One of the questions that we see all the time when people start getting into Pinterest is

How can I decide what image I want people to pin?

Or, we also hear.

Pinterest, keeps saying that my page doesn’t have any images to Pin… that sucks

We agree.

I am going to walk you through how to add any image on your website and make it available for pinning.  We are going to use this blog post as an example.  Let’s say that I want you to Pin this blog post to one of your Boards.  The problem is, if we hit the Pin It button in our bookmark bar, we get the following image.

What you see when you normally Pin this page… not very exciting.

Here is the strategy we are going to use.

1. Create a new image that we want to become our Pin image.

2. Add that image to this page

3. Hide the image for normally viewers using a good, easy, non sneaky css property.

Step 1.

I am going to use Illustrator to create a quick image.  Here is what I want the Pin for this page to look like

http://www.ewakened.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/ewakened-custom-pin.png

Stept 2.

I have in fact, already added this image to the page.  You can see it in the source.

Step 3.

Now to hide the image from view.  We don’t want to use

But we can simply move it SO far off screen that no one will ever see it.

So the entire image tag will look like this:

That’s it!  Try it now.  Event though this page has crappy images on it, the image we added can now be used for a Pin.

Look at me now! A custom Pin for Pinterest.

Simple, easy, effective.

Give it a try and let me know what you think.

Starting your inbound marketing campaign

Unless you live under a rock, you’ve probably noticed that over the past couple of years, there has been an overwhelming trend for business websites to “go mobile.” For many years, the most popular (and only) way to access the internet was through the use of a desktop computer. Eventually, laptops became a much more practical tool due to their portability. Today, however, mobile devices such as cell phones and tablets are quickly becoming the preferred method of surfing the web. In fact, technology experts speculate that in the not-so-distant future, people won’t be using desktop computers at all.

So, what does this mean for your web presence? Well, in short, it means everything. In this day in age it is not only important to have a website designed for mobile use – it’s a necessity. Choosing to forego a mobile design is sort of like amputating an arm – it limits your reach and gives more power to your competitors. Given the mobile trend, it’s best for your company to design mobile first. Design of the traditional website is secondary.

Let me put it this way: Imagine a potential customer needs a good or service that your company provides. If they are like most modern individuals, they will take out their mobile device and quickly type a phrase into their preferred search engine. From these results, the potential customer will likely click the link to a company website for more information. The page may load slowly, awkwardly or be difficult to navigate if it is not optimized for mobile first. Design plays a role in a customer’s impression, but usability plays an even larger role.

All in all, if you plan to remain a contender in your industry, it is imperative that your website be accessible from nearly every conceivable browser and device. The better your site is optimized, the greater your reach.

For fun.  Head on over to www.ewakened.com on your mobile device.  It’s looks different.

Changing directions

Whereas outbound marketing generates cold leads and few guarantees with any client, inbound marketing engages with prospective clients familiarizes them with your company before you first make contact. When a sales representative contacts a lead generated through inbound practices, the lead is considered “warm” because the prospective buyer has chosen to engage your company’s sales staff after learning about the products or services offered.

This means that, instead of pitching products or services more or less blindly to generated leads, your inbound leads will already have an interest in the offerings of your business. Not only are the leads closer to committing to a sale than would be the case for many outbound leads, but your sales staff also becomes more efficient because they don’t have to play percentages and focus on volume — every lead they pursue is high-quality, putting the onus on sales staff to close the deal.

Implement Your Own Inbound Marketing

I see businesses of all shapes and sizes looking for ways they can increase the quality of their sales leads and take advantage of inbound marketing strategies. Through the Internet, there are a variety of ways you can increase your business’s exposure and engage with current and prospective clients, ultimately leading to inbound sales leads.

In this day and age, businesses cannot afford to overlook the social media as a tool for building clients. Facebook profiles, Twitter accounts and other social networking tools can help you build an online following that produces residual exposure to your prospective client base. Interacting with consumers through these platforms can help strengthen brand loyalty and trust with consumers.

Developing search engine-optimized web content will help your company appear more prominently in online searches. Blogging regularly on subject matter of relevance to your clients can keep leads returning to your site, resulting in repeated exposures while establishing your business as an industry expert.

Take advantage of Free Services

When developing your inbound marketing strategies, consider implementing some free service offerings as a way consumers can test-drive your business. Through the use of webinars, e-brochures, or other online tools and materials that can benefit your targeted consumer base, you can demonstrate your business’s expertise and value to your clients while getting your name in front of potential leads. Inbound marketing requires a time investment from your business, but the end result will be better leads, more efficient sales and expanded revenue streams.

So, we wanted to post this… post to let all Canadian would be App developers to know that the App approval and company approval process takes time.  After doing some research we heard that it could take up to 10-15 days to get the company approved, let alone the Apps approved.

We did not factor this into our plan and luckily we built these Apps for us and you, but not for clients

Make sure you keep these timelines in mind when planning your release.

Get approved before you want to launch!

Have a great weekend.

They have designed a wicked landing page and it’s now up, ready for you at http://www.thesmilenyc.com/

Can’t wait to show off the full site.  It’s going to be fully designed for mobile.

Love it.

Many times when you hire a company (that’s not ewakened) to build your website, the company will setup your website so that yourdomain.com and www.yourdomain.com go to the same place.

This is good, but having two domains pointing to the same place is bad for Search Engine Optimization.  It essentially creates two competing domains.

There are many ways to fix this.

1.  You can change your server’s rules to automatically route non www requests to your www domain.

2. If you are using Ruby on Rails, or Ruby you can add a simple rule like this into your production.rb file

This will force your server to send a 301 rewrite rule and search engines like Google will always index and look for your www.yourdomain.com rather than yourdomain.com

1.  You can hire us next time and never worry about things like this again

Let us know if you have any questions.

This means no listening to music, no podcasts, no 5by5, no TV, nothing.  Focus on what you are doing in this moment.

Cut the moment down into 1 moment and do that really well.  Limit your actions.

By limiting your actions you will bring a higher quality of yourself into it.

When you are sitting, sit.  When you are drinking, drink.  When you are watching TV, watch it deeply.  When you are thinking, think deeply and easily.  When you are coding, code with intent and quality.

Try this for a week and see how it feels.

You know what I am talking about.

We want to start over with a design, a website, a blog, a project or anything meaningful or not.

We think that starting over will let us rectify past mistakes and make for a better future.  We trick ourselves into thinking that if we just had the chance for a fresh start, that we would do things differently, that will all be better.

We are deluding ourselves.

The only way to make meaningful change happen is to change the little (and big) things we do every day.  Change your habits.  Change your life.

Don’t start over.  Keep doing what you are doing, but do it better.  Do it everyday better.

Don’t focus on what you are doing, but how you are doing it.  Focus on this, and there will be no need to start over.

Make it habit.

Do not start over.  Start now.  Start here

I won’t try and describe exactly what Twitter is because that could take a while! What I will do is give you 3 tangible tips that you can use right now to make Twitter work harder for you.

1. Post often, but keep in mind that quality is better than quantity.

How often? That depends on your market and your audience. Once a day is a good start. You could get away with Monday, Wednesday and Friday but you will likely get lost in the noise.

A lot of times people ask me.

What should I Tweet about?

Remember the three Is. Interesting. Informative. Insightful. If you find something interesting, it will likely be interesting to your audience, so tweet it, or re-tweet it. Giving your audience good information is difficult but essential for building a following. Seek out information if you need to. If you find it informative, then so will your audience. If you can’t find anything new to tweet, try re-acting to someone else’s tweet, just make sure it’s insightful. Don’t tweet for the sake of it. Tweet with a purpose.

2. Know your audience

Bookmark http://search.twitter.com. Go ahead Bookmark it. I will wait. Okay, so it’s bookmarked, now it’s time to see it’s jaw dropping power. Use the search box and put in your company’s name. Hopefully something comes up. If not, don’t worry, see 1. to get the word out there.

If people are talking about you in a positive way, thank them and interact with them.

If people are talking about you in a negative way, thank them and interact with them.

See how easy this is! Don’t shy away from criticism and don’t ignore praise. Stroke the egos of your followers and make them feel special, because let’s face it… they are! If they are taking the time to speak to you on Twitter, they are special and should be treated as such.

If there is really NOTHING going on on Twitter for your company, then you have your work cut out for you. Get yourself out there and start conversations. It takes time and patience, but it will pay off.

3. Everything you need to know about Twitter you can learn from Sesame Street.

What! Did he just say that? Yes I did, and here’s why…

The key to Twitter is being open and honest. There is no room for stuffy PR people here. Be real. Be yourself.

And have fun with it. Twitter is quickly becoming the new e-mail. It’s a very low impact way to communicate and share your thoughts with anyone willing to listen. Don’t use it as a press release platform. You are the best judge of content. If you would roll your eyes if you saw the Tweet you are about to post, then DON’T POST IT.

Be real. Be honest. Give more than you get.

Pretty soon I will show you how to actually gain paying customers using Twitter but that’s for another day. This should keep you busy for the next few weeks.

Hope your Thanksgiving was relaxing and filling. Back to work! Have a fantastic week,

Yours,

Kent