One of the most important Facebook tips you can utilize for your pet business.

As I visit pet business Facebook pages throughout the week, I frequently see one glaring improvement I wanted to share with you that can greatly improve your Facebook page, get you website more traffic, and increase sales.

It's a little known tip for many and if you found it, congratulations! If you haven't here it is...

In the About section of your Facebook page, that appears just under your Profile photo, is a small text area where you can share info about your company.

But what many people don't know is that you can also add a clickable link to your website in this location (local business pages excluded). (See an example image below, click to enlarge).

The best information you can place here is your branding statement - what you provide and to whom, what makes your stand out from the crowd, and what makes your pet business the best in it's category! Then add a clickable link, (with the http://) so that visitors can go right to your website when they are ready, making it very accessible to increase sales..

To adjust this section of your Facebook page, simply click 'Edit Page' in your Admin Panel, and click on 'Update Public Info,' then click on 'Basic Information' and you will see the 'short description'

box where the information is pulled to appear on the front page of your Facebook page.

Keep the sentence simple, quickly read, with a little wow and punch to draw in your prospective customer, then add the clickable link and see the increase in traffic to your website.

Online sales tax bill moves to the Senate; what this means for online pet business retailers

Yesterday, the Senate voted 75-22 to advance the online sales tax bill, also called the The Marketplace Fairness Act, SB. 743.

With this latest vote it is suggested that supporters of the bill are likely to see it win approval in the Senate later this week.

It's path through the House, is not as clear.

The bill would require online retailers to collect state and local sales taxes for purchases made over the Internet. The sales taxes would be then be sent to the states where a shopper lives.

The bill would exempt small businesses that earn less than $1 million (calculated from the preceding calendar year) annually from out-of-state sales (and requires states to provide retailers with software to calculate sales taxes based on a buyer’s zip code.)

Under current law, states can only require stores to collect sales taxes if the store has a physical presence in the state, such as a headquarters, distribution center, affiliate business and more.

Proponents indicate that many online sales are essentially tax-free, giving Internet retailers a big advantage over brick-and-mortar stores. Opponents say it would require complicated regulations for retailers and doesn't have enough protections for small businesses.

According to CBS, 'Last year, Internet sales in the U.S. totaled $226 billion, up nearly 16 percent from the previous year, according to Commerce Department estimates.'

So what does this mean for your pet business?

If you are a small online pet business with under $1M in out-of-state sales, you would be exempt from this proposed law. If you are a larger pet business with sales over $1M in out-of-state sales, the bill would require you to calculate (with potentially supplied software from your state) sales tax based on the purchaser's zip code and then pay local and state sales tax on those purchases to each state based on these calculations.

UPDATE: May 6, 2013 - Today the Senate voted 69-27 to pass the The Marketplace Fairness Act, also known as the "Internet Sales Tax." The bill is expected to face more opposition in the U.S. House.

Photo courtesy of DerekGavey.

Dadvertising: What you need to know to reach men and dads in your pet business advertising

You may have noticed recently that Dad's have at last become a worthwhile adverting proposition for products other than home improvement, power tools and beer.

Companies looking to target a wider range of demographics for product and service sales are increasingly targeting men and dads in their advertisements. Take recent advertisements such as Yoplait's GoGurt, as an example.

Times have changed and no longer can we say 'mom does all the shopping.' Companies have finally recognized that dad does a bit, as well, hence the birth of 'Dadvertising.'

With the changing demographic of the pet loving and pet purchasing audience, which I wrote about in my 'Top Pet Industry Trends for 2013' blog post, I've been thinking a lot about how the pet industry may be missing out on targeting new and upcoming audiences to broaden and begin to build a newer, and often missed, prospective purchasing demographic.

The first demographic we'll be discussing in our series of untapped markets is men, and the 'dads' of the household.

Is the pet industry missing out on dad as a target market?

In looking at Facebook demographics recently of many of the pet product and service Facebook pages I manage, the overwhelming audience is primarily women between the ages of 25-55. Not surprising as this is currently the primary purchasers of pet products.

Digging a little deeper I am seeing a very gradual increase in another demographic; males, primarily within the 45-54 age range, and secondarily in the 35-34 and 55-64 age ranges; consisting of approximately 17-19% of the entire audiences.

For years, a wide variety of companies from beer to cars have utilized dogs and other heartwarming messages to capture the hearts of potential purchasers. Are they utilizing these ads to appeal to men? Not necessarily; they are looking to expand their markets outside of the their usual demographic (men) and targeting their secondary demographic - women. Take Tide's early involvement in Nascar, as an example.

However it's very rare (and virtually non-existent) to see a man being targeted in a dog product/service related advertisement or commercial.

Who are the men that pet product and service companies can target?

According to a study by DB5 and Hunter, dads (and men) are more and more involved in household tasks and purchasing decisions.

In terms of having primary responsibility - 51% are responsible for grocery shopping, 41% are responsible for the laundry and 40% are responsible for the house cleaning.

In terms of being the primary decision maker: 60% are responsible for purchasing consumer packaged goods products, 55% for personal care products and 54% for home goods.

Dads (men) and moms shop differently:

• Dads find shopping more personally enjoyable than moms. 
• Dads are more likely to buy premium and branded products, as they are more brand conscious than moms. 
• They are more influenced by research online. 8 in 10 dads will leverage online resources, such as review sites, retailer sites and even online ads, to learn about and decide on brands from “unconventional” categories.

And ads from traditional mom categories don’t 'speak' to dads and they are craving for them to improve:

It's the male who is responsible for the purchasing within the household for SAHD (stay at home dads) and currently older men who have more responsibility for purchasing within the household (men in the 50+ year old range).

Targeting men isn't easy, especially since the pet industry has been so ingrained in targeting baby boomer women. So caution is warranted in reaching this target intelligently, respectfully and effectively.

How do you target men in the pet industry? Generally speaking, let's take a look a some differences in speaking to men vs women as primary purchasers of pet products and services:

Women think of their pets as family members and enjoy the 'awwwww,' cute, heartwarming and cuddly moments. They want to be spoken to about how pet products and services will bring out that emotion in them. However...

• Men  think of their pets as their best friends, enjoy the fun, relationship moments with them and want to be spoken to more directly and succinctly, and in a more factual way that will enhance that relationship with their pets.
• Targeting men in pet related advertising needs to be well thought out, intelligent, direct, without gender preferences, smart, and respectful, without 'talking down' to the audience. Pet 'dads' want to be empowered.

Generally speaking (and without being too stereotypical) men who purchase pet products may be more active, enjoy time with their dogs in the outdoors and engaging in sports. But they also enjoy time hanging out together, watching the game, grilling in the backyard. And they may be stay at home dads with the primary responsibility of caring for pets in the family, as well as the kids.

Bottom Line:

As an untapped market in the pet industry, targeting men may be a worthwhile endeavor  in building brand loyalty for your pet products and services. However companies looking to tap into this target segment should consider adjusting the messaging of their ads by incorporating information that helps this new market intelligently make more informed decisions, and by speaking directly to this new audience.

For more information about how your pet business can target additional emerging markets, feel free to contact Pawsible Marketing to explore ideas and prospective plans to grow your pet business.

Photo courtesy of AfroDad on Flickr.

Pinterest launches analytics tool for help in measuring ROI for your pet business

Pinterest has finally launched an analytics tool to help better understand who is accessing your Pinterest content, repinning, viewing and clicking, and ultimately help you better understand ROI in utilizing Pinterest for your pet business.

From the Analytics tool you can view how many people are pinning from your website, seeing your pins, clicking your content, which pins are getting the most repins, who pins them and what others are pinning along side your pins. In addition, you can export your data to track over time.

To see your Pinterest analytics you will first need to verify your website with Pinterest. To do this:

1. Login to your Pinterest account
2. Click on settings
3. Scroll down to where you've inputted your website address and click on the 'Verify Website' button
4. Follow the instructions to either download a file that you will upload to your web host, or capture the meta tag that you save and upload to the host.
5. Once you've uploaded the file or the meta tag go back to Pinterest and click to complete the process.

Once you have verified your site with Pinterest (and clicked on the 'switch to the new look' if you haven't done so already) you will be able to see your analytics by clicking the drop down arrow by your name.

INFOGRAPHIC: Social media image sizing cheat sheet

Thanks to the folks at LunaMetrics, we're sharing this ultimate cheat sheet to sizing images on social media, whether it be Facebook, Twitter, Google+, YouTube, LinkedIn or Pinterest.

Now you have no excuse to stand out from the crowd!

Brought to you by the LunaMetrics blog.

What you post on Facebook may be putting your business in legal jeopardy if you don't follow the rules.

Lately, I have been seeing a very disturbing trend of illegal image and photo usage with some pet businesses on the internet. This 'trend' isn't exclusive to pet business, other businesses, including media outlets, are occasionally guilty of this as well.

A recent PBS.org article, "Who Really Owns Your Photos in Social Media? (Updated 2013 Edition)" explains this situation very well...

"A recent U.S. court decision clarified that media organizations cannot assume that photos shared via Twitter are rights-free, to be used as though they were in the public domain. In the case of Agence France-Presse (AFP) v. Morel, U.S. District Judge Alison Nathan ruled in favor of freelance photographer Daniel Morel. Her judgment: Both AFP and the Washington Post had infringed on Morel's copyright." You may think that since you are not be considered 'media,' these rules may not apply to you and your business, but they do. When it's other people's work (whether that be the written word, a photo, an image, likeness, logo, or similar) they own it, whether it's on the internet or not.

The PBS article goes on to say...

"The newly common practice of finding an image on the internet (that does not have a free to use creative commons license attached), downloading it to your computer, then reuploading it to a social site is against the law and you and your business will certainly be at risk for legal action." The bottom line? If you didn't take the photo or create the image, you don't own it.

It is allowable to share photos that you find on Facebook, Twitter, Tumbler, etc., but you are only allowed to re-post them if you provide a link back to the image, either directly, through sharing on Facebook, re-tweeting on Twitter, re-blogging on Tumbler, or similar.

As a marketer, as well as an amateur photographer, there isn't much that rubs me wrong more than to see a wonderfully funny pet cartoon or photo (owned by the photographer or illustrator) appear in a pet business news feed on Facebook or Twitter, and then shared by 1,000's of FB fans, when it's obvious the original poster used that image (to get attention, increase their business and sales, and get more 'likers') when they did not have the legal rights to use it.

There is a big difference between finding an image (that legally belongs to someone else) on the internet, saving it to your computer then uploading it to Facebook; than finding an image in a Facebook feed and pressing the "share" link to share that image with a fan base.

Not only is downloading and re-uploading illegal, it's also putting your pet business at great risk for legal action.

Here is the correct way to utilize and share images and photos on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and other social media sites:

1. If you find an image you like that you'd like to share, find out who the original owner of that image is. You can do a Google image search, find the creators FB, Twitter or other social media sites, and then find that image on their website or social media. Then, instead of saving that image on your computer (which is a copyright violation), grab the url of the page that the image appears and share that page url on your social media, or press the 'retweet' or 'share link' on social media (which credits the image back to it's owner).

2. Another way to share photos and image on social media sites and on your blog is to ask for and receive written usage permission from the originator of the image or photo. Then, when posting that image on social media sites, provide usage approval credit to the originator and link back to their website (or wherever they prefer you provide credit).

3. One other way to find wonderful images that you can use, distribute and even alter for use to promote your pet business is by visiting some of the free image and photo usage sites, review the specific terms of service for the specific image you want to use and follow the instructions provided. You can read a blog post we have provided in the past of how to find free use and creative commons images to promote your pet business.

4. And the final way to find great images to use for your pet business, on your website, blog or in social media, is to purchase an image from sites like Getty, iStockphoto and more.

Here is a great example of allowable and legal use of images....we all love the "Off The Mark" series of cartoons by Mark Parisi. Mark's cartoons are very popular, but many times 'stolen' on the internet because of their popularity.

To properly share one of Mark's wonderful cartoons, you can visit his Facebook page, find the cartoon you like and then press the 'share' button right underneath the image. Yes, the watermark that Mark has dutifully added to his image will remain in the image that you shared with your FB likers, but you have properly and legally shared one of his images.

The illegal and wrong way would be to find one of Mark's cartoons on the internet without or without the watermark, download it to your computer, then upload it to Facebook and not provide any credit whatsoever to Mark's image and work. That is illegal and that is against copyright laws putting your pet business at risk for legal action.

Furthermore, to protect your own images and photos that you utilize on social media, on your website or blog, mark your images with a watermark, or if you want to encourage more shares of your image you can add your website address to the image before sharing, like I did here on my Raise A Green Dog Facebook page, when I shared my recipe for Homemade Sweet Potato Chews for Dogs (which you will see was shared over 1500 times).

And please, if your business is in the practice of sharing images on social media sites, don't perpetuate the practice of copyright infringement, investigate whether the image has been shared legally before pressing the 'share' and 'retweet' button.