This is a guest post by Allison Boyer, Community Outreach Coordinator and regular blogger for BlogWorld.
Is your Pinterest profile optimized so you’re found and followed by other users, repinned as much as possible, and sending tons of traffic back to your site? For most users, the answer is no, unfortunately. Don’t worry: Pinterest is still a very new social media site and we’re all still learning! If you have five minutes, though, you can totally improve your Pinterest profile with just five easy steps:
Step One: Categorize all of your boards.
When you create a board on the fly (i.e., you’re pinning something and decide to create a new board rather than pinning to an existing board), no category is associated with that board. Most users never think to go back into their profile and categorize. However, if you don’t, you won’t show up when users browse the site by category, which is a heavily used function. That means you’re missing out on a ton of potential eyeballs from people who aren’t already following you!
To categorize, simple go to your profile and click “edit” on any board you haven’t categorized already. Sometimes boards fit into more than one category, but since Pinterest only allows you to choose one, make sure you choose the category where you most want your pins to show up.
Categorizing does not guarantee you’ll show up when someone is browsing by category. If you aren’t categorized, though, you definitely won’t have your pins displayed.
This is a guest post by Justin McGill.
When it comes to your social media routine keep it simple. There is too much information floating around out there on social media to consider it all. Bottom line, if how you’re using social media isn’t helping you meet your goals, DON’T DO IT!
Photo Credit: Mark Biddle
Developing Your Routine
The following will help you get on the right path for developing a social media management routine.
1. Start by getting tools that make your social routine easier. Consider tools like TweetDeck and Hootsuite that allow you to incorporate Twitter and Facebook into one platform in which you can find friends and followers, monitor your newsfeeds and search for what people are talking about.
2. Be sure to make your messages count. Don’t overpopulate newsfeeds with constant updates. Instead, send out a few powerful, all-inclusive messages that entice readers enough to want to share your posts. Three posts a day, per network is a good routine to follow.
3. Stick to what works. Test the waters with each social network. Determine which work and stick with those. The only networks you should use are ones that help you reach your goals and objectives. Staples for most businesses are Facebook and Twitter.
Because Pinterest is the hot topic of social media, it has come under a lot of scrutiny. First about the use of affiliate links, and now about copyright issues in relation to items saved (or “pinned”) by users. Essentially, people are freaking out and removing their Pinterest content because they fear the legal repercussions. But is Pinterest the first to do this? Not by a long shot.
Disclaimer: I’m not a lawyer. I’m not even really that good at reading Terms of Service agreements. Please don’t sue me if I don’t explain things correctly or if your image happens to be in one of my screenshots. 
Why Pinterest is Getting Flack?
From what I can tell, it can be summarized like this. When you add an image to a pin board on Pinterest, Pinterest stores a full-resolution image on their own server. In their Terms of Service, although you or the original source of the image still maintains ownership of it, Pinterest can still use it any way they please.
Need more info? Be sure to check out 28 Things You Need to Know About the New Facebook Pages! This post includes additional and new details about the Timeline design for Facebook Pages.
Last night, I decided to try out the New Facebook Pages with Timeline for my freelance writing page. Facebook plans to change things over on March 30th anyway, so you might as well prepare early for what’s coming, and for pages, there are lots of preparations to be made. Here are some of my initial observations about how Timeline affects our favorite Facebook fan page features.
Pros: More About Space & Direct Link to Your Website
Probably one of my favorite changes that comes along with Timeline is the easier to find About information.
This means you can squeeze in more details about your page, brand, or business. Keep it around 165 characters if you don’t want anything important to get cut off, and be sure to include your links for a possible increase in click-through rates to your website from your Facebook page.
The only down side is if you set your Facebook fan page up as a local business. Instead of your About information with website links showing, your contact details will show instead. If you want your website link in this area, the tradeoff is you have to remove your phone number. This is what I had to do with my husband’s Facebook page for his new business as a Arizona wedding photographer.
It’s just a matter of deciding whether your Facebook visitors are more likely to want to visit your website or contact you by phone. I countered that by using the Pagemodo Contact Us app (aff link) which makes it easy to find additional contact information.
This is a guest post by Kevin Lau.
It’s still the early days for Google+ and plenty of people are getting to grips with the various tools this social platform has. This is even truer for business users, who have only recently been able to set up business pages to help promote their work.
One of the main features Google+ has to offer is Google+ Hangouts. Google+ Hangouts enable you to initiate video chats with other Google+ users who are in your Circles who also have access to a video camera.
So how can you use Google+ Hangouts to benefit your business?
Let’s face it most business users with Google+ business pages are looking to drive more traffic to these pages. Hangouts can certainly help you do this, and there are a number of methods you can use.
