Social Media

Pinterest Launches Business Pages to Attract More Brands

Posted on November 19, 2012 by Kellie Englehardt in blog 2 Comments

Pinterest has grown substantially since it started almost three years ago, with nearly 40 million users. According to SAP and NetBase, Pinterest is the fastest growing social site ever. Over the past year thousands of businesses have started using the site, finding that it can be a powerful way to engage with customers, while having the potential to bring in new customers. The picture-sharing social networking site recently launched Pinterest for Business to better cater to the brands using it.

Businesses already using Pinterest can convert their account following a few simple steps. The major difference between having a personal account instead of a verified business account at the moment is the terms of service agreement. In the future, additional functions for business users like analytics may be added according to Cat Lee, a product manager for Pinterest.

A guide of best practices for businesses on Pinterest has been created and includes suggestions for creating inspiring boards with images people will want to share. Highlighting specials, celebrating seasons and holidays, and writing thoughtful descriptions are among a few of the ideas offered to help gain traction.

“Whether it’s Anthropologie sharing awesome clothes, Whole Foods sharing tasty recipes, the Smithsonian sharing fascinating collections, or Amazon making products easy to pin, many of us have been inspired on Pinterest by businesses,” Lee wrote on Pinterest’s blog.

Brands sharing recipes, fashion ideas, travel information and crafts tend to do particularly well with pin sharing and driving traffic to their website. Allrecipes, Etsy, Jetsetter, Organized Interiors and Petplan are a few organizations Pinterest has highlighted with case studies showing how brands are using the popular networking site.

“We look forward to seeing businesses continue inspiring their audience with amazing content,” Lee wrote.

With social media sites like Pinterest showing no signs of slowing down, having a strong social media marketing campaign is becoming more important than ever. PRMarketing.com offers a variety of highly individualized strategies to help brands stand out online using social media.

Do You Know Your Klout Score? What Does This Mean as a Marketer?

Posted on November 16, 2012 by PRMarketing.com in blog Leave a Comment

This post was written by Dan, a blogger with a background in social media. He currently works for a company called Who Is Hosting This?

Internet marketing can be very time consuming for beginners simply because there are so many successful models that can be duplicated. Every webmaster knows that his or her site will not survive without traffic and sales, but marketing can become confusing and overwhelming. Klout, a California company, has a new model that may take much of the pressure off of Internet marketing and place the focus on social media success in order to raise awareness and sales.

Do I Have Klout?

Your Klout score is a number between 1 and 100 that measures your overall influence on various social marketing platforms. Klout is a marketing company that calculates social media analytics across platforms like Google+, Facebook, Twitter and other social sites. The program categorizes this data and creates user profiles that can be assigned a score. The size of a user’s network and how followers interact with each site’s content can be measured in three ways that are called “true reach”, “network impact” and “amplification.”

How to Score

Klout’s true reach is based upon the quantity of active followers that read and respond to updates, tweets, and likes. Numerous messages sent and responded to will raise the true reach score. Amplification is a prediction score of how many or what percentage of followers may re-tweet, comment, or forward the message to others. Where your messages go and who responds to them raises your amplification score. Network impact refers to the computed influence value on the user’s friends and followers. When high ranking Klout users are moved to act upon your message, you rise in your ranking. This algorithm is purported to assess how persuasive a social media campaign is to move users to action.

How Does This Help Me?

The program evaluates important data points like how many inactive or “dead” accounts are linked to a user’s page. It ranks the influence or score of those that follow you, and how many unique mentions your page obtains across the Web. It also ranks the influence of those that are associated with your pages to determine overall value in the hopes of linking high scoring individuals with high scoring businesses. The objective is to acquire highly targeted publicity, which should be the business goal of all Internet entrepreneurs. Klout has a reward, or “perk” system in which other businesses give gifts and samples to top influencers in exchange for publicity. Top influencers receive perks based on location, topics and score.

If you use social media to make sales or to market other Internet ventures, you need to know your Klout score. Entrepreneurs can measure the success or failure of certain comments or tweets. Ideally, Klout could become an invaluable way to test keywords and phrases for activity and ultimately profitability. This program has the potential to drive additional awareness of your product or service which will convey more revenue to you.

Social Media Smorgasbord (With Dessert)

Posted on November 12, 2012 by Marilyn Buckner in blog, Social Media Leave a Comment

As a kid growing up, there was nothing I liked better than going to a smorgasbord-type restaurant to eat and eat and eat whatever I wanted to. Because of the great variety, it was always a safe bet for everyone to enjoy dinner. Well, here’s a smorgasbord of ideas and tips from past PRMarketing.com blogs on how to make your social media marketing campaign a more memorable and effective experience for your target audience. So eat hearty and enjoy the selection!

•

Expert Social Media Tips: Facebook Business Pages

, by Marilyn Buckner

•

Twitter Tips from the NBA

, by Pat Parkinson

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Why do Videos go Viral?

by James Rognon

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How Some Brands Botch it in 140 Characters or Less

, by Taylor Donohoo

•

How to Measure Your Social Media ROI,

by Brad Smith

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How to Make People Like You, Instantly

, by Courtney Rose

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#How to Use Hashtags

, by Alyssa Vincent

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Unique Content & Going Viral

, by Brittney Gadd

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What’s the Deal With Memes?

, by Kellie Englehardt

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5 Social Media Marketing Tips for Better Engagement

, by Brittney Gadd

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Everyday I’m Tumbling

, by Alyssa Vincent

•

Fact: Visuals Change Everything

, by Ken Godoy

•

Instagram & Marketing

by Julia Minchenko

And now, as promised, what’s for dessert? Some Social Media Marketing Etiquette! It’s all well and good to understand the use and mechanics of Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Google+ and all the others, but it’s equally important to be savvy about saying the right things in the right way.

Whether you’re dining or doing social media, be sure to “mind your manners,” as Taylor Donohoo directs in this post. Classless social media is akin to online gravy dribbling out of your mouth; it’s unappetizing to the reader and will surely spoil their appetite for whatever it is you prepared. Be sure your social media is served up in a way that truly satisfies your goals and objectives.

Instagram & Marketing

Posted on October 24, 2012 by Julia Minchenko in blog 4 Comments

A picture may be worth a thousand words, but Instagram proves it can be worth a lot more to your brand as well. With over 100 million registered users, the mobile photo-sharing app Instagram is becoming one of the fastest growing social media platforms. In fact, according to the comScore mobile U.S. audience measurement report, Instagram had an average of 7.3 million daily active users, while Twitter’s average remained around 6.8 million.

Instagram Details

How can Instagram be a powerful tool for business? According to social analytics firm Simply Measured, 40 percent of the brands on the Interbrand 100 have an account on the popular mobile photo-sharing service.

Add a Face to Your Business

Use Instagram for visual marketing to show off your products, brand and culture. It’s a good idea to snap photos of any new products, events, or things that would represent your business. Creative photos will give your followers a better visual of your company’s brand. The images tend to create a connection between your company and your customer/follower.

Utilize the Power of Hashtags

Hashtags (#) place search results into relevant categories and conversations on Instagram’s search feature. For example, a company that deals with technology may include the hashtag #innovativetechnology, or #computers, so people who are searching for photos of technology will stumble across photos that belong to that company. The hashtags can include anything that would pique the interest of your target audience.

Analyze Behavior

Once you create your Instagram account, don’t forget that you are using a social media platform. Analyzing your data is important to help boost your engagement and to recognize if time invested in the service is worthwhile. Analytics can help you identify the best times to post pictures and what pictures attract the most attention. This could really help your brand better understand its potential on the app.

In the end, Instagram is more than a photo-taking tool, it is a way to tell stories for your brand. There are opportunities to expand your business using this platform, and brands would be wise to jump on this band wagon.

Fact: Visuals Change Everything

Posted on October 10, 2012 by Ken Godoy in blog 1 Comment

As I search and find interesting web pages with all sorts of content, I seem to find myself driven by one thing: Visuals. I don’t know if you feel the same, but when I look at web pages I expect to see a decent layout with pictures, colors and video. I do enjoy reading, but when it comes to looking for what I want (inspiration, shopping and entertainment) a more straightforward presentation through pictures or video always wins.

Ninety percent of information transmitted to the brain is visual, and visuals are processed 60,000 times faster in the brain than text.¹ This stat makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside because now I actually have an excuse to look at books, web pages and blogs that contain nothing but pictures. In fact, forty percent of people will respond better to visual information than plain text, which tells me I’m not the only one that feels this way about visuals.² The constant browsing of visuals makes me want to see more and more, almost creating an addictive relationship toward visual fashion, art, technology, food, etc. This is why the internet is increasingly becoming more visually driven.

5 Stats that Demonstrate Visual Dominance in Social Media

Pinterest drives sales directly from its website; 21 percent of people with Pinterest accounts have purchased an item after seeing it on Pinterest.³
85 percent of the U.S. internet audience watches videos online. The 25-34 age group watches the most online videos, and adult males spend 40 percent more time watching videos on the internet than females. ⁴
700 YouTube videos are shared on Twitter every minute. ⁵
Viewers are 85 percent more likely to purchase a product after watching a product video. ⁶
One month after the introduction of Facebook timeline for brands, visual content – photos and videos – saw a 65 percent increase in engagement.⁷

This growing emphasis on visuals means that not only will there be more to see and discover, but it also opens the door to consumers “wanting” more of the products they constantly look at. Good content marketing firms have figured out that the best way to engage viewers is to captivate not only with clever captions and terrific titles, but also with great photography and well designed branding. We have just replaced the picture books of our childhood with computer screens and other sophisticated types of technology. Believe it or not, 46.1 percent of people say a website’s design is the number one criterion for discerning the credibility of a company.¹

So what can we learn from all this? Don’t miss the visual boat! Climb aboard and ride this colorful and captivating craft. You’ll find it riding the waters of greater engagement on the way to sales success.

Sources

1. http://www.billiondollargraphics.com/infographics.html
2. http://www.webmarketinggroup.co.uk/Blog/why-every-seo-strategy-needs-infographics-1764.aspx
3. http://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/171459/pinterest-leads-consumers-from-pin-to-purchase.html?edition=45223
4.http://www.comscore.com/Press_Events/Press_Releases/2012/1/comScore_Releases_December_2011_U.S._Online_Video_Rankings
5. http://nielsen.com/us/en/insights/reports-downloads/2011/state-of-the-media–mobile-media-report-q3-2011.html
6. http://www.invodo.com/html/resources/video-statistics/
7. http://simplymeasured.com/blog/2012/03/27/the-impact-of-facebook-timeline-for-brands-study/

The Rise And Fall Of @FiredBigBird

Posted on October 5, 2012 by Courtney Rose in blog 2 Comments

If you tuned into Twitter as you watched the big #denverdebate, then you may have heard of the insta-famous (yet short-lived) account @firedbigbird.

I first noticed a tweet that read, “5 minutes ago, @firedbigbird had 32 followers. Now it has 1,700 and growing. Beautiful Internetz. #debates.” By the time I checked out the @firedbigbird profile (seconds later) it had already topped 2,000 followers. Every time I refreshed the page, @firedbigbird’s numbers were growing! As the debate continued, so did the popularity of the @firedbigbird account. And if you haven’t heard by now, the account was created because Mitt Romney was discussing spending cuts and was quoted saying “I love Big Bird!”

When the debate ended, I checked the account again. It had grown to 13,602 followers in less than an hour! I started to track it through the evening and my conclusion brings up two important lessons for social media.

Let’s take a look at the graph. The first 10,000 followers happened in a matter of approximately 30 minutes. Cha ching! The second 10,000 followers took only an hour and forty minutes, which is not bad. And then, twenty four hours later, it reached the next 10,000 followers milestone. I woke up in the morning to continue tracking, but when I arrived at work, I noticed the account had been suspended.

When working with social media, urgency is key. Had this account been created next week, nobody would have cared anymore. This account came forward in the moment. To even have this opportunity, you must be “in the know” of what’s going on. You should already be involved in social media, following the conversation. If you aren’t, you will miss opportunities. Do you think you can hope on a trend late or just ride someone else’s coattails? Check out @bigfiredbird (read carefully). This moocher tried…he really did. So hard, that he has 3 followers as of 7:27 AM GMT. His graph would look a lot less exciting.

Second of all, follow the rules. A rule was violated by the @firedbigbird’s account, causing the account to be suspended for hours. I’m assuming it has something to do with the fact that Big Bird is trademarked and owned by Jim Henson Productions, Inc, Muppets, Inc. Now that the account is back up and running, it’s lost the same momentum that is could has maintained had they followed the rules and not lost valuable time.

Urgency is key ladies and gentleman. Now go join the conversation and follow the rules!

Everyday I’m Tumbling

Posted on September 14, 2012 by Alyssa Vincent in blog 1 Comment

Last week, I started experimenting with the latest up-and-coming social network, Tumblr. Tumblr is a mico-blogging platform that seems to combine the newsfeed feature in Facebook with the conciseness of Twitter and the visual appeal of Pinterest.

As I was playing around, I asked myself whether Tumblr is meant to replace WordPress as a blogging platform, or if it was another beast entirely. The answer I’ve concluded is: it depends.

Tumblr Pros

It’s simple.
Tumblr, by far, is more intuitive to use than WordPress. After you sign up and a pick a template, you’re ready to go. There’s really no need for a tech wizard to set up and design the blog.
It’s cheaper.
If you want to get all the bells and whistles with WordPress, you’re going to have to pay for hosting and possibly a code monkey to install and design it. With Tumblr, you don’t have to pay for hosting, and there are a large variety of themes that are really simple to install. You can either use a free theme (some of which are actually really nice) or you can pay for a premium theme, which between $10 and $50.
It’s more social.
Tumblr encourages users to follow other blogs and like or re-blog the content. Tumblr then displays all the posts from the blogs you follow in a dashboard similar to a Facebook newsfeed. It’s also super easy to find content and blogs to follow. Not only does Tumblr suggest and feature blogs, but you can search through categories and see content related to that subject from a variety of blogs.

Tumblr Cons

You can’t comment.
One thing Tumblr is distinctly lacking from the blogging experience is the ability for your readers to comment on your posts. The only way to publicly show approval for the post is by liking or re-blogging it. The only way to get your thoughts across to the original poster is to message them directly on Tumblr. This definitely hinders the conversational aspect of blogging.
You have less control.
Wordpress is customizable with its widgets and analytics, but with Tumblr…not so much. Tumblr has less widgets, and those widgets are less customizable than WordPress. While you can use Google Analytics with Tumblr, it isn’t very reliable. This is because Google can only tell you who visited your blog and shared content outside of Tumblr, not within.
It can be unreliable.
Tumblr is experiencing growing pains, and like any website growing faster than it can handle, the servers are prone to go down. When you host your own website or blog through WordPress, you only need to rely on yourself to make sure your website is up and running. With Tumblr, if it goes down, you are at their mercy.

I have decided to use Tumblr as my blogging platform for my personal blog. In my opinion, the pros outweigh the cons when it comes to the average personal blogger. However, I wouldn’t use it for my business’s website or blog. Instead, I would add Tumblr to my social media marketing strategy.
Tumblr isn’t right for every business. Out of its 69.4 million blogs, 55 percent of its users are under 35, most of which are between the ages of 18 and 24. If your target market is older than that, I would reconsider adding it. If your audience is younger though, go for it. It doesn’t hurt to experiment.

Here are a few tips to consider when creating your Tumblr social media marketing plan.

• KISS: Keep it super simple. Unless you’re using Tumblr as a full-fledged blog/website, keep your posts short. Otherwise people’s eyes will glaze over when they see the long posts.

• Be Visual. Post lots of pictures, GIFs, movies, etc.

• Keep it light. Since Tumblr’s users are younger, they generally don’t take themselves too seriously and prefer fun, light content.

• Consider utilizing the “Submit” button. This allows your followers to submit their own content (for you to approve) to be featured on the blog.

• Use tags. This is Tumblr’s version of hashtags, and they make your content more visible amd subsequently yield more followers. Make sure you utilize the tag search feature as well to find content to re-blog.

Even if you decide not to plunge into Tumblr quite yet, it’s important you are aware of the blogging platform so you can create Tumblr engaging material and consider adding a Tumblr button to your website.

If you’re looking for examples of brands that do Tumblr right, here are a few of my favorites:

Sesame Street

• Huggies—Instead of posting a bunch of pictures of diapers, they decided to take advantage of society’s fascination with celebrities by posting pictures of celebrities and their babies.

• Barbie—This blog is written in Barbie’s voice and posts empowering material for young girls. They even allow users to submit questions for Barbie to answer.

• Internet Explorer—Microsoft lovingly named their Tumblr blog “The Browser You Loved to Hate,” and uses it to educate consumers on Internet Explorer 9’s new features and showcase people’s shocked tweets about how great the new version is in a humorous way.

These are just a few of my favorite Tumblr blogs. If you’re familiar with the platform, what are your favorites?

Are Blogs Still Relevant? Advantages to Blogging for Business and Ways to Grow Your Audience

Posted on August 29, 2012 by Kellie Englehardt in blog 3 Comments

I was re-watching the movie Julie & Julia the other day and it made me think about how blogging has evolved over the past 10 years and the impact that social media has had on it.

If you haven’t seen the movie, it’s about a woman named Julie Powell who was an early adapter to blogging, chronicling a yearlong project in which she attempts to cook all of Julia Child’s recipes in “Mastering the Art of French Cooking.” The blog gained a major following, which resulted in a book deal and eventually a movie starring Meryl Streep and Amy Adams.

A decade ago online socializing took place around blogs. But as social media channels like Facebook and Twitter grew, blogging has shown some decline particularly among younger people according to the Pew Internet and American Life Project. But blogging is still growing among those over the age of 34. For those in business it offers many advantages, some that you won’t get through the major social media sites.

Blogging offers advantages like:

But how do you grow readership? Many people start blogs only to realize that they don’t have an audience. It’s important to become part of the blogging culture to build readership. Create a blog roll and link to blogs that you enjoy or the audience you are trying to gain will enjoy. Take the time to read other blogs and comment on them. Offer to do a guest posts for blogs that you think the audience might have an interest in your blog as well. You could even invite other bloggers to write a guest post for your blog.

Be sure to include keywords in your post by going through your content and selecting the main topics. Use a program like Google Adwords keyword selection tool to see popular search terms and try to find a way to include that in your content.

Share the blogs through social media and bookmarking sites like StumbleUpon, Digg and Reddit. Syndicate your content through an RSS feed to automatically share it with many different places.

Find ways to share your blog posts with customers by including your blog address or even your latest blog headline with your email signature. If your company has an e-newsletter, include some of your blog content in the newsletter or some kind of teaser to get people to click over to it. If there’s a blog post that you think certain customers might benefit from, send them an e-mail and let them know about it.

Even after a decade, blogs are still very relevant today. What are some of your top tips for blogging?

Unique Content and Going Viral

Posted on August 13, 2012 by Brittney Gadd in blog, Content Marketing, Tips Leave a Comment

With the rapid increase of social media outlets, unique and noteworthy content seems hard to come by for businesses today. Instead of sharing what’s being served at the company lunch or asking what the public’s plans are for the evening, we have some ways to capitalize on those engagement levels and create viral social media content.

This content is referred to as a meme, which is defined as any piece of image-based content that is shared between people on a social platform. A meme can include animated gifs, captioned photos or viral videos, and for the most part a few of these bad boys can brighten anyone’s mood and boost engagement levels through the roof. In fact, HubSpot states that 40 percent of people will actually respond better to visual information over plain text. Sites like Pinterest and Tumblr are practically dedicated to hosting such content, but you can typically find a meme on any social platform on any given day.

So as businesses drone on with their questions begging followers to engage, you can set yourself apart from the crowd by providing content that is engaging all on its own. I have highlighted a few of my favorite memes.

You have an opportunity to caption a photo to tie it back to your company, brand or idea as part of your social media marketing strategy; however, another great way to utilize memes is better depicted in the image below.

This image makes the text pop and draws more attention to the promotion or event. It is also a great way to get people to share your relevant content. Picking a trending topic and tying it back to your brand is a great way to gain strong brand awareness. Below is a fun infographic design that ties a zombie apocalypse with a solar power company. An infographic, on average, actually increases traffic by 12 percent, according to AnsonAlex.com.

Portable Solar Panels

Imagery has been a part of marketing since its inception, but these new methods of sharing content are a great way to cut your costs and expand your creative focus!

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