Now every Friday as you know I like to give you a challenge. In fact if you want to see them all, because there’s been sixty something, and they’re all in reverse order, you can check them out.
Go to marketingforowners.com/challenge. If you see the menu on the website at the top there, or in your mobile the little three dashes.
Then you’ll find one that says resources I think, and it’s got all the books we’ve recommended, all of the podcasts we’ve recommended, all of the Twitter handles and blogs, all the people to follow, and all the weekend challenges.
Now the weekend challenges, I like them because they make me think. I have a handful that I like to do every now and again myself.
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So you should be doing them as well.
They’re not hard. So get yourself a bit of paper, get yourself a pen.
While you’re doing that let me just remind you that A — you don’t have to write these all down straight away if you can’t.
So if you are driving along, or you’re doing the cooking, or whatever, you’re jogging, then don’t worry. Go to the website because we transcribe every single podcast, every word, and put all the links, all the notes in it.
Weekend Challenge
#1 Create 15 New Boards on Pinterest: As an example we’re gonna pick Pinterest, okay? Because not everyone is doing Pinterest so I’m just going to use that.
So first of all, obviously create your account, create a business account please. It costs, they’re both free, doesn’t make any difference, but you need a business account on Pinterest.
Then create fifteen boards, right? Fifteen new boards. Yes, you’re going to create fifteen, each one with a name based on keyword research.
Okay? So use keyword research, and use things that are appropriate to yours.
So for instance, in Fire Protection Online we might have fire extinguishers, smoke alarms, safety signs, fire safety products, fire stopping, fire buckets etc. Yes, it’s amazing how many people still buy fire buckets. Fantastic things.
So, do that. Now make those titles a bit more interesting. So for example instead of just saying “fire extinguishers”, say “popular fire extinguishers” or “effective fire extinguishers”. Something like that.
Just make it sound more interesting. Make them sound more valuable, make them sound enticing.
If you want tosee how people do this, go look up any food blogger’s Pinterest board. As well as it will make you hungry and it will make you go to a cake shop or raid the fridge, see what they use.
The top ones use some fantastic titles. Oh it’s lovely.
#2 Follow 12 Influencers and Brands With Similar Content: So in mine at Fire Safety, I’d go and find a couple other fire safety businesses, but also in verticals, you know in a similar thing, I’d also find a couple of business organizations or trade associations.
Also choose small businesses that might be in a related thing, that might have that type of audience or institute of directors or a Chamber of Commerce. That kind of thing.
#3 Pin 3 or 4 pieces of Content from Your Blog Every Day: Now you also need to Pin from other places, so go to sign up for something like Feedly. Follow a bunch of blogs there of ones that are of interest to you, and when they have good stuff, Pin it.
You want to Pin the big images. If you go to Pinterest by the way they’ve got what’s called a pin mark little something like that, in settings you can go down and download a little tool to your Chrome toolbar, to your browser.
And then it’s easy, whenever you see an image you can just click this little red P and it will give the option of which image to Pin. That’s probably one of the easiest ways to do it for when people don’t have social sharing buttons.
So you’re gonna Pin three or four pieces of content of yours from your blog, I’m sorry I didn’t make that clear, and pin three or four pieces of content from other blogs. Not the influencers, but from others each day. And there’s some more.
#4 Re-Pin 3 pieces of Influencers Content Every Day: Now you’re re-Pinning so there you’ve got twelve, it doesn’t matter. Right?
You don’t have to do them all, you might want to pick just six or four a day, but re-Pin three pieces from each of them. Probably more sensible to do something like say four of the twelve. Re-Pin.
Now when you do re-Pin, add a comment. Add a comment and add value, don’t just re-Pin it. Add a comment, add value to it. Enhance it.
That will get you noticed, because people get notified when someone has, Pinterest tells you, it puts messages up there and it sends emails to say — “hey, so and so has re-Pinned one of your Pins”.
And when they have a look they’ll notice you add comments, and they’ll think wow that’s somebody who actually likes my stuff. Yeah? See where we’re going with this?
#5 Use Pinterest Size Portrait Images for Your Posts: Now if you look at our posts, such as our Wednesday Interview post, you’ll see that the main image at the top of the post is a huge Pinterest style. So it’s going to be a portrait style, meaning that shape.
And the dimensions, if you want to know, the best dimensions are 735 pixels wide by 1002 pixels high. Don’t ask me why. The easiest way to do this is go to Canva.com. Just get a free account on Canva, one of the things in the very top when you see is to create a Pinterest post, a Pinterest image.
It’s easy, really easy, because they have loads of templates and they’ve got the shape and it just exports. It’s free. If you’re not using Canva you are mad unless you’re using Photoshop because you’re good with it and you already have it. But Canva’s free.
#6 Place the Pinterest Share Button on Every Single Post: That means you’re going to place it on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Pinterest, and if you’re big on Instagram that as well, on every single one. Because these are not for you.
These are for your readers to share your stuff. To make it easy, don’t make them put any effort in, make them just be able to click one thing.
If you want to know how to do that, oh just before I do, also that’s to share the individual post, okay? The individual image on the post. Also put the Pinterest button for your Pinterest account and your Twitter account and your Facebook account.
These are not to share. These are to actually follow and like you in the sidebar, or in the header, or at the top of your page.
Also, stick them in the footer so that people see them at the top of your page and then at the bottom when they get to the end of an article. Put them there; make it easy for people to follow you.
The easiest way to do this is to be using WordPress for your website, it makes life so much easier, then just use the free SumoMe plug-in, because that has all this in spades, as they say.
It’s got it all and more, so don’t you worry. Remember, SumoMe is free and it does this all for you. Just take my word for it.
If you want to know more, if you want to actually know how to put a website together and how to do it, how to add SumoMe, how to set SumoMe up to make all this easy and use other free plug-ins to make your life so much easier, just go to our website course at www.website101.co.
Go there, see all about it. It’s got a couple of payment plans. Doesn’t cost a lot, just makes your life so much easier, and this is how it works. Promise. This will make it good.
Anyway so that’s your weekend challenge. Try a new social media thing, and try to set up a social media plan.
You can apply a similar strategy to any of the social media platforms. Think about it, you can apply a similar thing to Facebook, similar thing to Twitter. Follow people, share their stuff, Tweet their stuff, et cetera.
Same stuff, all of them. Good eh?
I will have another one for you next Friday, but meanwhile have yourself a great weekend and I’ll see you on Monday.