The site attracts more than seven million unique visitors a month – with (I have to assume) millions returning (it’s addicting).

Shareaholic says Pinterest is driving more traffic to company sites and blogs than YouTube, Linkedin and Google+ combined.  In fact, it’s so popular – that if you want to join, get in line.  It may take months. (Tip: For VIP treatment, find someone you know … a.k.a., me … who has an account, and score an “inside invite” for instant access.)

Not quite sure how to use it to your advantage?

• Pin your recent infographics (linking back to your site for more info on the topic)
• Upload cool images from recent videos – where a single click takes those interested to your site where they can watch it
• Post pics of your products (but – just like with any social channel – strike the right balance between self-promotion and engagement)

Want to give it a shot?  Comment here or shoot me an email; I’ll do my best to help catapult you to the front of the line.

It’s about search, time-on-site and conversions – and using the website and online content to nurture warm leads – and ultimately drive a shorter time-to-close.

SEO is crucial to the lead-generation process. 46% of daily searches are for information on products and services, and 70% of links that users click on are organic.

If you’re like many of the companies that we work with, there’s a major opportunity to be found online more often and widen the sales funnel. That’s why we focused our latest market brief – Capturing Page 1: A Case Study in Organic Search – on SEO.

The brief details how we took a company with a previously non-existent SEO strategy and put them on a path to success. It’s filled with tips and strategies – both practical and advanced – for getting started, powering an ongoing program and ultimately winning online.

So whether you’re just getting started with SEO, or want to take your online marketing program to another level, this brief is for you.

Business press coverage is easier to land than it has ever been.

It’s obvious the changed media landscape is the cause of this. Just 10 years ago, you had a plethora of trades that would go deep – reading for the practitioners. Separately you had the business press, which was tailored more toward top level business and investing.

There are new factors at play. As a media practitioner back then –the trades were our daily bread and butter and the business press was more of our dream target. Business press would be a huge big time investment and a challenge just to get an interview that often wouldn’t even result in coverage. Relationships would be cultivated over time and angles carefully developed and shared.

But as more and more trades shudder their doors, business press realized it could fill the void left by the industry pubs folding.

Not to say that it’s easy work – it isn’t. But with dedication, and the right skills, there are definitely more opportunities to land business coverage than ever before (in fact, we had separate clients in the Wall Street Journal twice last week).This affects your audience, too. Don’t be surprised if more practitioners and prospects are digesting relevant articles in the business press as their trade verticals die out.

Of course, they’re part of life for any PR pro, including newbies like me. But since joining the Corporate Ink team last summer, I’ve seen infographics, lead gen campaigns, social media programs and customer intimacy campaigns built and launched – and I’ve actually been a part of some of those.

PR is changing.  Releases and media are our bread-and-butter, but our office is buzzing about:

• Balancing Content Creation and Measuring ROI – It’s not surprising that we take on intense writing projects for our clients: we know their customer and their industry. But after they’re live on landing pages, the fun part starts. We’re charged with driving campaigns and attaching hard numbers to that ROI – leads, clicks, etc. That’s the nice thing about the digital age – you can measure a lot more.
• Powering Sales – Public relations needs to become indispensible, especially when budgets are under such intense scrutiny. By integrating with sales, PR makes the shift from a cost to a growth driver.

How are you bridging the gap between PR and marketing? Even better, can you connect your PR to sales growth?

Oftentimes humor is used as a brush-off, the hope that a situation can be diffused. Three high profile tweets show how humor can be abused, while two other situations teach a positive lesson on the power of humor in PR.

Gottfried quacks his last – It seems obvious that a natural disaster is never something to make light of, but Gilbert Gottfried missed the social cue. Following the floods in Japan, his tweets – yes multiple tweets – offer a prime example of tactless humor. The result: after 10 years of inspiring millions to mute Aflac commercials, Alfac muted Gottfried themselves.

Use caution around major events – Kenneth Cole took ethnocentricity to new heights when the company hijacked the socially charged #Cairo to promote its spring line (see Greg Hakim’s post on hijacking hashtags). The result: KC apologized and the designer will think twice before aligning spring dresses with spring uprisings.

Death, is it always too soon? – Roger Ebert may have had a positive social agenda when he tweeted about the alleged drunk driving death of Jackass star, Ryan Dunn. But when the tweet came hours after the accident, before alcohol was confirmed to be involved, thousands felt it was insensitive versus moral.

Now, as a student of social media and the teachings of transparency, I should add a disclaimer before we get to the positive examples: I am unabashedly in favor of all things Tina Fey – especially when it comes to 30 Rock. Now we can continue…

Choose your brush-offs wisely – Alec Baldwin is kicked off a plane for playing Words With Friends and next thing Tina Fey knows, American Airlines is talking about pulling the show from in-flight entertainment. With no lives in danger and no social movements involved, this situation was a perfect example of using humor as a PR brush-off.

Sensitivity comes first – Much like her character on 30 Rock, Fey’s cast doesn’t give her a break. So when Tracy Morgan launched into a homophobic rant during a stand-up routine, Fey condemned the action and offered no excuses for the star’s behavior. After expressing her genuine sentiments, the final line in the statement is an acceptable joke – for such a serious situation. Fey went one step further in last week’s episode by incorporating a similar storyline for Morgan’s character, Tracy Jordan. Although the on-air version of the incident is altered – Fey uses the show as a platform to provide some transparency on the issue, rather than run from it.