That's So 2012: Have Pinterest, Foursquare and Groupon Peaked?

Do you fall for social media marketing trends? Slow down and learn from a few whose stars may be fading.

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I overheard this recently: "I got a Pinterest invitation the other day, and it took me by surprise because I can't even remember the last time I even logged on to Pinterest!" If this person was in your target audience and you were investing a good amount of time building up your Pinterest channel, wouldn't this statement concern you?

One of the biggest social media strategy challenges these days is simply figuring out into which channels and platforms to invest your time and resources. It might feel like every month another new social media platform launches that you need to know about. Pick the right channel early on and you could hit the jackpot--achieve early success, have your case study featured on all kinds of media outlets, attract more followers/fans/friends from all the free PR and have social media talents knocking on your door for a job. Pick a channel that never gets off the ground or after it's peaked, and it could be you and the crickets at your next social media ROI analysis meeting.

Here's a cautionary tale from three former social heavy hitters--which may now be in their twilight.

Take for a moment another former social media darling: Groupon. Groupon's model relied heavily on social networks and social sharing in order to get the critical mass required for one of their limited-time deals to be released. Consumers and deal seekers loved Groupon (and still pretty much do), but the small businesses Groupon went after often couldn't afford these deals: Many businesses didn't retain those one-time, deal-redeeming customers and forfeited much of their profit in the process of attracting Groupon customers.

We all know what happened next: Copycats entered the market, diluting Groupon's power. After a shaky IPO and the recent ousting of its founder and CEO, Groupon is struggling to re-group. It may have a retained part of its audience, but finding merchants willing to discount their products through Groupon will be a challenge.

Pinterest has had different sorts of challenges.  For a time, it too was the darling of social media news and power users, and it quickly found its way into the marketing mix for companies that use imagery to sell. In many ways, Pinterest has built its business right--including developing a stream of revenue early on. But it was just too easy for users to lose interest. I came, I pinned, I conquered--now what?  Once you've created a pinboard of your fantasy vacation, room designs, automobiles you'll never own, just how frequently are you logging on to Pinterest? And without the critical mass of audience, how much time should a marketer put into building out their Pinterest channel? Pinterest recently launched a redesign and analytics features, but will these be enough to rebuild its former momentum?

And then there's foursquare. When foursquare launched, there was huge novelty in its mainstay check-in feature with users vying to become the "mayor" of a location based on the frequency of their check-ins. Foursquare's popularity among local businesses looking to raise their visibility and cool factor grew, and so did its place in social media plans. These days, however, you can check-in from almost any social media platform, so the big dogs Facebook and Twitter have eclipsed foursquare.

Abandon Ship?
What does this mean to those of you with accounts and marketing programs with these networks? I am not advising you to abandon ship altogether, but consider your rationale for continuing to support your accounts. If these platforms truly provide you with value-- real revenues, audience engagement or even business intelligence--by all means, keep up the great work. On the other hand, if all they really are at this point is a resource drain, cut your losses now and move onto something else or point these resources towards other channels that really help you meet your goals.

Client advocate, digital strategist, and thought leader Hollis Thomases, founder of Web Ad.vantage, helps companies navigate the complexity of the ever-changing digital marketing landscape and develop digital strategies. @hollisthomases

Courtesy of Inc. Magazine

Facebook Sponsored Posts: Do They Work?

Can Facebook's sponsored stories help your marketing efforts? Maybe, but it's complicated.

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Facebook is working for advertisers, according to an Advertising Age survey.
Out of 701 marketers and media execs polled, 85 percent said that they use Facebook as a marketing tactic. Just under 30 percent had tried using sponsored stories. Of them, 15 percent were very satisfied with the results, 65 percent somewhat satisfied, 15 percent, somewhat dissatisfied, and 6 percent, very dissatisfied.

Many businesses are trying to understand if, and how, sponsored posts can work for them on Facebook. Instead of focusing on "marketers and media execs," which could mean many agencies, I put a PR query out to thousands of companies and heard from dozens. This isn't a statistical study, but it did result in anecdotal evidence that helps explain how entrepreneurs are using sponsored stories and the results they're getting: good, bad, and indifferent.

Racking Up the Likes
A number of companies said that their sponsored stories were extremely successful. The PR firm for Reverb.com, a site for buying and selling used guitars, said that the company had used the format to quickly gain more than 30,000 likes on its Facebook page with only a "very modest investment." Other companies had similar stories of heavily increasing the number of Facebook likes, post shares, or other forms of engagement.

The problem is that few of these companies had a concrete way of determining the value of these likes. How did they ultimately translate into sales, improved conversion rates, or some other metric that would indicate a tangible benefit to the business? Without such a correlation, a company is left with what is called in rhetoric "begging the question" in which you assume a premise and then use conclusions to try and prove the premise. In this case, the premise is that using Facebook can improve marketing. The conclusion is that sponsored stories improve marketing because they get more attention in Facebook.

Some, like Jayme Pretzloff, online marketing director for Wixon Jewelers in Minneapolis, see benefits outside of direct sales, "including awareness, share of voice and many other indirect benefits including SEO ranking and reputation management." All of these are good points, though again, difficult to quantify, which makes it hard to know whether the amount you spend on a Facebook sponsored story campaign is worthwhile.

How Valuable Are Likes?
Green River Fishing Adventures near Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, has seen an "increase in Web contact forms citing social media or Facebook as the lead source," according to Matthew Clive of the company's sales department. These individuals often converted to sales. In fact, there has been an increase in prospects coming to the company initially coming from Facebook.

But other companies and marketing firms have had a different experience. As Meagan Feeser, director of PR and communications at York, Pennsylvania-based Gavin Advertising says:

We've seen a lot of success with Facebook ads and sponsored stories when the desired outcome is specifically to grow likes on a brand's Facebook page. If the desired action takes place off of Facebook... not so much.

Digital marketing agency Koozai in London compared click-through rates for Facebook ads and for sponsored stories. The former was 0.017 percent and the latter, 0.169 percent, a big relative change.

Some companies find no benefit at all. Los Angeles-based Daily Threads, which makes premium cotton clothing for kids, "tried every single ad unit Facebook offers," according to consultant Erika Penzer Kerekes:

I have tried Sponsored Stories a dozen times and they have never converted for us. I always include them, and then I always end up pausing them after a few days because they're getting zero results. I'm puzzled by this as I know lots of other businesses have used them very successfully.

Chuck Cohn, founder and CEO of Varsity Tutors, a private academic tutoring and test prep provider, found that the demographics his marketing team chose would significantly change the cost per lead and, ultimately, ROI:

We've found that when we target U.S. only or--more specifically--target people living in a city like NYC, the outcome is incredibly few Likes/Comments/Shares per dollar. The cost per interaction is extremely high, but each interaction is quite valuable. If you don't target a country, then Facebook chooses to display your ads to people in Bangladesh or similarly impoverished countries.

In short, it is impossible to know in advance if Facebook sponsored stories will work for your business or not. And now, of course, results may change with Facebook's redesigned News Feed. You will need to develop metrics to understand the value of what you get beyond simply obtaining likes for your Facebook page, and you'll need to pay close attention to the demographics of any campaign to be sure you're getting through to people who can actually matter to your business. 

Erik Sherman's work has appeared in such publications as The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times Magazine, and Fortune. He also blogs for CBS MoneyWatch. @ErikSherman

Article courtesy of Inc. Magazine

You Can Market to Men on Pinterest, Too

Healthy recipes, cleaning tips, cute clothes and even cuter cats are just a few of the more traditionally feminine concepts that come to mind when Pinterest is mentioned. But it seems like very few brands know that there's a veritable treasure trove for marketing to men on Pinterest. With typically masculine brands like the NHL and the US Army using the platform, it's easy to see that Pinterest can be pretty manly too, dude.

Demographic Shift

At the beginning of 2012, women made up 80% of the audience on Pinterest. A little over a year later, Brandignity is reporting that March 2013 saw the male audience grow from 20% to 28%. While women may still outnumber men on Pinterest, it's a sign that guys are feeling more comfortable with the platform. that, and they might just want to see what their wives and girlfriends are pinning to their "For the Boyfriend" boards.

Man-Brands on Pinterest
NHL
It may be surprising to some that one of the bigger brands using Pinterest is the National Hockey League, with over 1.3 million followers. The NHL does a great job engaging fans on Pinterest with monthly hashtags (March is #HockeyLuck month, by the way) that provide followers the chance to have their photo pinned each month. With the fanaticism surrounding most sports teams, Pinterest is a great - and manly! - way for teams to interact with fans.



Men's Health Magazine
Men's Health is another "manly" brand that is doing amazingly well on Pinterest. Their 17,000 followers get access to content on health tips, sexy ladies, great new men's fashion and much more. They pin often and keep a good mix of content to keep the page from becoming stale.



Karmaloop
Although Karmaloop sells both men and women's clothing, they saw an increase in their male following from their PinMail by PinLeague campaign in Q4 of 2012. By emailing only men's content to men, it helped Karmaloop build their male audience on Pinterest. 



The United States Army
One of the most traditionally "manly" organizations in American, The United States Army, is having great success with Pinterest as well. With powerful pictures of war and of tearful home comings, the Army is engaging both the masculine and feminine sides of Pinterest.



While there are various "Pinterest for Men" sites popping up (such as the wonderfully titled Manteresting), there's really no substitute for the original Pinterest. For brands marketing to men or women, adorable cats or majestic dogs, Pinterest can help you get your message to the right audience.

Courtesy of Social Media Today

Getting Indexed by Google Using Only PPC: It Could Happen to You

A lot of people write about the difference between SEO and PPC, and how pay per click advertising can come in to strategically boost traffic. When a previous SEO’s efforts have run amok because of shady tactics, PPC can keep a business running while Penguin and Panda recovery efforts are advanced. Nonetheless, the two strategies are often framed in opposition, as if PPC vs. SEO were a championship fight with an ultimate winner.

Hybrid Strategy
Metrics driven agencies have long realized that the ideal client is knowledgeable about the importance of both SEO and PPC. Clients who are open to trying a hybrid strategy to build traffic over time can often move faster than their competitors on the web. But linking PPC and SEO together can also create great things on the agency’s side as well. Recently I have been talking a lot about breaking down silos, and fully integrating teamwork across departments. Having your PPC team do keyword research and build natural language terms without having your SEO team gain from that knowledge is simply a waste of time.

Beyond the no-brainer combination of the two channels, there is a more complex relationship between PPC and SEO, one that Google is reluctant to confirm or deny. There is supposedly no connection between a paid AdWords placement and Google’s organic rankings—admitting otherwise would be like saying the game of search engine results is rigged. However, I recently experienced a case where it appears that there is a deeper synergy.

The Client
A travel industry client created a fully-fledged booking site that was part of a larger portfolio of brands. Though other sites in the portfolio were indexed and had historically performed well in organic search, this particular brand had not been launched. It hadn’t been announced to the public in any way. There were no inbound links or sitemap, though crawling was allowed in robots.txt. I launched PPC campaigns to a specific targeted audience in mid-August, which continued throughout the fall. PPC remained the only promotion of the site, with no efforts made to announce or publicize the brand. The booking site existed as a PPC microsite as the parent company focused most of their attention on other brands.

Here’s where it gets interesting.

On October 23, Google crawled the site, indexing 135 pages.  Thereafter the site began ranking for brand terms, as well as other relevant competitive terms. The only source of traffic at that point was PPC, and direct returning visitors.



I saw the organic traffic begin and thought little of it. Someone must have linked to the site, submitted a sitemap, or shared it on social somewhere—but no. After a lot of digging, I found only a single, no-followed link to the site which was an image credit from a low credibility, low traffic blog.

The only other information relating to the brand terms or site URL that was indexed were on scraper sites like SpyFu which aggregated PPC campaign data but did not link back. So while the full URL was mentioned in the text on the page, there was no actual link returning to the site. It could be that the booking site was crawled after citations scraped from PPC ads appeared on indexed sites, but it is impossible to tell if that is the case.

In the months that followed, organic search traffic increased, as visitors returning to complete bookings started clicking on organic results for brand terms. Competitive non-brand search terms and long-tail keywords also gained impressions and rose in placement, still with no external links. The only measure of relevancy Google could glean other than AdWords-driven Google Analytics data was contextual references.

Top 3 Takeaways

• If you are driving traffic to a PPC landing page, make sure it is tagged for noindex, nofollow or there remains a possibility that it will become indexed. This is doubly true if your landing pages are on an indexed domain with non-PPC content which could automatically add your pages to a sitemap.

• This case could be a serious indication that the importance of citations is on the rise. Even if PPC was not the factor that caused the crawl, the citations from over 20 AdWords competitive keyword research sites were indexed.

• If you are launching a new site and want to gain traction fast, it may be advantageous to run PPC to accelerate the process, to compliment SEO as well as the increased visits.

Article courtesy of Search Engine Journal

3 Tips to Attract and Retain Mobile Consumers

Every day mobile devices improve the way we shop online. As the market grows — 45% of American adults own smartphones — it becomes even more important for businesses to adapt to mobile payments.


Today's businesses need strategies that not only attract mobile consumers, but also retain them, which can be infinitely more profitable. In fact, gaining a new customer is six times more costly than retaining one, a figure which should highlight the importance of loyalty programs. But that isn't your first priority if your business is part of the surprising 55% of American small businesses that don't accept credit card payments. That's major revenue loss!

Check out the graphic below, researched and created by Merchant Warehouse, for more information on how your business can embrace the mobile revolution and gain connected customers.

Article courtesy of Mashable

Social Media Marketing + Email Marketing = Success

So many social networking sites have been emerging here and there pushing people to join in. Ultimately, these social media are used not only to share personal photos, albums, videos and statuses but also used as a way of marketing. Of course, accessing profiles of possible customers is a good entrance to lead them to sales conversion. In this light, you might think that email marketing may die a slow death through the years. But that’s not true. In fact, the best path now to success is to combine both email marketing and social media marketing. Why and how? Read on.

What Difference Would the Combo Make?
Marketing experts are saying that the ability to capture an audience by email is not far from doing the same by social media marketing campaigns. Online users access their inboxes every day and so do they do social media accounts. As well, they check on the latest feeds from their friends through social media and share the latest happenings in their life, while they check messages in mailboxes as these are treated and counted as more personal and important in targeting messages effectively.

By this, can you see the power of integrating the two? If you are a marketer and utilize social networks and emails, you can include promotional messages to both in different timing. Basically, you would need to maximize the use of these two platforms to reach out to a wider audience. This will help you interact better with more people and improve relationships with them. Engaging with them through social media can make them subscriber to your mail list and receive exclusive promotions and offers from your business. The use of email, on the other hand, would make them follow you in social networks and reach out to a larger circle once you also get to capture the interest of their friends.

How to Combine Social Media Marketing and Email Marketing to Help Your Site's SEO

Now that you are aware of the benefits, this part discusses steps on how you can take action in pursing the combination of social sharing and email marketing:

1. Insert Social Icons in Email Footers
You know the part where you close your message and write your digital signature in emails? That’s where it’s best to put the social buttons that link up to your blog and social networking sites. You can even include a brief message to motivate and ask your email readers to join your social networks.

2. Provide Incentives to Your Readers, Fans and Followers
As part of their enlistment to your social media account and email subscription, providing them incentives will make them appreciate their membership more. They are not only added members of your online community but consider them already as potential clients of your company. See them as endorsers of your brand who have the ability to extend and spread your message to many others on the web. Make them see what’s in it for them if they join in.

3. Cross Promote
After accomplishing steps 1 and 2, the next important thing to do is to cross promote. You already have a growing network of followers in social media and a group of subscribers who signed up for your email newsletters, so you have to retain these people by leveraging on individual platform to enhance your promotions and stay dominant. So when people change their email address, they can still receive updates from your social media channels and decide to opt in again using their new one. As well, they can check updates—through email—when their company or office firewall prohibits them to access social media during work hours.

Tips for Keeps:
With the use of social media as a brand engagement tool and emailing as a direct sales tool, you can level up your marketing competently. The more subscribers and followers you have in either or both email and social media, the better and the larger chances you have in getting profits long-term. It is also wise to analyze metrics such as the number and trends of click-through and the statistics on clicks and conversions. When you are armed with these data, it would be easier to improve your marketing efforts and gain new followers for stronger support.

Courtesy of Social Media Today

#Pinterest Is a Business Necessity

Is Pinterest the most sales actionable social network out there? This very question came to me as I came across a recent interview with Pinterest CEO Ben Silbermann in MIT Technology Review. When asked the question oft-dreaded by many a techrepreneur, namely, “when do you plan on making money,” the first sentence of Silbermann’s reply struck me as instructive: “The whole reason Pinterest exists is to help people discover the things that they love and then go take action on them, and a lot of the things they take action on are tied to commercial intent.” While this snippet (the rest of his reply was similarly tangential to the question asked) sounds a bit like an opaque dodge, for business’ and marketers, it should be a clarion call to action.

 
Affinity, Intent, Proximity, Action
Without getting too opaque myself, I believe that affinity informs intent. In the commercial realm, if I like a certain someone (brand) or something (product or service), I am more likely to feel a connection, and in turn take a commercial (read consumer)-oriented action, than if I am indifferent to or negatively-disposed toward that someone or something.

Moreover, proximity helps transform intent into action. If I am craving a hoagie and there is a deli around the corner (proximate to me), I will probably stop in and purchase a hoagie; if however, the nearest hoagie shop is 10 miles away, odds are I will end up eating something else.

If, therefore, affinity drives intent and proximity drives action, the name of the game for businesses great and small is to be likeable and accessible to ones target audience.

Pinterest is Sales-Actionable
That’s where Pinterest comes in. I honestly believe that every business- regardless of size or market orientation- should be on Pinterest. Why? Because the site’s very structure makes it the most sales-actionable social media platform around. The sole focus of Pinterest is to allow users to visually express (pin) the things they enjoy and then share them with others of like inclination. As such, the site is rife with pools of “affinity,” each one full of latent intent. Brands showcasing products and services on Pinterest are creating ready proximity to these pools, the missing ingredient needed to stimulate consumer action.

Setting philosophy aside, here are some hard numbers in support my contention that Pinterest is the most sales-actionable social network out there. Many of these stats were taken from econsultancy’s recent eBook, “Pinterest for Business: A Best Practice Guide.”

Favorable User Demographics

• Pinterest has more than 20 million monthly active users spending on average over 90 minutes on the site each month; there are 12 million users in the US alone.
• Pinterest is now the 3^rd highest-trafficked social media site in US.
• 80% of Pinterest users are women; 50% of all Pinterest users have children. Source: Search Engine Journal

Pinterest Users are Especially Social

• Pinterest Pins with likes get 36% more Re-pins than those without. Source: Shopify
• Over 80% of Pins are Re-pins. Source: Media Bistro
• The average user has 35 boards and 2,500 Re-pins. Source: Repinly 

Pinterest Users are Brand-Focused

• 43% of Pinterest members agree that they use Pinterest to “associate with retailers or brands with which I identify”, compared to just 24% of Facebook users who agree to the same use with Facebook. Source: Bizrate Insights

• Also in the Bizrate report, 70% of users say they are on Pinterest to get inspiration on what to buy. By contrast, only 17% use Facebook for the same.

Pinterest Users are Sales-Ready

• 69% of online consumers who visit Pinterest have found an item they’ve purchased or wanted to purchase. This is compared with only 40% of online consumers who visit Facebook. Source: Bizrate Insights
• Research from Rich Relevence shows the average sale resulting from a Pinterest user following an image back to its source and then buying the item is $180, compared with $80 for Facebook users and $70 for Twitter users. Source: FastCoDesign
• Pinterest referrals spend 70% more than visitors referred from non-social sites. Source: Search Engine Journal

Marketing Takeaway
I think every business should have a presence on Pinterest. This is especially true for companies with an e-commerce function, given that images appearing on a company’s boards can be linked to external URLs (for example, if a user clicks on an image, he or she can be brought to the company’s ecommerce site checkout page). Businesses selling directly to consumers (B2C) also should be on Pinterest, using the power of interactive visual imagery to foster brand affinity and increase sales conversion.

The utility of Pinterest for businesses selling to other businesses (B2B), though, is less clear. Frankly, I’ve heard many social media managers and digital marketers say it’s a waste of time. I disagree with this notion, as my thoughts about consumer behavior outlined above (affinity leading to intent, and proximity to action) attest.

This is why. Employees, executives, and owners of every B2B company on the planet have two things in common: they are human (hopefully), and they are consumers.

As human consumers, B2B-ers act just like the rest of us, perusing social networks such as Pinterest, guided by interest and affinity. If they have any love of their job or profession (and hopefully they do), these B2B-ers will likely be drawn to Pinboards, Pins, and Repins which are in some way related to their trade. Finding something of interest (affinity/proximity), it’s not a terrible leap of logic to assume that they'll take some form of action, such as Repin a blog or check out the brand’s website (intent/action). This kind of convergence is a hallmark of the digital age.

So what’s the bottom line? Every business should be on Pinterest, period.

Courtesy of Social Media Today

5 Ways to Increase Your Twitter Followers

With more than 200 million active users, Twitter is still one of the fastest growing social media networks along with LinkedIn and Pinterest.  With this many users, it may seem inevitable that once you sign up, followers will flock to follow your account, especially those familiar with your brand.  Gaining Twitter followers is not quite that simple.  Here are five ways to help your brand gain Twitter followers and brand ambassadors:

Tweet and Tweet Often

Tweeting less than once a week is not going to put you on the fore front of news streams  In fact, tweeting less than once a week is no recommended.  Tweet as often as you can with relevant, interesting content.

Tweet Great Content

You have put your heart and soul into your business and want to share it with the world through social media.   Tweeting great content will drive people to follow and interact with your brand.  Where do you find this great content?  Here are a few ways:

-Content Creation: Content is still king and writing and maintaining a blog on your website can provide great content for your Twitter followers, which in turn, will get them looking at your website.

-HootSuite Streams:  Pick two or three topics that represent what your business is about and topics you believe your followers will be interested in.  Create a stream (or streams) in HootSuite that will collect tweets with the keywords of your choice.  This can help sort through some of the Twitter clutter, and provide you with great content to share with your followers.

-Google Alerts:  Pick two or three topics like you did in HootSuite and set up Google Alerts to give you content from all around the web.  This can be customized to alert you once a day or in real time.  Depending on the topic, you may want real time results to create buzz around a particular topic.

Interact!

Providing great content will get your followers tweeting and retweeting what you are sending out to them.  Interact with those who are sharing your content. Thank them for sharing and retweeting your content and strike up conversations with people you follow for discussions and debates on topics relevant to your business and followers.

Follow Others in Your Industry

Twitter has provided its users with a “Discover” tab that takes information you have provided in your profile and information you tweet about and gives you who to follow recommendations.  Following people in your industry will get you tons of great content to share with your followers, ways to interact with others interested in the same topics, and examples of tweets that work.

Make Your Profile Stand Out

Recently, Twitter has changed the aesthetics of the Twitter profile.  Now, in addition to a basic profile picture and background, your Twitter profile can also have a header picture that is 1252×626.  Use this to its full potential to represent what your brand is all about.  Make sure your bio tells the most about your company and that your profile picture is your logo or a photo that best represents your brand as a whole.
Using these 5 steps, your brand will be headed towards a socially interactive and successful future on Twitter!

Courtesy of Social Media Today

Optimize for Facebook's Graph Search

Bring your business to the front of the pack in Facebook Graph Search using a few optimization techniques.

AFP/Getty Images

 

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The latest Facebook tool, Graph Search, promises to help users find people who share the same interests, explore their social worlds through photos, and discover music, restaurants, and more. Because Facebook is perhaps the largest public-use big data application, Graph Search has the potential to be incredibly informative. But, like most big data applications, its practical use seems to deliver more value to businesses rather than the individual user. Here are a few ways to use Graph Search to empower your business.

Optimize Your Business for Graph Search

Just like optimizing for web search, there are a number of ways that businesses can optimize their Facebook profiles to increase Graph Search visibility. Here are a few ways to optimize your Facebook Page for Graph Search:

1. Select Business Categories

Don't miss out on appearing in business categories. This will add context to your business and help your organization appear in categorical searches. Select appropriate business categories and up to three sub-categories.

2. Claim Your Place Page

Claiming your Place page will encourage check-ins, which improve user engagement.

3. Complete Your Page Profile

No more excuses for not completing your Page profile! Make sure to use keywords and relevant content in your About section.

4. Share Great Content

This is more important than ever, considering that modern search algorithms only deliver fresh and engaging content.

Practical Uses Today: Persona Modeling

How are businesses using the power of big data behind the Facebook Graph Search today? To find out, I tapped the intelligence of a fellow search and social media expert, Muhammad Yasin of HCC Medical Insurance Services. He uses Graph Search for modeling marketing personas on the world's largest social network.

Yasin starts this process by searching for individuals with characteristics found in the highest-value customers, which can be plugged directly into the Graph Search interface. Then, he uses the extended search feature to show a list of more Pages users Like. After looking beyond the first couple pages of extremely general page likes (like Coca-Cola and Justin Bieber), Yasin can gain extremely interesting insights about his customer base. Brands will learn that all of this information comes at the price of a little bit of smart work, but it's much less costly than focus group research! The insights you can get from Graph Search can be used in future marketing campaigns or simply to add knowledge about your most valuable customer base.

The potential of the largest public-facing big data application hasn't been realized yet. Most of its value now seems to be centered around marketing, which falls in line with all of the traditional channels of monetization for Facebook. Will users adopt Graph Search as a daily-use search tool? Will Graph Search pose a real threat to traditional web search engines? We'll know more once Graph Search is out of beta and released to the entire Facebook community.

Courtesy of Inc. Magazine - http://www.inc.com/aaron-aders/optimize-for-facebooks-graph-search.html?nav=river

How Can Your Business Benefit From Pinterest’s New Analytics Tool?

Last week Pinterest finally launched what many business users on the image-sharing network have been crying out for – its brand new web analytics.



Why all the excitement? Well up until now, Pinterest users have found it difficult to gain meaningful insights into how their audience was engaging with their content.

Whilst you could check new followers, likes, repins and comments via the activity feed, unless you were using third-party solutions like the excellent Curalate, much of the tracking available within Pinterest involved guesswork and assumptions.

Although they’re nowhere near the sophistication of Facebook Insights, Pinterest’s analytics are definitely a step in the right direction for bloggers, businesses and organizations wanting to find out what people are pinning from their websites.

Let’s take a look at how you can make this new tool work for you. But before you rush in, there are a couple of steps you need to take to gain access to the analytics area.

Get Your Page Ready For Pinterest Analytics

So let’s get started.

#1 Verify Your Page

The first step in this 2-part process is to verify your Pinterest account.
To find out if your page is already verified, take a look at the About section.
Is there a bold red check mark next to your website? If there is then your page is verified and you can move on to step #2.

But if your URL is still hidden behind the globe icon or if you’ve resisted verifying your Pinterest page, then now is a good time to take the plunge.

Besides making the URL more visible to potential followers, verification is an essential first step in order to access Pinterest’s new analytics. So be sure to do this.

If you run into any difficulties, for example if your site is on Blogger, WordPress.com or on a sub-domain, then you can email Pinterest for help.

#2 Activate Pinterest’s New Look

New look, what new look?

In January this year and without much fanfare, Pinterest began testing out a new look. Its aim is to increase user engagement and discovery by making the navigation simpler and faster. The pins are bigger and there’s also a visually more attractive background.

But since these changes are quite subtle, you may not even notice the difference.

The key point is that you must activate the new look if you want to access Pinterest’s analytics.

To do this, click on the profile menu located to the far right of your page. Scroll down to Switch To The New Look.

You will then be taken to a second screen where you just need hit Okay.

If for some reason you don’t see this option then follow Pinterest’s instructions on what to do next.

Don’t like the new look? While you do need it to view your analytics you’re not stuck with it. Pinterest is currently allowing users to switch back to the old look until it rolls it out permanently.
On the next screen, you’ll be able to experience the new look in action. Your pins will suddenly appear bigger and clearer. The profile menu is also different with a new Analytics tab and the option to Switch To The Old Look.

Click on the Analytics option, and you will be taken through to the site metrics page.

Image Source: Pinterest

How To Use The Analytics Dashboard

The site metrics page is made up of 4 graphs that measure pins, repins, impressions and clicks.

Pinterest has created this excellent, step-by-step video that shows you how to make the most of the web analytics page.

I recommend watching it to quickly familiarize yourself with the dashboard.

Click here to view the Pinterest analytics video.

It’s worth noting that the analytics currently only provide information about your own content and only for sites that are verified.

Therefore, if you are only repinning other people’s content you are not maximizing the full potential of Pinterest and there will be very little data to see.

Equally, the data only goes back as far as November 2012 when site verification was introduced or from the date you verify your site.

It’s therefore essential that you get your site verified sooner rather than later.

Key Takeaways

Although the information is limited, the insights can still be very useful especially if you’ve ever asked yourself the following questions:

#1 Who is pinning my content?

Do you want to know who your content is resonating with or how many people are actually pinning from your website? Pinterest’s analytics can help you see at a glance;

• how many unique users have pinned your content across various date ranges
• the number of repins, impressions (how many people have seen your pins) and clicks (the number of actual visits) to your site.

#2 Which content is being pinned right now?

The dashboard’s “most recent” tab lets you track the content that is being pinned from your website in real-time. You can go as broad as 30 days or zoom in and focus on a single day.

By changing the date ranges you can monitor any peaks and troughs in the pinning activity, and analyze which days, weeks or periods generated the best reaction from your audience. This can be extremely useful for businesses that experience seasonal fluctuations or bloggers who want to track when their posts are being picked up and shared on Pinterest.

#3 What’s my most popular content?

Do you want to discover which of your pins has gone viral? Have you noticed a sudden spike in repins but don’t know why?

By clicking on the “most repinned” tab you can instantly see which content in a given timeframe is resonating most with your audience, and create “more of the same” types of pins for your boards.

Businesses and brands are better placed to curate their content more effectively and determine the best approach to take when engaging consumers.

Another useful feature is the ability to export the data in a CSV file and download it to your computer.

This enables pinners to use it for further analysis, integrate it into other tools and share it with team members and stakeholders.

The downside is that only the last 100 pins and repins are picked up.

What’s Missing From Pinterest’s Web Analytics?

Pinterest has indicated that it will be introducing more business-oriented tools so their analytics are bound to change in the near future, if the speed of recent rollouts is anything to go by. It’s clear that monetization is on the horizon.

On a positive note, the new web analytics are free and can remove the guesswork from your Pinterest marketing. They can reveal through cold hard data what is working well, what isn’t and what you need to focus on in your marketing efforts.

That said, I do think it is a shame that more granular “Facebook-style” information couldn’t have been provided in this initial offering.

There is currently nothing in the way of:

• Socio-demographic data
• Competitor analysis
• Country and location information
• Mobile phone usage
• Individual board analysis

This is the kind of pertinent information that could really benefit users, which is why my overall impression of Pinterest’s web analytics is that they’re rather basic and pay lip service to the businesses it is anxious to woo. They’re certainly nothing that its third-party analytics providers should lose sleep over.

What do you think?

Have you tried out the new analytics? What features would you have liked to have seen included?

Pinterest image by Jurgen Appelo

Courtesy of Business2Community.com  Read more at http://www.business2community.com/pinterest/how-can-your-business-benefit-from-pinterests-new-analytics-tool-0438053#rcB1e16DYbE0SPuD.99

Pinterest Social Media Marketing: 40 Ideas to Get You Started

Are you interested in using Pinterest as a part of your social media marketing strategy? Fifteen percent of Internet users are on Pinterest, making it almost as popular as Twitter, with 16% of internet users. The visually driven social network is known for driving referral traffic. As of September 2012, it was the fourth largest traffic driver worldwide. Before you start pinning, we recommend evaluating what your Pinterest strategy goals are. Once you know where you’re going, it’s time to start pinning. This is not the time to reach a dead-end. You’ve decided your goals and you’re ready for action. Here are some ideas to fuel your Pinterest blast off. Ready, set, pin!

  Your People

1. Your employees

2. Your clients

3. Your clients’ brands

4. Your clients’ products or service

5. Videos introducing your employees

What You Do

6. Your products

7. Your products in action

8. Your work

9. Your work process (think stages or before and afters)

10. Videos of your product or service in action

11. A photo from a positive review of your product or service

12. Graphics from your latest blog post

13. News articles featuring your product or service

14. How-to videos for your product

15. Interesting graphs from your sales presentations or marketing materials

16. Helpful diagrams and images from your sales presentations or marketing materials

17. Anything valuable in image form from sales presentations or marketing material

Your Industry

18. Industry events

19. A visualization of the current state of the industry

20. Interesting statistics relevant to your industry (in a graphic format)

21. A blog post from an expert in your industry

22. Videos explaining industry trends

23. Videos of the latest industry news

24. Videos of the latest industry events

Company Culture

25. Your workplace

26. The office summer party

27. The office Christmas party

28. Office birthday celebrations

29. Any office celebration or amusing happening

30. The office pet (think Ziggy)

31. What inspires you in the office (art or other pieces of motivation)

32. A video tour of your office

Resources

33. A helpful checklist

34. Helpful infographics

35. Books you are currently reading

36. Books you plan on reading

37. Tools you use that are helpful in doing your job

38. Others' work you admire

39. Powerful quotes from thought leaders

40. A podcast from an industry expert

What do you think are the most powerful images for B2B marketers to share on Pinterest?  

 Courtesy of Social Media Today - http://socialmediatoday.com/parkerwhite/1304676/b2b-pinterest-social-media-marketing-40-ideas-get-you-started