Social Media
5 Great Ways to Use Pinterest
Originally published at Social Web Daily
What do sculptors, jet setters, philosophers, foodies, and collectors have in common?
They can all make great use of Pinterest, the pinboard-channeling new social network. With a stream-lined interface, and plenty of opportunity to engage with and get inspiration from other Pinterest users, there are an endless number of creative ways to use the new site.
Here are five of our favorites:
1. Collector’s Showcase
Hobbyists and special-interest enthusiasts can put Pinterest to good use by uploading pictures from your personal collection, or collecting images from around the web. Whether you collect salt and pepper shakers, stamps, or just love the look of cupcakes, you can proudly display your special interests and hobbies using Pinterest.
2. Sage Scrapbook
If only we had a pen for every time someone said something insightful. Thankfully, Pinterest allows you to keep all those sage words of advice in one place. Great for philosophers, writers, or anyone who loves meditating on a thought-provoking quote, Pinterest is an ideal platform for storing inspiring quotes and categorizing them for an effortless pick-me-up anytime.
3. Digital Cookbook
Now we’re not sure about you, but our cookbooks are dog-eared, stained with pasta sauce and threatening to give at the seams. We’ve got recipes tucked away on notecards hiding among its pages only to disappear right when we need them (of course!). Finally, Pinterest lets us store all those recipes—and future dishes we find around the web—all in one easy-to-maneuver place. It’s a great spot to store grocery store lists, and entertaining tips as well.
4. Artist’s Muse
Don’t wait for the muse to strike—be proactive and fashion a Pinterest board to channel creativity. Pin your favorite art pieces, colors, lyrics, and photos to create a digital inspiration board. It might be exactly what you need to get that paintbrush moving.
5. Travel Itinerary
Let Pinterest help you plan your next trip. Whether you want to go to Bali, San Diego, or the Arctic, Pinterest can help you keep all of your travel dreams in one spot. Think of it as a beautiful digital bucket list of all the places you hope to one day go. You can pin articles about great restaurants, sights, and killer hotels. Plus, you can take pictures of your jaunts and pin ‘em up post trip.
How do you use Pinterest? Let us know in the comments below!
Pinterest Is Perfect For Your Dear Santa Letter
Social image bookmarking site Pinterest is very hot right now, even though the site is still invite only. If you have not tested it out, Pinterest is simply a place to save and share images from around the web. You “pin” images to a “board” and anyone that follows you or that board sees it.
Even better, all images on Pinterest are links to whereever you found them, by default. So if you want to buy that cool pair of shoes your friend pinned, click through. If you want to see more info on an inspirational poster or what beach your friend took a photo of, click through.
When you create simple, yet limiting constructs as social media platforms, innovation will follow. Twitter has proven this, Instagram is on the same path, and the same applies to Pinterest.
When I asked the lovely Nicole D’Alonzo what she wanted for Christmas, she began to put together a list for me. But seeing as we both work in social media, she knew there had to be a social tool out there that was perfect for the task.
And Pinterest was a brilliant solution. You can browse all the potential gifts as images on one page, you can comment and like, as can Nicole or whoever created the list, and you can click through to get more info or buy the item.
Nordstrom is on Pinterest and in the holiday sprit with their Nordstrom Santa board. Bergdorf has a pretty actionable set of holiday gift boards including this “Gifts for Him” board that I have to say is pretty awesome. And plenty of other brands and people are finding cool and innovative uses for Pinterest, like a Dream Destinations board of places you want to visit or Whole Foods’ recycling board showing examples of people reusing everyday products.
Are you using Pinterest?
Stop Wasting Time Reading ABOUT Social Media
Yes, I realize the irony of my title. Bear with me.
We definitely have an obsession with the pop culture of social media. It is just so much smiling-fun to read about, right?
If you are a social media professional, then we both know how precious your time is and how you do not have time to be on Twitter all day reading most of the crap all of us are guilty of putting out there.
Let’s take a look at some of the headlines that have been popular this week on Twitter. Some of these might sound like they are relevant to social media and your business:
- Why Groupon Is Poised For Collapse [Techcrunch]
- 10 Must-Follow Fake Twitter Celebs [Mashable]
- Facebook Expected To File For $100 Billion IPO This Year [Business Insider]
- Facebook Is Winning Silicon Valley’s Talent War [Fast Company]
Now there is nothing wrong with any of these websites or these specific articles. What gets us all in trouble is going on Twitter and Facebook looking to learn something and winding up reading ABOUT social media rather than LEARNING about social media.
The two rarely collide. And none of the above articles will teach you anything that can help your business today.
To be successful in using social media for your business, you do not have to know everything about the ecosystem. You do not need to know about viral videos or Twitter celebrities or the latest, greatest iPhone app.
If your goal is to waste a little time, build some relationships, and relax while watching the latest cat youtube videos, go for it. We all deserve that downtime.
But if you are consuming this type of content in the name of “learning social media,” I can now confirm for you, there is little actual learning happening on Twitter and Facebook, and you need to refocus your efforts.
This conversation is the sole reason I started the Social Fresh conferences 2 years ago. I was going to a ton of conferences for bloggers or for the internet or for tech enthusiasts. And no one was talking about what a business should be doing.
If you are looking to LEARN about social media, I recommend asking the question: “Is this teaching something I can implement today?”
At Social Fresh, we are creating an entire community based around a higher level of social media training for marketers. Based around training people can turn around and use right away. From THE industry experts.
We are all learning a little more about social media each day through Tweets and Facebook updates and Youtube videos. And spending time there is not the end of the world.
But it is always important to stop and ask ourselves how much of all this content is actually helping us with our business?
My Facebook Traffic Confuses Me
Last month we launched InvestInSocial.com, a social media company directory as the latest site in the Social Fresh family. As we tweak the site’s featured and get ready to gear up some of our marketing efforts, the site has slowly grown traffic organically.
We launched with a nice traffic spike and then traffic fell off about 50% when the buzz subsided. This makes sense. No disappointment here. The site got a nice spike in traffic when we launched and this month is on track to do even more traffic than last month, with a more steady and growing traffic.
This is what I do not get. According to our WordPress.com Stats plugin, which uses Google analytics data, Facebook is one of our top 10 and most consistent sources of traffic. Close to 3,000 in the last 30 days.
I had a few thoughts as to why. We have about 200 likes for the main URL and scattered throughout the site, anyone can like any of the 350+ companies on the site, though most only have 0-2 likes. These are not big numbers, but I have noticed some of these pages showing up in Facebook search for some of these companies.
So my hypothesis is maybe that Facebook search was the source for the traffic. Or secondarily, people were sharing InvestInSocial.com with friends on Facebook. While I know that happens some, I did not think it would result in consistent traffic like this.
So next I went to Google analytics to see if I could dig up even more data on the source of this Facebook traffic. But I found something that is still confusing me. I am not an analytics ninja in any way, but I tend to be able to find insight in Google analytics when I am looking for it.
When I pulled up our referral traffic for the same 30 day period, Google said our traffic from Facebook was only 56.
Quite a large difference. And I really have no idea what the issue is. Our direct traffic is very high as well, so maybe that is the issue? Who knows. I am writing this post to see if anyone out there smarter than me has suggestions.
Moreover, I still have no idea where our Facebook.com traffic is coming from. Hopefully we figure it out and will have lessons to report to you soon.
Media relations is not social. Or is it?
A big piece of modern public relations is maintaining relationships with members of the media. Journalists, broadcasters, producers, editors, etc.
These relationships are the inside track that allows a PR firm to get a story to the front of the line for consideration. As opposed to waiting or hoping that word of mouth will carry a company or celebrity’s news through the labrinth of today’s news avalanche.
And the reverse is true. These relationships allow media outlets a trusted bullpen of sources of different topics. If they need experts or relevant comment on different sources, part of the playbook is to reach out to public relations professional for these sources.
Ok, enough of the preface. At this point I have basically described a professional networking custom that exist in many industries. In PR and media and journalism though, the result is much more public facing.
As PR transitions to include blogger outreach and beyond bloggers, new media outreach (Youtube stars, Twitter celebrities, etc), the rules are remarkably similar in many ways.
- Find relevant media professionals that can help your client
- Find relevant media professionals that you can help (Bonus if 1 & 2 are the same)
- Build a mutually beneficial relationship
- Nurture relationship
That word relationship is of course what we talk about a lot in social media. It is what we are talking about (or the lack of) when we complain about spam, or bad PR pitches, or brands that do not talk to us online.
In media relations, the behind the scenes social relationships are essential. Relationships are of course at the heart of most of the things we do in life. Giving value. Getting value. Nurturing the delicate tension between the two.
Media relations and new media relations can differ in scale I suppose. Today, some of the bloggers and Twitter users and forum admins we reach out to as marketers have communities that are quite small.
Of course, sometimes these are more relevant or niche than any print or broadcast audience traditional media relations could have ever hoped for. And sometimes, these communities are not so small.
The real difference is only eco-stystem. Learning the ins and outs of how to approach journalists and producers and editors is the learning curve. The skill set, the ability to build useful relationships, is the same. From public relations to social media, those that succeed for their clients in outreach are those that do well at building relationships.
