CHARLESTON, S.C.—The City of Charleston has designated Step Ahead Inc., a social media and public relations company owned by Lyn Mettler, as a part of their Minority and Women Business Enterprise Program.

The Minority and Women Business Enterprise Program focuses on developing the presence of minority and women-owned businesses in the many aspects and opportunities available in the City of Charleston.

Step Ahead Inc., which works with many clients in the Charleston and surrounding area, has staff in both Charleston and in Indianapolis, Ind. By participating in the program, Step Ahead will become part of a preferred group of women-owned businesses for City of Charleston-related assignments.

“We are proud to be a woman-owned business who employs several Charleston-area women, as well,” says Mettler, owner and president of the company. “We are excited that now we will be given preferred consideration in Charleston by companies looking to work with women-owned businesses in the field of social media and public relations.”

About Step Ahead Inc.
Step Ahead, Inc. combines the best of traditional public relations with results-oriented social media campaigns to help maximize visibility for clients both online and off. The company’s clients include Palmetto Dunes Oceanfront Resort, the Lowcountry Housing Trust, Greenwood Communities & Resorts, the Dine With Sal restaurant group, SpiritLine Cruises and others. The company has been featured in The Wall Street Journal, Entrepreneur magazine and on MSNBC.com and SmartMoney.com. Visit www.stepaheadinc.com or call 843-606-0226 for more information.

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

By Lyn Mettler

Tired of hearing about Google Plus and how it’s the latest and greatest place to be on social media? Well, we’ve got a new one for ya: Pinterest. It’s a good bet that by now you’ve received an email inviting you to this popular new invitation-only social network, but if you’ve never heard of it, it’s time to sit up and take note.

Last month, Pinterest cracked the top 10 most visited social networks at No. 9, besting the latest social media darling Google Plus at No. 10. Time magazine also declared it one of the top five social networks for 2011.

So what is this Pinterest? At its most basic, Pinterest allows you to create virtual “pinboards” with images you come across on the web. Your “pinboards” center around a specific subject matter or topic, say Arts & Crafts homes you’ve come across, purses you love, places you’d like to visit, birthday party ideas, decor for your baby’s nursery, you get the idea…

But it’s a whole lot more than that and the real reason I’m telling you about it is because of its potential to generate results for your business. Pinterest is a social network, of course, so for starters, you can follow others and their boards and vice versa.

Typically, the way a person uses Pinterest is they log on view pins (images) from those they follow, check out Pinterest’s recommended pins and search within the site for images specific to what they’re looking for. There is also a “pin” for your browser’s toolbar that you can click when you come across something on the web you’d like to “pin” to one of your boards.

When you pin an image, you can attach a web address to it and even a price. So if you’re a retailer who sells shoes, you might want to load up boards of your different styles of shoes and maybe even outfits that would go great with your shoes. Attach prices and websites to your products, and when Pinterest users come across your images, they just might go to your website and even better, purchase the product. On top of that, they may “repin” your image to one of their boards, thus sharing it with all of their followers.

We had a retail-based client who recently set up a Pinterest profile, and within days they saw a big bump in traffic from the site and even a boost in sales, better than they see from either Facebook or Twitter. We had another client with a women’s product who saw nearly 100 hits on their site from one pin someone posted of their product.

To get properly introduced to Pinterest, get on the site and play around. If you need an invite, shout and I’ll invite you from my profile. Feel free to take a look at Step Ahead’s Pinterest page at Pinterest.com/StepAheadInc/ to get a feel for what a company can do. It’s not a great fit for every business, but certainly those who offer something visually appealing should definitely poke around Pinterest. Have fun!

Lyn Mettler is the owner of Step Ahead Inc, an Indianapolis and Charleston, SC-based company specializing in social media management for business. Email her atlmettler@stepaheadinc.com for your Pinterest invite!

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.

As a company who helps businesses maintain their Facebook pages, my team quickly did an in depth review of all the new features. Here’s a quick guide to the changes and how they will impact your company’s Facebook presence. Overall, it encourages more sharing and interaction, which should help elevate your page’s visibility, so long as you’re giving people content worth sharing. It’s no longer going to be enough to get customers to click “like” on your page; you’re going to have to keep them interested and active.

Newsfeed 

The newsfeed, the running list of friend activity that you see upon opening Facebook, got an overhaul with Top Stories now at the top. These stories are what Facebook thinks are of most interest to you and that have a lot of comments and “likes”. The downside is that you’ll now have to fight to get your way into Top Stories by giving your friends or “likers” something worth making a comment about. Additionally, as users, you can tweak what’s in the Top Stories by clicking on the top right of any post to hide the story or hide all posts from that page. You don’t want your friends to hide your posts because getting them to like your page will have become pointless. So keep your content interesting!

The Ticker

The ticker now runs at the top right of your screen and is a real time flow of all your friends’ actions. I like this because Facebook has taken all the inane stuff from the newsfeed, like accepting a friend request, “liking” links or making changes to your profile, and stuck it here. This helps the newsfeed be less cluttered with uninteresting junk (Farmville, anyone?). The ticker is also beneficial to business pages, because even if you don’t make it into the newsfeed you still have a chance to be here.

Smart Lists

In a direct swipe at Google +, Facebook has added the most popular feature from Google’s latest foray into social networking that it calls Smart Lists (Circles in Google+). Facebook has automatically created lists, such as Close Friends, Family, Business Colleagues, Indianapolis residents, etc. based on the information it has about you and who you interact with most. You can tweak who’s in these lists and choose to share content only with select groups.

Subscriptions

Very much like Twitter, on Facebook you can now “subscribe” to people without becoming their “friend.” This means you don’t have to mutually agree to connect, but rather you can follow someone’s Facebook content without them following you back. However, you don’t have to allow subscribers, but if you do (a great idea for journalists, public figures, politicians, musicians, etc.), go to your profile page, click Subscribers and opt in. Now anything that you post and choose the sharing option for Public will be shared with your subscribers. This can be a great tool for following top people in your industry, for PR people who want follow journalists, etc.

Gestures

In addition to “liking” something on Facebook, soon you will be able to say you are “listening” to a song on the music service Spotify, “watching” a movie on Netflix or Hulu or “reading” an article from the Washington Post. This new use of verbs will likely encourage more sharing of activity, again a good thing for business pages. The more you can get people to comment and share your activity the better likelihood you’ll show up in the newsfeed and get maximum views.

Timeline

Finally, Facebook is unrolling an entirely new profile page called Timeline, which Mark Zuckerberg says will serve as a scrapbook of your life. You can go back to the day you were born, note key moments with content, photos or video, and divide all this good stuff by year. Facebook will even pull out what it sees as major moments in your life since you joined Facebook. So far, it’s getting good reviews. Anything that gets more people to go on Facebook and to stay there longer is good for Facebook … and good for your business page.

Although many people are complaining about all the changes, I promise we’ll all get used to it. These are positive changes for Facebook and ultimately will make it a better tool for people and businesses.

http://www.insideindianabusiness.com/contributors.asp?id=2074

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!

Lyn Mettler, from “Step Ahead Inc.”, an Indianapolis Company that manages social media for businesses, joined us on Daybreak Sunday to discuss the new Facebook changes.

Facebook’s new changes: wishtv.com