Truesilver Coaching & Marketing » Blog

Pinterest – Pin it button for Android

truesilver — Mon, 30 Apr 2012 06:23:20 +0000

Want to be able to Pin pictures from your Android phone but can’t seem to find an app to do it? The Pinterest mobile website is great, but a little limited and trying to use the ‘Full Site’ doesn’t seem to work either. So here’s the ‘Pin it’ button that is available for PCs, only for your Android phone… Instructions for use are below.

Happy pinning!

1. From your android phone hold your finger on this code below until your Android browser shows you a menu.

javascript:void((function(){var e=document.createElement('script');e.setAttribute('type','text/javascript');e.setAttribute('charset','UTF-8');e.setAttribute('src','http://assets.pinterest.com/js/pinmarklet.js?r='+Math.random()*99999999);document.body.appendChild(e)})());

2. From the menu choose the option marked “Select Text” and then use your finger to select the text in the box above and click the copy icon.

3. Then go to your bookmark menu (how you do this may vary depending on the browser you use). In Dolphin Browser you slide your finger from left to right to bring up the side menu or press menu.

4. Choose “Add Bookmark” – will look something like this :

5. In the ‘Name’ box call the bookmark something like ‘Pin it’

6. In the ‘Address’ box clear the box completely (this bit is important) then hold your finger down on the box until the menu appears and select ‘Paste’.

7. You should see the code appear in the ‘Address’ box.

8. Save the bookmark and now you’re ready to go!

How to use it:

1. All you do is go to the website page with the image you want to Pin – try this page for instance (if you’re posting from another site make sure you have the rights to pin the image!* See Pinterest’s Terms)

* We give you all the rights to Pin our Android / Pinterest image below so you can test it

2. Then, staying on that page, bring up your bookmarks list and select the ‘Pin It’ bookmark.

3. The code works exactly the same as on your PC and will bring up the Pinterest logo and a selection of images on the page – something like this:

4. Just pick the image you want to pin, select the board you want to add it to and add a comment.

This ‘Pin it’ Java script is copied directly from Pinterest. Unfortunately the code that allows you to drag the bookmark to your bookmark bar on your PC prevents you from copying the URL on your Android phone (yes, daft I know)! So all we’ve done is remove the extra ‘Drag it’ code so you can add it to your phone.

If you need any help – contact us!

Watch your wallet – 10 Simple Principles of Marketing

truesilver — Mon, 23 Apr 2012 09:30:24 +0000

It’s very easy to spend fortunes on marketing. Here’s some tips to keep your marketing budget down and make the most of your cash.

1. Have a budget

Small businesses often spend money on marketing as and when – usually when cashflow is good. When you first start out, that might work for you, but as you grow it can be a lot less effective because it’s inconsistent and you end up spending money just because it’s there. Set yourself a monthly or quarterly budget and plan how to use it wisely and you’ll save yourself fortunes!

2. Stick to your budget

According to experts, what we track, we improve. The very act of setting a budget and monitoring where that money is going, should immediately improve the effectiveness of the marketing mediums you use. Simply by asking yourself the basic questions – a) does this fit into my budget and b) will it get me the customers I want – can mean you avoid some costly mistakes.

3. Know what to set your budget

Apparently we’re supposed to spend 15% of our target turnover on marketing. So if you’re looking for big growth, then you’ll need to spend big bucks! Or spend time instead. To grow your business you either need to spend time or money. The strange thing is, that the campaigns that involve spending time rather than money, tend to reap bigger rewards than just throwing cash. So if you are ‘time rich’ then this could be a much better option for you.

4. Be wary of deals

This is a big one. Just like buying clothes we’re never going to wear in the January sales – we often buy advertising or marketing services because it’s just too good to miss. If you were going to buy it any way – great! If it was something that you had decided wouldn’t work for you before, be wary of changing your mind just because the price looks attractive!

5. Don’t ignore the free stuff

You don’t need a big marketing budget to grow your business. There are plenty of free (or very low cost) marketing avenues you can use – generally they are for long term benefit, but they can also improve the effectiveness of your other marketing strategies. Posters on your car, free networking events, email campaigns, competitions, social media… they can all get forgotten. Use them well and monitor the results.

Baby Steps – 10 Simple Principles of Marketing

truesilver — Tue, 17 Apr 2012 12:24:17 +0000

It’s very easy to get caught up in advertising deals, marketing ideas that are ‘guaranteed’ to work and campaigns that are thrown together because you need to do something…

My advice? Never rush into a marketing campaign (no matter how good the deal seems) and find a way to test your campaign before you spend lots of time or money.

Get the facts

Not always easy but important for any marketing you do. Understanding conversion rates is an essential part of being a good marketer. It shouldn’t take long and any professional company will have most of the information to hand – if they don’t that might be your first warning sign that this isn’t for you…

Key facts that you should know before you consider spending anything:

How many people are you going to reach?
(distribution figures, hit rates, footfall etc)

What kind of people are they?
(Age, gender, income, business or consumer, psychological profile, location)

What’s the situation?
(leisure, event, fun, learning, charity)

Has it worked before?
(Can you speak to other people who have used this medium, can you find out how many enquiries they’ve had – sometimes tricky and don’t take another company’s opinion as gospel, but can be useful to know)

Test it

From your fact finding you might actually decide right off that the medium isn’t for you. If you do think it might be worth a go, find a way of testing it first.

If you’re managing a campaign yourself then it’s relatively easy to test something. If it’s being produced through another company then you might need to get creative. Testing is about finding a way to minimise the risk. For instance:

Before spending lots of money on advertising, try getting the ad printed on some business cards and putting them in shop windows or taking to your next networking event. If the response isn’t great, you might need to try again.

Get feedback from customers or friends. Ask them if they understand your offer, if it grabs their attention etc.

Rather than getting a big run of leaflets or taking out a huge advert, buy the absolute minimum.

Track the results

There are some really easy ways to track where your enquiries are coming from; landing pages, campaign specific telephone numbers and email addresses, vouchers, offer codes or just ask customers direct. Remember to make sure you record every enquiry that comes in, not just this campaign – it’ll really help you improve the effectiveness of everything you do.

I suppose the big message here is avoid costly shortcuts and jumping into something without doing a little fact finding. We all know how easy it is to spend lots of money trying to get more business without any guaranteed results. Take a deep breath when something too-good-to-miss comes up and figure out how to make it work for you

Know your strengths – 10 Simple Principles of Marketing

truesilver — Tue, 10 Apr 2012 12:15:24 +0000

Trying to be all things to all people is not only costly and time consuming, but also really wears you out. Knowing why people buy from you and what your strengths are is key to making your marketing really successful.

The tricky bit is matching your strengths to what your ideal client wants.

For instance if you’re a small family business, then that can be a strength if you’re aiming for people who want a friendly, personal approach.

However, if you’re aiming for people who want quick, no fuss service, then knowing that promoting yourself simply as a small family business can be associated with slow service and old fashioned values.

Lots of things that you may have thought could be perceived as weaknesses in your business can become assets with a little marketing ‘spin’.

Things like working from home can become more about keeping overheads down and being able to meet clients face to face at their home or office at a time convenient to them. Whilst at the same time, having premises can mean more privacy and being able to show them first hand what you’re offering.

Here’s a list of some other strengths and weaknesses you may be hiding under your own little bushel which can be worked to your advantage with a little creativity…

Sole trader
Franchise
VAT registered
Not VAT registered
High end products
Low cost products
New business
Established business
Part time business
Online customer support only
Telephone customer services only
Payments taken through Paypal
Small selection of products
Wide selection of products
Delivery times

The big thing as far as your clients are concerned is that they can trust you and that they know what they are getting. That means using the facts to your advantage and never ever lying!

A lot of companies try to look larger than they are, which is the accepted norm on the internet, but be extremely careful how far you take this. You can actually create a lot of loyalty by simply saying that it is just you, the phones will only be answered in the evening if you’re part time but they will always get a response within 24 hours and emails are welcome at any time of day…

My big tip? Know why you’re great – match that to what your clients want and be proud of your business.

Instagram – What’s all the fuss?

truesilver — Tue, 10 Apr 2012 07:16:54 +0000

Let’s face it – there are so many social media sites around, sometimes it’s hard to keep up… let alone remember your password to all of them!

The announcement has just been released that Facebook has bought Instagram for $1 billion in cash and stock and suddenly the internet is rife with “Facebook snaps up Instagram” puns. Chief Exec of Facebook, Mark Suckerberg, posted on his wall this morning “we’ll be able to work even more closely with the Instagram team to also offer the best experiences for sharing beautiful mobile photos with people based on your interests”.

For the normal small business person out there who hasn’t yet used Instagram, you might be wondering if it’s something that can help your business.

So here’s the low down of what Instagram is and the pros and cons from a business angle…

What does it do?

Essentially, Instagram is a photo sharing app. It allows you to take photos or upload photos and modify them. On the Instagram website it says:

“Meet Instagram – It’s a fast, beautiful and fun way to share your photos with friends and family. Snap a picture, choose a filter to transform its look and feel, then post to Instagram. Share to Facebook, Twitter, and Tumblr too – it’s as easy as pie. It’s photo sharing, reinvented. Oh yeah, did we mention it’s free?”

We’ve uploaded this photo (chocolate gooey mini muffins from the Easter Weekend) to show you three of the different effects it can produce.

Here’s what we started with…

Here’s the same picture modified with the X-Pro effect

…and with the Toaster effect

You get the idea. You can then share your photos. Simple.

You might also like this article from the Guardian which shows some other effects on Famous photos: Instagram makeover: see Obama, Bush and Blair transformed! Well, sort of

The Advantages

Though smartphones are amazing, there are limits. It would be great to have a full Photo Editing package available on the move, though chances are we wouldn’t use it because, well, we’re on the move. This is a template driven photo editing suite that also shares – which is pretty useful.

Being able to post from anywhere and to Facebook & Twitter at the same time is great.

It works with other Android apps you may already be using on your phone such as Gallery apps and HDR Camera apps.

Downloads straight to your SD Card – pretty good if you’re aware of the memory restrictions on your phone.

The Disadvantages

These are my reasons for not using Instagram myself – you decide your preference (by the way, this is from an Android user perspective):

Instagram is strictly smartphone only – so you can’t use it from your computer as well. This is a big one for me as I like to be able to do my social media via the device I’m using at the time.

It’s listed on Google Play as a 12MB app, though it’s actually about 5MB. It may not be a problem, but it could mean if you’ve downloaded a lot of apps and don’t have an SD Card, you may have to make some room.

You can’t post to your Facebook Business Page without an app like Hootsuite. For small business users, this is the kicker. As the app only works with your Facebook and Twitter Apps – and you can’t ’Use Facebook as [Your Business Page]’ via the Facebook App – your only way to make use of Instagram for your business is post to your personal profile and then share it again. Not great. Though in fairness this isn’t Instagram’s fault – it’s a limitation of the Facebook app. May be it will be improved now?

In the meantime there are ways around it, though I imagine that most business owners will just find it easier to skip the Instagram bit and post via their favourite Social Media App.

Remember, this is a look at Instagram at the moment and with Facebook’s backing it’s likely to change significantly.

I admit I am a Pinterest fan and I also like to keep my Social Media simple – which means keeping the apps I use down to a minimum. Try it though, it’s free, it works (always a bonus with apps) and you might find a use for it.

Woburn Event

truesilver — Tue, 13 Mar 2012 09:07:29 +0000

A big thank you to everyone who came along to our massive networking event on 12th March 2012.

Woburn was a fabulous venue to hold the event at and you can see from the pictures taken by Paul Simister that some serious networking went on…

http://www.paulsimister-photography.co.uk/

Merry Christmas 2011!

truesilver — Tue, 20 Dec 2011 20:51:20 +0000

Just wanted to say, in my own animated and ultra eco-friendly way… Merry Christmas!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ggQ5B7iG_Ho

Click above to watch in full screen mode or click below to see it on You Tube

Our festive Christmas icons

truesilver — Thu, 15 Dec 2011 10:00:11 +0000

We always like to get into the festive spirit, so here’s some little icons to make you smile. Feel free to copy and use as you wish!

Simple Marketing Principles No.2 – Know what you want

truesilver — Thu, 15 Dec 2011 08:47:48 +0000

Imagine this. You’re off to do some Christmas shopping. But you have no list of people you need to buy for and you haven’t thought about what you want to buy them or when you’ll see them to give them their present.

Guess what’s likely to happen? The chances are you forget at least one person, get something that you decide later isn’t really what your aunt wants and you probably spend a lot longer wandering around shops that don’t have any inspiration… Plus you haven’t arranged to see them, so it’s an expensive last minute dash before Christmas to get to the post office and get it delivered on time.

If you’re like me and you’re not the biggest fan of shopping – especially in crowds – this might be your worst nightmare.

And marketing can be the same.

Now imagine you’re putting together an idea for a campaign. Don’t get confused by the term campaign – anything you do is a campaign! Whether it’s blogging, tweeting, advertising… or something much more complex and wide reaching.

So, for example, this is a leaflet campaign. Imagine you know who and where your customers are (your list of gift receivers) and you know what they want (what presents to buy them) and, even better, you know how you’re going to get that leaflet to exactly the right people in plenty of time (no need for expensive post office deliveries).

By knowing the who’s and the where’s and the when’s, you can also start to know how many leaflets you need to deliver in order to get the number of enquiries you want. You can even start to tell your customers exactly what you want them to do… for example, visit you, call you or email you.

As soon as you know what you want, and for that matter what your customers want, things become so much easier. You can put together a plan, arrange things in plenty of time and get a good deal on anything like printing or delivery.

If you don’t have a plan things can become very chaotic and the results you can expect drop dramatically. Not because you’re necessarily doing anything wrong as such, just because things don’t go quite right…

Our big tip? Know what you want and how to get the result you want in everything you do.

Now. Where’s my Christmas list?

Sponsor a great event!

truesilver — Thu, 24 Nov 2011 15:09:31 +0000

Sponsor our networking event
at Moggerhanger from just £35!

Where: The gorgeous Moggerhanger Park, Park Road,

Moggerhanger, Bedfordshire, MK44 3RW

When: Monday 16th January, 6pm to 9pm

Details: The networking event will be free to enter, but as we only have

space for 100 guests, booking is essential. There is space for 15 exhibition stands around the room and a bar is available for refreshments.

Event Sponsorship Full

To find out more about our forthcoming events, please enter your details on our
forthcoming events page