: Upon clicking download, a notice appears telling you it will have access to history and website data. Google assures us that none of the Chrome extensions look at private data.

If you haven’t yet joined the blogosphere, your excuses for not blogging probably include not enough to write about, no writing talent, and not enough time.  Instead of focusing on the why nots, consider instead these 7 reasons to blog for your business.

Remember, each blog post on your website is a new page for a search engine to see. This gives you a new opportunity to be found online.

1. Promote your product or service.

Blogging is a way to give your point of view as an expert who offers authentic and knowledgeable updates. Regular blog posts will give your readers a source of insider information while giving your business additional exposure.

By providing up-to-date information on new products and services, you will keep your customers engaged and coming back for new content.

2. Establish your authority in the market/industry.

Have your competitors jumped on the blogging bandwagon? Either way, your share of the marketplace will be taken by those that blog.

Posting valuable content gives readers a resource they will learn to trust. When they get on the internet to search, you want to be the authority they find.

3. Give your business a human side.

Blogs give you the chance to be personal and relate to your readers in an extended, ongoing format. Your blogging tone can be conversational and inviting, encouraging a loyal following.

Your readers will get the opportunity to know what you are about. Your About Us page won’t be the only source of personal connection on your website.

4. Link up with other social media.

Increase your website traffic through links to sites like Facebook and Twitter. Adding layers of exposure and opportunity for readers to find you and interact with you will boost your rankings.

Your blogs will reach a larger audience, giving you a more widespread human connection potential.

5. Connect with like-minded people.

Blogging increases your connections with like-minded people. You will become part of a larger community of interested readers who are online and looking for the products and services you offer.

You will be able to create new customers through reaching out and participating in the discussion, serving a need, and supplying valuable information.

6. Discovering keyword phrases.

By adding descriptive phrases to your website, you are doing what’s called targeting the long tail. Long tail search terms are keyword phrases of three to six words.

When the searcher is looking for something specific, they will use long tail search terms such as “17 inch LCD TV free shipping” rather than “LCD TV”. They might draw less traffic, but they will bring more quality traffic, which leads to more conversions than normal keywords.

Where else to best regularly supply the most current, descriptive content but in your blog post?

7. Gives you instant PR.

Blogging is also an ideal way to provide fast PR. You can get the word out quickly with a blog post, alleviating the need to wait for a direct mail campaign or print ad.

New product or service to introduce? Important announcement? Upcoming event or promotion? Special features or additions to highlight? You can get the word out quickly while driving traffic to your website.

The Answer to the Question

Consider taking your ideas, inspiration, and knowledge and funnel them into a website blog.

Shakespeare on blogging: The Bard’s sage advice withstands time and adapts well.

To blog or not to blog? He would give a thumbs up, I daresay.

Long tail cat Flickr photo credit: Ari Helminen 

Shakespeare Flickr photo credit: cambodia4kidsorg

Thanksgiving and the approaching holiday season give us the opportunity to reflect on the many things we are grateful for. More importantly, it’s a time to take stock of our own gratitude quotient.

Practice gratitude and you will be directing your attention and awareness on what you want.

Do you want happy customers? Do you want satisfied employees? And how about you? Don’t you want to realize happiness and satisfaction?

You can increase your happiness by 25% through frequent gratitude, according to Dr. Robert Emmons in Thanks! How the New Science of Gratitude Can Make You Happier. Research shows we would be a happier, less stressed, less depressed, and better-rested society if we regularly practice gratitude.

Key word here: regularly.

Adopt a chronic attitude of thankfulness.

“Feeling gratitude must be ingrained into your personality, and you must frequently acknowledge and be thankful for the role other people play in your happiness,” writes Dr. Emmons, a UC Davis professor who has been studying gratitude since 1998.

Research shows that people with a “gratitude attitude” are generally kinder, more positive and creative, achieve more goals, and have stronger social relationships.

Feeling the urge to up your gratitude quotient yet? There are many ways to practice extending gratitude and impacting your life as well as the lives of others.

Acknowledge your need of others: Practice humility.

“Gratitude implies humility — a recognition that we could not be who we are or where we are in life without the contributions of others,” Dr. Emmons explains.

If you’ve been in a meeting where your colleague readily accepts all the hard work as his or her own, or you can count on one hand the number of individuals who have written you a note of thanks, then you’ve experienced the gratitude deficit.

In contemporary America, this is often the sad norm. Outside of our own happiness, gratitude isn’t often discussed. “We have become entitled, resentful, ungrateful and forgetful,” Dr. Emmons said.

You can change the climate of your business and interpersonal surroundings with many simple ways to show your gratitude.

• Get in the habit of dropping a weekly thank-you note to customers or employees. You could establish the annual practice of sending Thanksgiving cards.
• Give a gift certificate or discount certificate to a loyal customer or an exceptional employee.
• Host a customer appreciation event or an employee celebration. Throw a holiday party, a business anniversary party, or organize an informal meet-up at a local establishment.
• Keep customers’ or employees birthdays on file and mail cards or a small gift.
• Drop in personally on your best customers with a surprise gift.
• Phone a junior staff member to recognize them for all their behind-the-scenes effort.
• Tweet an animated GIF thank you note with your follower’s Twitter handle like Burberry did in their #thanksamillion effort. Using a GIF has the benefit of being a never-ending gesture of gratitude due to its looping file format.

Your actions speak louder than words.

However you choose to share the wealth of gratitude, be sincere. Practicing gratitude can be both morally and intellectually challenging, as Dr. Emmons points out.

In his book he offers ten ways to instill gratitude into your life, including a gratitude journal, turning the negative into positives – choosing to see the glass half-full, and imagining what life would be like without a particular co-worker, client, or associate.

Watching inspiring videos, like this one by Louis Schwartzberg on TEDtalk, can help give you a gratitude boost.

A simple thank you is a giant step ahead of today’s competition.

Never underestimate the power of a personal thank you. Genuine thanks tend to get lost a midst the push for social media strategies, customer rewards, and marketing plans. Make your business a better place through an honest, personal thank you to a valued partner or vendor, a devoted social media fan, or your overlooked small customer.

Grasping the concept of true gratitude can perhaps be best understood through the eyes of one who’s worked hard to achieve “happyness,” as Will Smith portrays in the movie The Pursuit of Happyness. We can all begin by working hard to show our gratitude in any amount, whenever we can, with everyone we meet.

Thank you for reading this! And a very Happy Thanksgiving to you.

GIF courtesy of Just for the Halibut.