PinAlerts: Discover When One of Your Images Gets Pinned on Pinterest |  |
- PinAlerts: Discover When One of Your Images Gets Pinned on Pinterest
- 13 SMS Text Messaging Services for Marketing in the Mobile Age
- Fill Your Company With People Who Love What They Do
- What If Your Franchisor Goes Under?
- Yes, There Are Social Networks Besides Facebook
| PinAlerts: Discover When One of Your Images Gets Pinned on Pinterest Posted: 24 May 2012 01:30 PM PDT PinAlerts sends you an email whenever someone pins something from your blog or website — or any other site you wish to track. It’s a way to track the interest your product(s) or service(s) are getting on Pinterest.
Are you familiar with Google Alerts? It’s a similar concept, except it’s for Pinterest, the image-based social site. PinAlerts is a simple service. To sign up, go to PinAlerts.com and register. During registration you’ll enter the URL of a blog or site you want to track. Add as many URLs as you like. You can also go back and change how often you get email alerts. Then when something from that site gets pinned, you will get an email. The product was co-founded by Paul Wilson and Janet Thaeler (a contributor here at Small Business Trends). It was designed with small businesses in mind, and grew out of a tool Thaeler wanted for her own research. One day she checked Pinterest to see if someone had pinned any images from her blog. She discovered that someone had pinned her profile picture from her blog and said how much they liked the blog. Naturally, she was flattered, she says. But it wasn’t until she saw one of her consulting clients getting pinned, that the lightbulb truly went off. ”People may not leave a comment on your blog but they will write a glowing review on a pin. With PinAlerts you don’t have to keep going back to Pinterest to monitor comments and reviews.” The advantage of PinAlerts is that you don’t miss anything. For instance, I can check manually to see what’s being pinned from Small Business Trends at the following URL: http://www.Pinterest.com/source/ Here are five ways to use PinAlerts: 1. Identify your target market on Pinterest and get insights into what they like. When someone pins something it’s usually a compliment. According to Thaeler, “The demographic on Pinterest are the Dot Moms – who are more inclined to share. They are typically higher income and educated.” By getting alerts of what is being shared, you get insights into who finds your content interesting. 2. Figure out how to get more Pinterest traffic by seeing what images are popular. You can see what’s being pinned and either improve on it or otherwise promote those images (being sure that it has a Pin It button to encourage even more shares). What is being pinned might surprise you – you may not have many pinnable images on your home page or blog posts. PinAlerts will give you insights on how you could improve. 3. Authors can promote their books on Pinterest. If you’re an author be sure to promote your book on Pinterest. Says Thaeler, “Almost everyone has a board that centers around what they have read or want to read. Hold a contest to encourage pins and use PinAlerts to track them and choose a winner.” 4. Use PinAlerts to conduct market research. You can research not only your site but others in your market or with a similar audience. When you see the same image or type of image coming up again and again, you know it’s a winner. Use that as inspiration for images you create or display on your own site. 5. Get attention from influencers in your niche. Get alerts of what’s being pinned on the influencer’s site. Thaeler researched Guy Kawasaki’s site in just such a way to see what was being pinned from his site. You will start to get a feel for what they like. Then create a pin image you believe would appeal to them and alert them. You can get far more traction if they pin your image than if you do. The basic PinAlerts service is free. The founders would like to add premium features, as well as accept advertisements in the emails. For now, they are focusing on increasing their user base. The founders say they are not aware of any similar services - PinAlerts is a first of its kind. The service just recently launched and already there are nearly 1,000 users of it. From Small Business Trends |
| 13 SMS Text Messaging Services for Marketing in the Mobile Age Posted: 24 May 2012 11:00 AM PDT Ninety nine percent of the time statistics can drive you to heavy drinking. In researching this post on SMS or Text Message Marketing, I wanted to find out how many people use text messaging, how quickly they are read, and are business owners using it as a way to reach customers.
More than any other topic that I've written about recently, the data is all over the place:
Let's go with something more trustworthy: Do you know very many adults without a mobile phone? How about business owners without one? Have you had a customer without a cell phone? Here's the leap, but I have pretty good evidence it is true: If they have one, they likely use text messaging on it, too. Text message marketing is a permission-based approach to sharing short updates or specials with your customers. It lends itself to point of sale or retail offers, but not entirely. My gut or intuition tells me that it's a good way to share news, updates, ideas, and special offers with customers with whom you have a relationship and who express interest in signing up. Here are 13+ services that can make it easy and affordable; some are completely free if you keep your efforts small and focused: Fanminder is a great service that I've reviewed before and think has a lot to offer. They offer a combination of social, email, and mobile phone marketing. It is free to text to up to 100 numbers. Pricing starts at $15/month after that. Signal is pretty robust and lets you send text messages, QR codes, barcodes, and mobile optimized web pages. You can do coupons, sweepstakes, polls and plans start at $29/month with a free trial. TellMyCell is useful if you want to give your customers a specific keyword to text in and receive a special offer (or any response really). You can have unlimited contacts and unlimited groups, but you pay on a per message basis. You can pay-as-you-go for five cents per message or plans start at $29/month after free trial. Trumpia sells texts in packaged units (i.e. 500 or 1,000) and they don't expire. You can use them in your text message marketing in a variety of ways, from appointment reminders to event coordination to standard marketing messages. Plans start at $25/month with 30-day free trial. ReachPeople.com charges by the number of contacts and number of messages. They have a full free plan with up to 25 messages and 100 contacts. Paid plans start at $29/month. I like that they had a voice broadcasting option if you wanted to leave a voicemail for a group. Simple Texting has one of those sites that is just clear and easy to grasp and the main screen calls out to business owners. I like that. You can integrate with social media like Facebook and Twitter. Free 30-day trial, then $15/month for up to 250 messages. CallFire offers a variety of telephone-based services like IVR (interactive voice response – you know those automated attendant types) and a virtual call center service. But their SMS plan is a basic flat rate of three cents per message and it has a free trial. SnapGiant knows that many small businesses (including restaurants and food service businesses) use text message marketing and their page gently reflects that. You only pay for outgoing messages, not incoming, and unused messages roll over to the next month (that's kind of cool). Plans start at $19.95/month after free 30-day trial. Mozeo is another text platform with flat message pricing – five cents per message. Unlimited contacts, unused messages roll to the next month. You pay a one-time charge for keywords (as in your customer texts in PIZZA to your number to get a special offer). You get 10 free text messages to trial the service. TXT180 offers 500 messages for $14.95 per month. Discounted to only $9.95/month if you prepay for 12-month contract. No free trial. SMS Marketing has a one-time flat rate of $35 to setup your web-based text messaging account, then a per message fee. You get unlimited autoresponders and can schedule text message offers with ease. It even comes with one free keyword. TextMagic is a text messaging service that you don't even need a phone to use. You can forward your emails to this SMS service, too. You buy credits in 200 pack increments starting at $27. I discovered this UK-based service via a terrific post at the Content Marketing Institute: Why SMS is a Must for a Younger Audience. Betwext is one of the only text message marketing companies that had unlimited keywords (which could be important if you intend to do a lot of different campaigns) and a low rate of only one cent per message. There is no monthly fee and that’s sure to shake up the marketplace. Some Bonuses: If you simply want to replace your mobile phone text plan for something less expensive, these five options are worth a look: Go SMS Android App. Free texting. Handcent is another. JaxtrSMS is sort of like Skype but just for texting. If you text another Jaxtr user, it's free. Otherwise a low message fee based on destination country. Makes international texting pretty easy. Kik Messenger is texting for smartphones. Or more like texting with an instant messenger feel. Free. Google Voice is a free voice-over-IP phone (like Skype) but offers free texting, too. You can send to up to five people at one time. GroupMe is part of Skype and is a novel way to text a group of people. Totally free. Might not work in a business situation with a group of customers, but might be good for internal teams. If you just want to be able to get Twitter or Facebook updates on a mobile device, but not cell phone type text messages, then Boxcar for iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad is a notification app that allows you to get updates from many different web services (Curdbee, FourSquare, GitHub, Google Voice, just to name a few more). Free for the iOS world. Android and PC versions coming. Notifo is another that handles notifications to the iOS platform. If you’ve been contemplating how to offer your customers a way to get special marketing offers, via cell phone, then one of these 13 text messaging solutions will help. Like all services we review, I try to pick ones with transparent, affordable pricing and that make it easy for a busy small business owner to figure out. Let us know what services you’ve been using in the comments below.
From Small Business Trends |
| Fill Your Company With People Who Love What They Do Posted: 24 May 2012 08:00 AM PDT Zappos.com sustains their culture while growing rapidly by offering new hires $2,000 to leave. Yes, that’s what I said . . $2,000 to leave.
The Internet clothing and shoe retailer reached over $1.9 billion in gross merchandise sales in 2009. Their growth is powered by service and a whimsical culture. Essential to this growth is attracting people to work there who find it natural, according to one of their core values, to be "a little weird at times." Zappos conducts a rigorous interview process, which includes an initial culture interview, followed by many conversations throughout the company to find just the right people who will fit in and, most important, feel at home in the culture. And while they do their best to get to know candidates during the interview process, once someone is invited inside, Zappos continues their quest to make sure that there's a match between candidate and company. Offering new hires $2,000 to leave if they don't fit the culture is their litmus test to ensure that, well . . . the shoe fits. Only the Most Passionate Employees Should Stick Around Zappos doesn't want anybody sticking around who sees their role with them as just a job. They want people with passion who see Zappos as a vocation rather than work, one in which you just happen to get paid for. They see what they do as a quest to make the world a better place for customers, and they want to hire people who feel that way too. So the company makes several offers during the four-week new-hire training period to say:
And in true Zappos style, if someone does decide that the shoe doesn't fit, the company makes sure that they're paid for their time, that they leave with dignity, and that their decision is honored. Tony Hsieh, Zappos's CEO, says:
Fewer than 1 Percent Take Zappos Up on the Offer to Depart In 2010, fewer than 1 percent of new hires took Zappos up on their offer. That means that those who stay are committed and passionate. As a result of their interviewing and training process, Zappos is an electric place, filled with people who want to be there. It's filled with people who are encouraged to bring out their inner whimsy. The IT crowd holds parades in which they dress as bugs because their quest is to stamp out computer bugs. Where "Zapponians" work is filled with karaoke music at lunchtime and people who couldn't imagine being anywhere else or doing any other thing. Selling to a fiercely loyal customer base of over 10 million paying customers, the company can boast that on any given day, approximately 75 percent of their sales are to repeat customers. And they keep screening for culture fit, all the way through a new employee's orientation. They let people opt out of their new job by offering them $2,000 for their time if the new hire believes they can't be passionate about the culture and job they were just hired for. Beloved companies are filled with people who love what they do. Is yours? How do you screen people during the hiring process to ensure that they possess your core values? Do you help people gracefully exit your company if they don't fit your customer culture?
From Small Business Trends |
| What If Your Franchisor Goes Under? Posted: 24 May 2012 05:30 AM PDT Most potential franchisees don't go into a franchise business feeling paranoid about the financial strength of their franchisor. That's because would-be franchise owners aren't usually spending a lot of time analyzing a franchisors financial statement.
As a matter of fact, in a post I wrote titled "5 Great Questions To Ask Franchise Company Executives," I didn't even include a question concerning franchise company financials. Maybe I should have. The economic environment over the last three years in the US has been challenging, to say the least. By now, you know that the housing market has been hit hard, lenders for the most part still aren't freely lending small businesses money, and millions of people are having difficulty finding good jobs. While signs of optimism are starting to appear, it's going to be awhile until this optimism is reflected on company balance sheets, including the ones that are located in the finance and accounting offices of franchisors, nationwide. It's Not a Perfect World Hopefully, you weighed the pros and cons of entering into an arrangement with your franchisor well before you became a franchisee, and you did top-notch research. Your research included talking and visiting with several current franchisees, and you spent a day or two at corporate headquarters getting to know the staff there. Basically, everything lined-up the way you'd hoped, and your decision to move forward felt right. Except for one thing; Your franchisor declared bankruptcy. In franchising, bankruptcy is not a very common occurrence, but it can and does happen. So, what can you do to protect your interests? Protect Your Interests As angry as you probably are, this isn't the time to let your emotions get the best of you. It's also not the time to gather suggestions from well-meaning friends who "only want to help," but may in fact make things even worse for you. The most important thing for you to do is to find out exactly where you stand, and it's relatively easy to do. That's because it's all in black and white. Remember that franchise contract you were required to sign? I reached out to Rush Nigut, an Iowa franchise attorney, and asked him what some of the options are that a franchisee has when their franchisor is in trouble: Small Business Trends: What is the first thing franchisees who finds themselves in this situation should do? Rush Nigut: The first thing a franchisee should do if the franchisor is in trouble is to review the franchise agreement to make sure the franchisor is meeting its obligations. If not, a franchisee will want explore whether there is a breach of contract and whether the franchisee can possibly terminate the agreement if that makes sense. Small Business Trends: Franchisees spend a lot of time and money to find and keep customers. Can they keep their customers if the franchisor goes under? Rush Nigut: Obviously, franchisees will want to keep their customers or clients; they've worked hard to get them. But they need to make sure that they avoid any non-compete enforcement. Many franchisees are under the mistaken belief that the customers belong to them. Instead, the termination provisions and non-compete provision written into franchise agreements tend to favor the franchisor. Small Business Trends: What about licenses and trademarks? Can a franchisee still use them? Rush Nigut: A franchisee may want to look at extending their license agreement to allow them to use the trademarks of the franchisor in certain instances. I know of a franchisor that got into trouble and agreed to allow the franchisees to use the franchise name and trademarks even though they could not continue the franchise business. A critical issue in that situation was gaining access to product that had been solely supplied by the distressed franchisor. Small Business Trends: Rush, I know that every situation is different with regards to franchisors that go under; one size doesn't fit all. How proactive should franchisees be in situations like this? How aggressive should they be? Rush Nigut: Joel, my goal in distressed franchisor situations is to make sure my clients don’t sink with the captain. It's crucial for franchisees to be proactive, and they need to try to be aggressive in enforcing their rights. It may even be beneficial for franchisees to band together. Waiting to see if the franchisor will make it is probably not good business, in most cases. Franchisees need to see an attorney that knows franchising immediately, so that they can understand their rights. The bottom line; if your franchisor runs into serious problems, don't take a wait and see approach. Move quickly, so you can protect yourself, and increase your odds of staying in business.
From Small Business Trends |
| Yes, There Are Social Networks Besides Facebook Posted: 24 May 2012 02:30 AM PDT Facebook isn’t the only social media network making news these days. There are plenty of similar sites in an ever more crowded field, all vying for users. From Microsoft’s brand new social media sites to latest developments at Google+, Pinterest, Tumblr, LinkedIn and more. Do you have a specific site whose developments you are watching? Enter MicrosoftMicrosoft enters the social media fray. Perhaps the biggest, yet most under-publicized news is the quiet launch of Microsoft’s new “experimental” social media offering, So.cl (pronounced “social”). Blogger Sean Ludwig gives us the rundown on the new site, which also includes search and media sharing options and has an interface resembling that of Google+. Venture Beat A look inside So.cl. Blogger Danny Sullivan takes us on a mini-tour of the Microsoft’s new community, with some details on sharing searches, holding video hangouts, plus tips on signing up and building your feed. The post offers a good overview of how to get started. Have you joined Microsoft’s new community yet? Marketing Land Google+ UpdateGoogle+ by the numbers. Forget about vague press reports referring to the poor engagement on Google’s social media community. Here is some data that may support the point. Despite what Google CEO Larry Page claims to be more than 100 million users, the average Google+ post has less than one +1, less than one reply, and less than one re-share. Also, 30% of users who make a public post never make a second. RJMetrics Google+ ads Flickr-like sharing. Google’s social media site has added a new feature that some think may be a saving grace in a platform that has otherwise been a disappointment in terms of its ability to compete with frontrunner Facebook. Google’s new Google+ for iPhone joins the video-chat feature, Hangouts, as a big hit. Venture Beat What’s Up with Tumblr?Tumblr enters monetization stage. As more developed platforms have already created a business model, popular social site Tumblr has only now moved from a focus on building the site and community itself to a search for advertisers and sponsors. Can this popular social platform also be profitable? Wall Street Journal Tumblr ads start at $25,000. The blogging community said recently it will be charging a premium price for limited ad space on its site. This may be a bit high for some small or even medium sized businesses, even considering Tumblr’s growing audience. Would you go for Tumblr’s ad package? Business Insider Other Sites to WatchQ&A site Quora’s new $50 million funding round raises questions. How important is knowledge site Quora going to be in the social media space long term? Here blogger Om Malik reports on the latest funding the social media network has received from co-founder Adam D'Angelo and early Facebook financier Peter Thiel. Gigaom LinkedIn goes mobile. The business networking site that now boasts over 161 million members has, up until now, offered no native Windows phone app. But all of that has changed. Blogger Robin Wauters introduces you to the social network’s recently released Windows Phone 7.5 application. Are you using it yet? What do you think? The Next Web Flickr becomes more Pinterest-friendly. The photo sharing site has announced efforts working closely with Pintertest to make sure photos shared from Flickr users are properly attributed. The move may ease concerns by many that Pinterest creates difficult intellectual property issues, and will also enable Flickr users to spread their message over a whole new social network. Flickr Blog New Kid on the BlockLinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, and Google+ all in one. A new networking tool called Hachi combines elements of all of the above to help users connect online. The tool’s main feature? It follows the path of connections between you and other users. And here’s the best part…It searches through all your other social and professional networks to find you the smartest way to connect. TechCrunch From Small Business Trends |
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