Heard all the buzz about Pinterest? Whether or not it’s just a fad, it seems to be a fact that Pinterest is good for business — at least for now. Mashable reports that web traffic from Pinterest at several top apparel retailers has cracked their top 5 traffic referrers and the amount of traffic referred has jumped 398% from July to December.

For the clients we’ve recently added to Pinterest, they too are seeing a traffic boost if the page is regularly maintained. Here’s more interesting reading on Pinterest for Business to get you started:

• Pinterest Becomes Top Traffic Driver for Retailers - Mashable
• 3 Ways to Use Pinterest for Business Right Now
• 9 Tips to Boost Your Business With Pinterest – Inc.com
• A PR Practioner’s Guide to Pinterest for Business – Step Ahead
• Pinterest for Business: Yes! – About.com Women in Business

A guest post from Cyndi Laurenti

Most people are familiar with social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter, but many likely believe such services are simply used on an individual basis. In the beginning, these sites were primarily a way for individuals to keep in regular contact with friends and family, but things have changed.

Many higher education institutions from conventional colleges to online PhD programs are now also creating accounts to promote themselves. There are several things colleges can learn from businesses successful with their social media marketing campaigns.

What can colleges learn from businesses about social media promotion?

When colleges look at a business that operates a successful social media campaign, they’ll notice there are a few techniques nearly all businesses use. First, businesses give people some sort of incentive to “like” or follow them. Some businesses will give everyone some type of discount or credit for subscribing, and other businesses will have some type of sweepstakes that the 100th visitor, for example, will win. Colleges could offer similar incentives (textbook discounts, free school merchandise, etc.) to current or prospective students who connect and keep up with the schools’ social media presence.

Another thing colleges can learn from businesses about social media promotion is how to construct the social media page itself. Colleges should take note of how clearly businesses tell customers their mission statements and what products they offer. Colleges will also notice businesses (hopefully) all do an excellent job of making their contact information extremely easy to find.

What do colleges need to do differently in promoting themselves via social media?

It’s a great thing that more colleges are using social media to promote themselves, but they may not be doing it in the most effective manner. Many colleges appear to have just created a page to say they’re on Facebook or Twitter, but the information on the page isn’t all that useful or doesn’t encourage people to visit frequently.

Colleges need to get excited about venturing into the social media world and make it more than a weak gesture. This means they should post fresh content at least daily. Regular, interesting updates will get more interested visitors, lead to more subscriptions and keep visitors coming back.

What do colleges stand to gain by better using social media to promote themselves and connect with students?

When colleges use social media to promote themselves and connect with students, they’ll reap several benefits. One likely possibility is a substantial increase in enrollment. It’ll also be easier for current students to know exactly what is going on at the college on a regular basis, even as prospective applicants get a better sense of the school from the same source.

Any college that uses social media for promotion will definitely notice some gain in business, but the colleges that really take off with social media are the ones that actually put some effort into doing it right. When a college makes its social media pages actually interesting to read, people will want to check back on a regular basis. When people continue to visit a page, they’ll be a lot better able to form a clear picture of the school, and a lot more likely to choose that college.

Well, I’ve been saying for the last couple months, finally LinkedIn is worth coming back to for reasons besides job hunting, hiring or adding to your  network. The recent upgrades they’ve done to company pages are fantastic with the ability to add different services, associate company contacts with those services and even add videos about your company or products. But now, they’ve added the icing on the cake: LinkedIn Company Updates!

Just like you have a Facebook page for your business where you can post status updates, now you can post status updates to your LinkedIn company page. Here’s how it works:

• Pages set to “designated admins only” for page management now allow page “admins” (just like on Facebook) to post status updates.
• Go to your company’s overview tab and you’ll see a Share an Update field at the top.
• LinkedIn company updates can be up to 500 words.
• LinkedIn status updates can include multimedia, such as links to videos and photos.
• The updates appear in the homepage newsfeeds of your company’s “followers” (better get some followers now!)
• Followers can comment, “like” or share the post with their network.
• Whenever someone takes action, such as a like or comment, their network also  has the potential to see your page (again, just like Facebook).

In honor of Steve Jobs: 1955-2011

Facebook started this week off with even more changes but ones that I find super exciting. They have added three new metrics to their Insights analytics tool that allow administrators to see their brand page reach more effectively. If you’re an admin of any company page, the new Insights are up today and you can see some of the numbers right below your total number of friends on the left hand side of the page.

Facebook will also be rolling out the new Timeline sometime next week and the ability to translate posts from all around the world. And that’s not all! Facebook will roll out a new expandable ad option at an advertising conference next week that would make the ads you’re see appear more like recommendations from your friends than an actual ad!

Wednesday brought sadness to the entire world when Apple founder and former CEO, Steve Jobs, lost his battle with cancer. Social media sites went crazy with thoughts, prayers and memorials dedicated to a true visionary. Google, Facebook and Disney were just a few of the huge names that honored  Jobs Wednesday and Thursday. There are many ways for you to send your words of mourning and honor about Steve Jobs, but here are some great images courtesy of Mashable of notes in front of the Apple stores.

One final but very exciting social media update is that LinkedIn has finally made it possible for businesses to post updates in a similar format to Facebook. I’ve been waiting for this day to come for a while now and personally think this will do wonders for business pages on the social network. Thanks LinkedIn!

Step Ahead’s Lyn Mettler recently talked with two different media outlets about how the new Facebook changes — from Timeline and the ticker to Smart Lists and the Newsfeed — affect businesses and their Facebook marketing strategy.

On the WISH TV interview, she quickly hit the highlights of the updates to educate the viewers about what to expect and how to make changes to the settings.

On INside Indiana Business, her article addresses specifically how each of the updates impact businesses and how they should alter their Facebook strategy.

Struggling to get a handle on all the changes Facebook recently made? Not sure how it impacts your company’s business page? We’ll walk you through the changes and answer any questions you have about the updates at an informal brown bag lunch at the Step Ahead office’s at the downtown Flagship.  We’ll also share with you our thoughts on how the changes affect your Facebook strategy.

The nitty gritty details:

Get a Grasp on Facebook’s Changes Brown Bag
Oct. 12  11:30 a.m.-1 p.m.
Flagship, 475 E. Bay Street (Corner of Calhoun & East Bay)
Parking: Gaillard Auditorium garage or Aquarium garage
$15/per person payable at the door, cash or check
RSVP to hold your spot by emailing info@stepaheadinc.com  (limited to 25)
Bring your own lunch!

Last week was jam-packed with unveilings from social media giants. From Twitter to Facebook, many new tools and features were shared with users this week.

After much anticipation, Twitter finally revealed their analytics product on September 13. This feature allows publishers to track how many links and tweets are shared, information which was previously only available to advertisers. Also abuzz in the Twitter world is a new advertising feature, which allows brands to inject advertisements into the timelines of “non-followers”. This will be of great value to advertisers, especially since Twitter just announced that it has more than 100 million monthly active users around the world.

Over at Facebook, some changes are in order as well. This week, in an attempt to compete with Google +, Facebook revealed a new look for its “Friend List”. The new design allows users to have greater control over what they share and with whom they share it. Another feature that Facebook promoted this week was subscribing to profiles as opposed to “friending” people. By subscribing to a user’s profile, your newsfeed will show their public status updates and you can decide how much of these updates you would like to receive. This is yet another change in response to Google+.

Do you think changes made to Facebook will keep them more popular than Google+?

Last week was all about the crazy weather and with hurricane Irene still causing damage along the East Coast over the weekend it was still being talked about Monday. Twitter was all a buzz about the storm and someone even created a hurricane Irene Twitter account.

In my opinion the storm that caused the most disasters was this years MTV Video  Music Awards that aired Sunday night. The invitation to attend has to say “Attire: Customes Only” because the outfits were out of control. Lady Gaga came as a man, Beyonce announced her pregnancy and Niki Minaj wore a mask while carry stuffed animals on a chain all night!

It took me a few days to recover from the stupidity that the music industry has turned into and turn my attention to something way more important, football. Thursday was the start of the college football season and I’m patiently (ok not so patiently) waiting for my teams first game tomorrow! The NFL is making a techy move by replacing their playbooks with iPads. I’m sure this will move into college football sooner than later.

Football might be my big plans for the long Labor Day (end of summer) weekend but All Facebook can tell you what everyone else is doing this holiday! We want to hear what your big plans are!

There were two topics this week that you could not escape: crazy weather on the East Coast and Steve Jobs.

Monday afternoon it became apparent that Hurricane Irene would pick up speed and hit the East Coast by today

and tomorrow. My Tweetdeck was flooded with talk of the hurricane hitting Charleston and the damage it could cause. The amazing part of this was that I received more up to date information via Twitter than on the news.

Tuesday brought on more insane weather with the Virginia earthquake that people said they felt in South Carolina AND Indiana. Twitter went insane with talk about the earthquake! Social media for disaster and weather preparedness is really growing and it’s obvious why (blog to come on this next week).

The entire technology world felt an earthquake on Wednesday when Steve Jobs resigned as Apple CEO due to his health. I personally can’t watch a movie, listen to music, check my email or read a book without thinking about his impact my life and I wish him the best!

Busy week!

I have read one too many articles lately that claim you just cannot measure success on social media, at least not yet, but rather it’s more about awareness, engaging loyal fans and customers, creating goodwill, etc.

While, yes, social media is about that, it’s also about RESULTS and yes you can measure that. I’ll tell you how in my weekly SocialMoms.com post. Read on!