Nearly Newlywed is a recent startup that aims to shake up the resale market for designer bridal gowns.

The social media-powered online boutique lists discounted bridal gowns from major designers including Vera Wang, Oscar de la Renta, Rodarte and Carolina Herrera. The dresses are guaranteed “nearly new,” meaning they have only been worn once or twice.

If the bride so chooses, Nearly Newlywed will buy back the dress after the wedding, guaranteeing at least 30% of the sale price. She could also opt to place the dress on consignment with the site – an option open to anyone provided the dress meet’s Nearly Newlywed’s criteria. Proceeds from dresses placed on consignment are split 70/30 between the seller and Nearly Newlywed. Founder Jacqueline Courtney offers personal shopping consultations with soon-to-be brides via Pinterest. Courtney gets to know the brides through their wedding inspiration boards, from which she makes dress recommendations.

“We found that women have always been planning their weddings — gathering inspiration, tearing things out of magazines,” Courtney says. “Pinterest is a great way to collect inspiration. And it’s a fun way to have a dialogue with girls.”

Facebook and Twitter are great for talking to brides and answering their questions, she says. Social media is helping the company fill a niche in the space and hold conversations people care about. The small team based in Brooklyn, N.Y., connects with customers nationally.

Nearly Newlywed hosts several pages of wedding, bridal and party dresses available at each time. The site allows filtering by size and length. Courtney hopes to bring in 50 to 100 new dresses every six weeks. Courtney says the company will expand into wedding accessory rentals this year.

“I think we are doing something unique,” she says. “We are using social media to connect with brides and make the experience special and personal.”

Most dresses come with the guarantee; however, if a dress is super fragile or becomes worn with wear, it is sold without the buyback promise. Timing is also important. The buyback is only open for 8 months after the purchase of the dress, not the wedding date. Considering how early some wedding gowns are purchased, this detail is important to keep in mind if you’re planning to take advantage of the guarantee.

Courtney, who got married this past June, told Mashable her own wedding dress hunt was the inspiration for the online boutique.

“The rentals I found weren’t really the right product mix for me — most of them were party dresses or a little bit more informal,” Courtney says. “I didn’t want to keep the gown afterwards. But, I still wanted it before the wedding to accessorize and just for that peace of mind and to alter the dress.”

Courtney eventually found a pre-owned full, strapless Vera Wang Diana gown to wear for the wedding, which she resold.

“I wanted to elevate the experience,” she says. “Even if the woman has a more modern approach, the experience shouldn’t be sacrificed.”

Would you resell your wedding gown after you got married? Tell us in the comments what you think.

Images courtesy of Nearly Newlywed, Lisa Beggs

Clarification: An earlier version of this article stated that Nearly Newlywed rents bridal gowns. It has been updated to explain that they operate on a sales and consignment model.

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Here are 10 examples of ecommerce merchants and small businesses that are taking advantage of Facebook photo albums for marketing purposes.

1. Organic Valley Focuses on Farmer-Owners

Farmer-owned cooperative Organic Valley created a wall calendar using photos of its farmers, and then included those images in a photo album on Facebook.

2. Florabella Takes 365 Days of Photos

Florabella Collection offers Photoshop Actions, Photoshop Elements Actions, Photoshop Textures, Digital Papers, and Vintage Frames for photographers. The company created a photo album containing an entire year’s worth of photos — one for each day — featuring different Photoshop techniques.

3. Factory Direct Craft Features Employees and Owners

Factory Direct Craft is a family-owned business that specializes in craft supplies, decor, and wedding supplies. This photo album shows images of the people behind the business.

4. Knife Cave Carves a Contest

Knife Cave sells swords, knives, medieval replicas and outdoor use products. This album features images from a recent contest held at the store.

5. Coffee.org Has Profile Photos Galore

Family owned Coffee.org sells a line of coffee and single cup coffee pods. The owners apparently believe that, if one profile photo is good, 192 must be better. That’s how many are contained in this photo album. While perhaps a bit excessive, it serves as a good reminder to change your profile photo on occasion

6. Mountain Rose Herbs Showcases Special Events

A maker of organic teas, Mountain Rose Herbs used this Facebook photo album to showcase its presence at an organic foods trade show. This is just another example of a company giving its fans a look behind the scenes.

7. Intrepid Travel Features ‘Intrepidites’

Intrepid Travel provides unique, interactive travel experiences designed to benefit local communities. This photo album features some of its tour members, called “Intrepidites.”

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8. Easy Lunch Boxes Shows How to Pack a Lunch

The mission of Easy Lunch Boxes is to “help everyone quickly, easily, and affordably pack great meals to go, while encouraging a sustainable lifestyle.” One way to help busy moms is by showing different lunchbox meal ideas. Lunchbox meal ideas come not only from the brand, but customers too.

9. IdeaPaint Encourages Writing on Walls

IdeaPaint turns any smooth surface into a high performance dry-erase canvas. In other words, the company encourages kids to write on the wall. This photo album provides creative ideas for how to use the product at home.

10. Kidfresh Proves Healthy is Fun

Kidfresh makes 100 percent natural food for children. The food may contain vegetables, nutrients, vitamins and fiber, but don’t tell the children featured in this photo album. They appear to enjoy it.

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LinkedIn launched its first iPad app this evening, and it brings a brand new look and feel to the social network. The biggest new feature is the calendar widget on the left side of your home updates screen. It pulls in appointments from your iPad’s calendar (with your permission, of course) and displays the LinkedIn profiles of the people you’re going to meet with. The layout is pretty nice too. Stories and updates look almost like they do on Flipboard.  

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Since Pinterest was founded in 2008, it’s proven one thing: People love their visuals. And it looks like the site is becoming a hot space for online video marketing opportunities as well, with its recent integration of the Vimeo platform.

The video platform addition makes sense, given how video continues to grow on the network. For example, despite Pinterest’s “no-follow” links rule to third-party sites, videos on the site are being indexed by Google at a rapid rate. In late March, Google had indexed 1,170 Pinterest videos. By mid-April, that figure jumped to 5,870 video results — an increase of more than 500% in just three weeks.

What that should tell brands and marketers is that now is the time to start looking at Pinterest as a video marketing vertical. Here are ten tips on how to get the most out of using video on this site.

1. Customize the Thumbnail Images

When selecting a thumbnail, find or create an eye-catching image that properly represents your video. If it’s a company product, consider setting it against a white background. If it’s more of an idea, then find a visual that provides a unique way of showcasing your theme. Whatever you do, make sure that your primary visual can clearly be seen at thumbnail size, and is not obscured by the default “play” button.

2. Have Descriptive Video Pins and Pinboards

Pinterest recommends you create at least a few boards that cover a broad range of interests, rather than maintaining a single board devoted to one topic. Yet, some brands make the mistake of placing all of their videos on a single pinboard and non-descriptively titling it, “videos.” Don’t do that. You wouldn’t think of titling a pinboard, “images.”

Instead, look for ways to combine your originally-produced videos with curated videos into pinboards around keyword-rich themes, and place them next to related static images you’ve pinned. For example, a product pin can be strategically placed next to an interesting video showing a lifestyle experience or demo of that product. Merchandising images and video together can prove to be more influential with viewers.

3. Keep Your Videos Short, When Possible

4. Clearly Describe Video Content

Don’t ever leave your description field blank. Describe to people what they can expect to see before they click on the video. Even with an eye-catching thumbnail image, and a relevant subject, people still read the description field of a video to make sure it’s worth their time.

5. Curate Fresh Videos with Fresh Descriptions

Always consider taking the most popular and freshest videos that relate to whatever product, solution, lifestyle, or event you are a part of, and curating them. I recommend creating your own unique title and description instead of duplicating what appears on the original video page, so as not to appear “spammy.”

6. Include “Pin This” Annotations

When you are using your own YouTube videos, Brian Honigman, the digital marketing manager at Marc Ecko Enterprises, suggests including annotations with a call-to-action for your audience. Basically, tell your visitors to “pin this video to Pinterest” or provide a link to your Pinterest profile as a way to connect.

7. Add “Pin Me” Notices in Video Outtros

8. Put a “Pin It” Button Next to Your Video Player

You likely already know that you can add the Pinterest follow button to your website or blog. You should also have it embedded right under the embedded video player on your website and blog pages. It’s just one more way your visitors can get to key content.

9. Create a Pinterest-Specific Video Campaign

Some brands are now developing video campaigns to encourage users to follow them on Pinterest and pin their items. Take this Pinterest video campaign from a U.K. insurance comparison website. Their Driving in Heelsvideo was part of a contest where users submitted the craziest shoes they have ever worn while operating a car. This turned out to be an effective cross-marketing strategy. It created awareness about a public safety issue (unsafe driving habits), while also generating increased brand awareness through theme-based pinning.

10. Repin Videos by Others

Pinterest’s best brand practices page says “repinning is one of the most social activities on Pinterest and it’s how any user really builds his/her network of followers.” One way to do this with videos is to find influencers in your industry who already have Pinterest profiles, follow them, and include their videos on your own pinboard. Make sure to notify them about it on the comments section of their original pins. Better yet, you can create a custom video that comments on some of the more interesting “Pin-fluencers” in your community. Both of these are acceptable ways of reaching out to thought leaders and brand leaders.

What other online video marketing opportunities are you seeing with Pinterest? Have you used video on Pinterest with a business strategy or an interesting business outcome? Let us know in the comments.

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Email rendering can still go wrong, even armed with this knowledge. Make a habit of testing every message you send across major email clients before sending. Litmus offers a 7-day email testing trial on all new subscriptions!

They’ve also put together this useful infographic on the road an email takes to the Inbox, what can go wrong, and how you can fix it!

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