Like most newbie's to Pinterest, I am waiting patiently for a response to my invite request. Pinterest is rolling out invites slowly - enticing more and more interest to their website. What is it? Well basically, Pinterest is a Virtual Pinboard.

According to Pinterest, the access to their site lets you organize and share all the beautiful things you find on the web. People use pinboards to plan their weddings, decorate their homes, and organize their favorite recipes.

Best of all, you can browse pinboards created by other people (allowing you to 'repin'). Browsing pinboards is a fun way to discover new things and get inspiration from people who share your interests.

What's unique about Pinterest is that they are taking all the learning from other sharing communities by insuring proper 'pin etiquette', diminished copyright infringement as well as a "Pin it" button (similar to the share feature).  

However, it seems like a good place to promote your small business - but be careful - this is a sharing community and you will need to be very creative to insure that you are not blacklisted!

Great resources to get you started!

Pinterest: A Beginner's Guide to the Hot New Social Network by Mashable

How to Use Pinterest for the Web by USA Today

I am hoping to get my invite approved shortly - if so, I'll give you some more info as my adventure to the site unfolds!

Best

Denice MacDonald

AppSumo partners with people who make the coolest apps out there to offer you exclusive price deals on their products. You can access free deals, deals of the day and browse the web app directory.

You can also earn AppSumo dollars by referring friends OR consider becoming a partner to sell your own app.

This is a great resource for anyone that is doing hands on digital applications and want affordable resources.

I was introduced to this great resource through online giveaways for several free offerings including a free iPad and LinkedIn Pro Account for Life.

This site is awesome and you need to check it out. 

Best!
Denice MacDonald

Technology experts and stakeholders say they expect they will ‘live mostly in the cloud’ in 2020 and not on the desktop, working mostly through cyberspace-based applications accessed through networked devices.

Pew said, "the number of cloud users has grown; there are 500 million people sharing friendships 'in the cloud' on Facebook, and many millions are using the cloud every time they access a Hotmail or Gmail account for e-mail, store browser bookmarks online, maintain a blog on WordPress, or store, link to and view videos and photos on YouTube, Hulu and Flickr."¹ 

Cloud Computing Comparison Guide from Focus Research 

Now you can easily choose the best cloud computing solutions for your company with this comparison guide from Focus Research.

Learn the specific differences between eight of the leading cloud-computing vendors and see which will fit your specific business needs.

Download the Cloud Computing Comparison Guide to get side-by-side comparisons of multiple topics including:

• Support Options
• Security Features
• Bandwidth and storage solutions
• Scalability 

Note: You will need to complete a simple form to get this guide – but well worth it.² 

Related Post: Cloud Computing: The Here and Now 

Resources and Excerpts taken directly from:

1.  The Future of Cloud Computing from Pew Internet

2.  Cloud Computing Comparison Guide from Focus Research

Best,

Denice MacDonald

Content Strategy within the Design Process is an excellent article written by Brad Shorr at Smashing Magazine on how: Content Strategy is the glue that holds a project together AND that language influences behavior.

I loved how Brad gave an objective overview of how content is an emerging practice area that needs recognition and integration into the development process from the beginning -- and through -- any digital project or initiative. If anything, you need to read the barter and exchange of team members during the process - hillarious and spot-on!

READ THE FULL ARTICLE HERE.

Likewise, Brad provides a compelling infographic [right] as well as additional resources on the subject:

The New Rules of Marketing and PR - David Meerman Scott
Explains content strategy better than anyone. The third edition was published in July 2011.

Content Strategy - Google Knol
For a thorough overview of content strategy and links to books, blogs and other resources, check out this fantastic Knol.

Call to Action Buttons: Examples and Best Practices - Jacob Gube
To promote creative compatibility, designers and writers alike should study this Smashing Magazine article.

Top Ten Mistakes of Web Management - Jakob Nielsen
For insight into design-related project management, read this post by the brilliant Web usability expert Jakob Nielsen.

Lastly, you need to subscribe to Smashing Magazine’s network or obtain their free five year anniversary eBook here! Well worth the download and/or sharing with others.
                                                                                                                (Image credit: Chris Depa, Straight North)

Best,
Denice MacDonald

Google+ has emerged as a key player in online marketing and definitely poses competition to Facebook. However, Google+ isn’t the easiest thing to understand. Reason simply, it has a lot of features that can confuse beginners. Even advanced users can miss a lot of the little gems and nuances that define Google+.

So to help out, I have assembled some really good articles for consumers AND businesses to aid in adapting quickly to Google+.

Original announcement (with video) and introduction to Google+

Introducing the Google+ project: Real-life sharing, rethought for the web

http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2011/06/introducing-google-project-real-life.html

Here's a great article by Mashable (continually updated) containing screen shots, video and cheat sheets with content for all facets of Google+ including Circles, Sparks, Hangouts and mobile:

Google+ The Complete Guide

http://mashable.com/2011/07/16/google-plus-guide/

New eBook: How to use Google+ for Business Hubspot)

http://www.hubspot.com/how-to-use-google-plus-for-business/?source=hspd-website-magazine-how-to-use-google-plus-for-business-20111122

Here's a great cheat sheet from Mashable:

Best,

Denice MacDonald

Looking for that last minute gift for the holidays? Need something 'meaningful' for your most honored client? Look no further. Consider Giftly - a gift card, redefined!

What is it and how does it work?

You personalize and customize it, choosing where it works and how it looks. And you can send it via email, Facebook, or even by regular mail.

It takes everything easy and reliable about gift cards, but makes for a vastly cooler and more personal gift. In other words: the Internet is finally making gifting awesome.

Ok...sounds good - but how is it really different than a prepaid Visa card?

Check out the FAQs section for any questions you may have. Looking for ideas? There are many and Giflty has an entire section dedicated to great ideas. In fact, they provide categories by audience, price or location.

With the holidays upon us, using a stylish, technical approach to gift giving will give that personalized touch insuring that your recipients won't need to return items they don't want or need.

Learn more at the Giftly website or 'like' them on Facebook. Either way - you need to check these guys out. 

Best!

Denice MacDonald

A heat map is a picture of a web page that shows where users click when they visit a particular page.  From a techy perspective, a heat map is artificial intelligence that simulates human vision during the first 5 seconds of exposure to visuals.  

How does it work? 

The areas that are clicked most often appear in red (hot spot), while the areas clicked least often appear in blue or with no color at all.   

Why should you care? 

Heat maps are a tool used by web developers as part of usability testing. Understanding how visitors behave when they visit your web site is crucial to improving its effectiveness – not to mention conversion.  

Looking at the image to the right, it appears that MacDonald Consulting needs to improve image placement on the header and within center copy real estate to increase visitor interaction and conversion. 

Doing so will encourage visitors to click on header links (top blue area to the right within the graphic).

How to build a website heat map: 

Two of the most popular heat map generator applications are CrazyEgg and Feng-GUI.

Give it a try! You'll be amazed!

Best

Denice MacDonald

With the social media craze in full action, how do you keep ahead of the pack relative to the best social resources? 

Below you will find my top picks that will help your organization connect social media to business initiatives – including the last resource on building influence while maintaining your brand reputation. Enjoy! 

Six Pixels of Separation by Mitch Joel

This is the first book to integrate digital marketing, social media, personal branding, and entrepreneurship in a clear, entertaining, and instructive manner that everyone can understand and apply. 

Buy it at Amazon

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Crush It! by Gary Vaynerchuck

Cash in on your passion! The social media revolution has changed the way we live our lives and conduct our business. Learn how Crush It will give you the tools to take advantage and WIN.  

Buy it at Amazon 

.     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .    

Trust Agents by Chris Brogan and Julien Smith

Use the web to build influence, improve reputation and earn trust. 

Buy it at Amazon 

Denice MacDonald

Word of Mouth Marketing is a practical, hands on guide to getting people to talk about your company, your cause, and your stuff.

With straightforward advice and humor, marketing expert Andy Sernovitz, CEO GasPedal and SocialMedia.org, will show you how the world's most respected and profitable companies get their best customers for free through the power of word of mouth. 

Book Highlights:
3 Reasons People Talk About You
4 Rules of Word of Mouth Marketing
5 T's of Word of Mouth Marketing
6 Big Ideas: Deep Stuff That Changes Marketing Forever

How You Can Use Word of Mouth Marketing
The Five T's in Action
•Talkers: Who Will Tell Their Friends About You?
•Topics: What Will They Talk About
•Tools: How Can You Help the Message Travel?
•Taking Part: When Should You Join the Conversation?
•Tracking: What Are People Saying About You?

You can get Word of Mouth Marketing at Amazon or Barnes&Noble or other locations listed on Andy's website.

I highly recommend this book as well as subscribing to Andy's fantastic free email newsletter - sign up here now!

Best,
Denice MacDonald

[Source: Content and book description from http://wordofmouthbook.com/]

Thanks to my recent client, I have been using a very easy share-filing tool: Dropbox!

The best part about Dropbox is that you can sync your files online and across your computers automatically.

• 2GB of online storage for free, with up to 100GB available to paying customers.
• Sync files of any size or type.
• Sync Windows, Mac, and Linux computers.
• Automatically syncs when new files or changes are detected.

The free Dropbox account comes with 2GB of space that you can use for as long as you like. 

Need more than 2GB of space? They offer Pro plans up to 100GB to meet all your sync and sharing needs.

Want to see what Dropbox can do? Take a tour!

Love it!

Best,

Denice MacDonald

Internet Explorer 9, or IE 9, features a number of enhancements over the current edition, including support for hardware acceleration, a slimmed-down interface, full compatibility with Web standards like HTML5, and better privacy controls.  

However, is it advisable to dump Internet Explorer 8 before all the kinks are ironed out for IE 9? 

Read on… 

NetworkWorld does a good job of outlining six enticing features of IE 9 but is cautious about Microsoft’s ability to flush out and fix some potential glitches as forseen in the beta version. 

Read the full article here:
6 Things We Like About IE 9 (and six not so much) 
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The good news, according to MSN's TechnoLog, is that IE 9 will rekindkle browser wars.  

Read the full article here:
Changes to Internet Explorer 9 May Rekindle Browser Wars 
.     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     . 

What am I doing? I’ll continue to more research before downloading. 

Read more here:
Internet Explorer 9 Release Candidate: what's new, what's changed?
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Love, love, love that other websites offer great deals similar to Groupon -- LivingSocial offers one fantastic deal every day with discounts of up to 90% at local restaurants, bars, spas, theaters, and more.  

BUT, there are a few differences – one in particular related to sharing a deal to get a free deal. 

Here’s how it works: 

The Daily Deal
Each day, they send you one deeply discounted deal to use at local businesses. Sign up to get their daily email. 

Click to Buy
Purchase daily deals with one easy click. You will receive a link to your voucher the next business day. It's that simple! 

Share for a Free Deal
After you buy the deal, you'll get a unique link to share. If three people buy the deal using your link, then your deal is free. 

Bottomline
Never pay retail again! And, most of the businesses that take advantage of coupon websites are typically local – so you are automatically supporting local businesses. It doesn’t get any better than that! 

Lastly, don’t forget to take advantage of a special feature by LivingSocial: LivingSocial Escapes – great deals on travel and affordable weekend getaways. 

Best

Denice MacDonald

After participating in several webinars this week, I continue to hear that corporate blogs are still the hub for many social media intiatives. And, anyone who has a vested interest in a corporate blog knows it takes time and effort to produce a great blog - especially if it is the cornerstone for most of your corporation's social media content.

Here are my 'must-haves' for a successful corporate blog:

Blogger shows enthusiasm for his/her blog. If it's written to fill space, I can tell. I’m only interested in blogs that surprise, delight, amuse and inform offering a unique view into your organization.

The blog is well written. I read certain blogs because I not only enjoy reading them, but I’m truly getting information that is important to me – in a style of writing that is more conversational and with the bloggers point of view (good or bad) in mind.

The blog has links to other blogs, newsfeeds or other relevant information. I want to know that this blog is going to get me the next relevant click of information. I love resources, links back to other blogs and creditable information so that I can understand the bloggers opinion or slant.

The blog is updated regularly. There’s nothing worse than finding a great blog only to find out that the blogger blogs on a sporadic basis. I want a blog to be committed to me, the reader, by providing ongoing, updated content – especially if I have subscribed to their feeds. 

The blog embraces comments and feedback. I welcome an opportunity to comment on content and provide my opinion on topics. More sophisticated blogs allows sign in and the ability to post comments making the blog very interactive and viral in nature. Corporations can reply (in kind) - especially to diffuse any negative connotation about the organization or its products and services.

The blog is properly tagged and categorized. Make it easy for me to move around your blog, clicking on other categories or relevant tags.

Great Blogging Resource at Amazon:

The Corporate Blogging Book by Debbie Weil

More Great Bloggers:

The Rules Behind Creating a Great Blog by Tom Hung, ProBlogger

27 Tips for Building a Kick-ass Blog by Ahmed Bilal

What Makes a Great Company Blog by Mack Collier

Best

Denice MacDonald

Thanks to my colleague, James Davidson at 7Summits, I have been introduced to an amazing resource called the Social Media Business Council – a community for social leaders at large companies.

There are various resources at their website including: events, blogs and links along with video and featured articles and best-practice toolkits. Although the membership is geared toward large corporations, you still can take advantage of various resources, events and sign up for their newsletter. 

Details here:

Disclosure Best Practices Toolkit.(This is a document that is constantly updated and morphing.)

Blog. (Great topics and commentary on the latest social
media issues and challenges.) 

Events. (Check out 7Summits attending this event in February in Austin, TX!)

Email Newsletter. (Four to chose from: SocialMedia.org's Big List, Damn, I Wish I'd Thought of That!, Word Of Mouth Marketing Supergenius! and SmartBrief on Social Media.) 

To get a sense of who participates from large corporations, take a look at the member directory here – along with quantifiable testimonials.  

This is a true social community worth a peek!                                                  Click image for details.

Enjoy!

Denice MacDonald

If your website content is out of date, off-brand, and out of control, you're missing a huge opportunity to engage, convert, and retain customers online regardless of that new and shiny social media plan you are about to launch.
 
Without meaningful content, your website isn't worth much to your key audiences or viable for syndication to your various communities. Creating and caring for meaningful content is far more complicated than we're often willing to acknowledge.  

Content Strategy for the Web by Kristina Halvorson explains how to create and deliver useful, usable content for your online audiences, when and where they need it most.

It also shares content best practices so you can get your next website redesign right, on time and on budget.  

For the first time, you will:

1.  See content strategy and its business value
2.  Find out why so many web projects implode in the content development phase
3.  Learn how to audit and analyze content
4.  Make smarter, achievable decisions about which content to create and how
5.  Find out how to maintain consistent, accurate, compelling content over time
6.  Get solid, practical advice on staffing for content-related roles and responsibilities

To order this book, simply go to Amazon now. You can also download it to your ebook here. 

More about Kristina Halvorson:

Website: Brain Traffic 

Blog: Content Comes First

RSS: Sign up for Feed

Twitter: Follow Kristina 

Best
Denice MacDonald 

[Credit: Book description modified from Amazon.com]

I have several hundred true blog followers to my website and they have been thirsty for knowledge on social media, search engine optimization and anything metrics – 30,000 page views to be exact.  

Therefore, I feel it necessary to provide the following links that represent the most clicked, viewed and downloaded blogs from my website for 2010 – just in case anyone needs these resources again. 

Top 2010 Blogs (ranked in order by page views) 

Staying Nimble: Social Media 2010 - According to several leading experts, social media has been the number one priority in 2010. Social media will be used by organizations to lift their brand, stay connected to customers while using networks to grow their lead-gen pipelines. To learn how your organization can capitalize on what others are doing, check out these ‘top’ resources, articles and blogs from leading subject matter experts.  

Don’t Miss This One: Connecting Social Media and Email - I find it interesting that most organizations don’t realize that e-mail marketing is the original ‘backbone’ of social interaction and should always be part of the social mix.  Simply adding some ‘integrated’ content will aid in elevating your brand – not to mention ROI for your social campaigns. 

Get it here: Search Engine Optimization Blogs - Great post by Hubspot on a few dozen SEO blogs everyone should read or minimally have in your arsenal.

Social Media Resources You Can’t Live Without - Whether it’s starting a social media campaign, integrating social media into your advertising or simply setting up a Facebook fan page, it is always wise to seek out experts who have proven experience (and metrics) to help guide you in your social media initiatives. 

Social Analytics: The Next Frontier - Let’s face it folks, social analytics is a new frontier – not anything like the analytics and metrics tracking we’ve used for advertising, direct mail or other one-way channel marketing.

Get It Right The First Time: Web Metrics - Many organizations are obsessed with volume – measuring their web metrics strategy by how many web pages that were viewed or by how many people that have visited. In many cases, this type of information is meaningless as it is not directly linked to a web plan or strategy.  

Writing for Social Media - If you want consistent social media success, you have to understand what social media users crave. For social media content, that means understanding the type of content social media users want.

Your Entire Organization Benefits From Web Analytics - You finally launched a much-anticipated Web 2.0+ web site and you can’t wait to hunker down and review your analytics. How do you gauge if your analytics for your site are appropriate, measurable and definable? And most importantly, who in your organization would benefit?    

As we move forward in 2011, it will be fun to watch the exploding world of social media and how it will affect all channels in the marketing mix.  

Happy New Year to all my blog fans and a hearty welcome to all new visitors. 

Best

Denice MacDonald

If most of you are like me, you rely heavily on Google searches for resources and ready information. Google has just announced a great tool to help with those searches: Google Instant Previews. 

The original Google Instant allowed you to see search results as you type. The new Google Instant Previews goes one step further by letting you actually view snapshots of sites without ever leaving the results page. 

Here’s an example using the search “MacDonald Consulting Services” – there are lots of MacDonald Consulting organizations but which one is the one you really need to hone-in on.  

HOW IT WORKS

Each "instant" preview shows you a current view of the page, complete with text, graphics, and anything else that might be present. If you click on the thumbnail, Google takes you to the site. If you move your mouse anywhere else within the search results, Google starts loading previews for other pages in the list.

To learn more about Google Instant Previews and to do a test run – go here. 

Best
Denice MacDonald 

With iPhones flying off shelves around the globe, can you afford to not have your site optimized? Check out Intersquash.com.

Enter your website's RSS feed, name it and click a button. That's it. You can also add a 57x57 thumbnail image - good if your website visitors want to add your site to their iPhone home screen.

The results are effective, but not elegant. It seems that this is best suited for those sites with frequently updated content.

If your site is fairly static, or changes or new blog posts are written only periodically, this may not be for you. The fact is, the iPhone is pretty good at rendering just about any website in its entirety.

The problem for users is the need to zoom in and scroll when there is a lot of content - which Intersquash helps solve. Check out Intersquash.com for more info and a brief demo.

(Source/Credit: Michael Phillips, Website Magazine)

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Additional Resources:

Creating iPhone Microsites

Embracing Mobile Technology

Best,

Denice MacDonald

Ahh … the holidays are almost upon us. Just found a fantastic coupon website that personalizes by category AND provides an “Advice” tab for those looking for specific detail on deals – Savings.com.

Whether it’s shopping for a specific ‘online deal’ or store-by-store brand shopping, Savings.com has it all.  Like most, it provides RSS feeds or emails to you once your requested ‘deal’ is posted by another website. 

But again, the best part about this website is the enhanced personalization by visitor.

Check it out today – you have nothing to lose!

Happy Shopping!

Best,

Denice MacDonald

I just received an invite from Siteopsys on their SEO tools – a product that offers over 30 proficient automated tools categorized into 7 categories that help an Analyst, SEO Consultant, Webmaster, Website Developer or a Website Owner to analyze the website for various SEO and Website parameters. 

The best part – these tools are currently free but may not be in the near future. And, if you want to earn 100 points toward future needs, simply sign up here. 

Worth taking a peek: 

These tools not only make analysis process easy, but the tools also provide intuitive results that help make the analyzer's job easy and productive. As their tag line states, these tools are Fast, Accurate and Insightful. The well categorized tools, are developed with an idea to make the evaluator's work automated and cut down the unnecessary time spent on the analyzing various website, SEO and link parameters, without compromising on the quality of analysis. 

For example, I wanted to see how MacDonald Consulting ranks organically within search engines – here are the results using the Search Engine Rank Checker tool: 

Best
Denice MacDonald